Marsden

Discussion in 'Members Personal Layouts' started by Peter Beckett, Sep 30, 2016.

  1. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Marsden is a fictitious area somewhere slightly north east of Manchester. It has a main station called Manchester Road and nearby is the small mining town of Marsden. (Marsden is named after the road I was born in, Marsdenhall Rd in Nelson, Lancs) Close by is the colliery which employs the good people of Marsden and which has recently been taken over by the NCB. As the area has much and coal and freight, there is a medium sized MPD to service the locos and as they come on line, diesel locos are stabled there and refuelled.The layout is a double track with passing overs to enter and exit the station. There is also an older form of transportation to the colliery and town with the Great Nelson Canal passing the colliery and town.Power to the layout is fed by 2 separate 20v DC 5 amp supplies. One supplies power to the track work via a Digitrax DSC200 unit and the other supplies the auxiliaries which include semaphore and LED signalling, also the switching via Wabbit units to control the points which are operated by Tortoise, Cobalt and servo motors.I have 2 DT402 hand throttles plus 2 UT4 hand Throttles (I prefer tethered), the UT4's being mainly for the grand kids as they tend to push every button on the DT402's causing me much grief in resetting everything. :whatever:
    I also use JMRI Decoder Pro to keep track of my locos and have 2 computers in the layout room, networked. One is for setting up locos (I use Loksound and digitrax decoders mainly) and the other has twin screens and can be used to run the layout but I prefer "driving" the trains. At the moment I am still building the layout after dismantling the one I had for about 10 years as I was getting tired of its limitations.It is housed in my layout room which is insulated, plenty of lights and is part of my 40ft X 20ft Workshop.As we live on an acre and a quarter I also have a dual gauge track (handbuilt) (3/12 and 5 inch) on which I run my 3 1/2 LBSC designed Class 4 4-6-0 Steam loco which took me about 9 years to build (work and kids got in the way) and my 5 in Planet 0-4-0 diesel/electric.
    Attached is the track plan which was generated by the German Railroad & Co. I use Train Controller Silver version

    Peter

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  2. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    This is a recent photo taken at a grand kids birthday party with my son driving the Planet

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  3. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Overall view of Manchester Road Station

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  4. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Colliery pics

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
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  5. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    MPD pic

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  6. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Colliery Pithead, Winding House being modified.

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
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  7. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Fire Station with 2 pumpers plus Ambulance mainly for Mine rescue

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  8. Toto

    Toto I'm best ignored Staff Member Founder Administrator

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    Wow ....:faint:

    Fantastic layout. The station is huge. The MPD is terrific as well. More of the same please ....... Top notch and a great start on your layout thread. :thumbs:

    Cheers

    Toto
     
  9. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Hi Toto,
    Thanks for your kind comments. As you can see there is a lot of work to do on scenery, buildings, etc. I use many of John Wiffens, Scalescenes but prefer Metcalfe buildings as I can build them quicker and modify as needed. I have at least 6 Metcalfe packs of low relief buildings for the station back-drop waiting to be assembled. The colliery pit head is scratch built but the crushing plant is a slightly modified Walthers Diamond Coal kit.
    I originally had background scenery but to me it did not look right so I removed it last week and repainted the walls sky blue again.

    Peter
     
  10. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    To add to the picture collection, I have included these of my electrical control system. I am a retired Electrician who spent 15 years as High Voltage Officer at our local steelworks so wiring and schematics, etc are not a problem for me and as a famous Belgian says "it keeps the little grey cells active" (apologies to Agatha Christie)
    Right aux panel wiring to control signals and layout lights. I use 12vdc to 1vdc regulators from China. They cost about $A5 each and postage is free. There is one for each section, Platform and building lights, MPD lights, Colliery lights and all signalling led lights, and each semaphore has its own led light fitted

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
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  11. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    The points panel also has the power districts protection relays. I use DCC Specialities PPSX relays for the normal districts and a PSX-AR for the turntable. The power districts are as follows: Turntable, inner loops, outer loops, MPD and colliery. I mainly use DCC Specialities Wabbits and a Digitrax DS64. The advantage for me using these components is that they are all programmable either by using the Digitrax DT402 hand throttle or via the computer using JMRI Decoder Pro.

    Attached files [​IMG]
     
  12. paul_l

    paul_l Staff Member Administrator

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    Lovely - I love the collery

    mmmmm electricals :avatar:

    One question - the psx auto reversor, do you have any sound loco's and if so have you noticed any glitches in the sound as the loco leaves the turntable ?

    Toto - the answer may apply to you for Luib Bridge

    Paul
     
  13. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Paul,
    I have 11 locos with sound, Loksound v3.5, Loksound v4 and Digitrax soundbugs and the PSX-AR has no problems. What I like about the PSX products is that they are purely electronic in operation (no moving mechanical parts like the Digitrax PM42) and that they can be tweaked on the computer very easily.

    Peter
     
  14. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    I use DCC Specialities Ramp Meter. I have one in the power circuit and one in the auxiliaries circuit. I also have a hand held unit for checking track voltages on the layout.
    I split the circuits into two for better control and measuring the loads in either circuit. I use a Tam Valley DCC booster in the auxiliaries which picks up the dcc signal from the main circuit and if any of the main circuits trips on overload then the auxiliaries keep on operating for approx 5 minutes so I don't lose control of points, signals during the outage.
    One of the advantages of the Ramp meter is that one can see when sound is turned on or off on a loco, they are that accurate.

    Peter
     
  15. paul_l

    paul_l Staff Member Administrator

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    Thanks Peter - Toto, the PSX auto reverser may be exactly what you want for Luib Bridges turntable / sector plate.

    Paul
     
  16. Toto

    Toto I'm best ignored Staff Member Founder Administrator

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    Ohhhhhh man ......:facepalm:
    I have some of that gear and the amazing bit is ........ i managed to install some of it on my Rosebuddy ( R & GLR ) layout which is currently mothballed. ( along with everything else it seems )

    Interesting stuff there ....... only problem is ........ you have now woken Paul up ......... let sleeoing dogs lie, thats what I say. I hope you know about Arduinos and big easy drivers cos if you dont, ....... you soon will.
    :avatar::avatar::avatar:

    cheers
    Toto
     
  17. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    BR Garratt 47967 leaving Manchester Road.It is fitted with a Loksound V4 decoder with the sound from Neil Bishop of Olivias. I have replaced the original 4 ohm speaker with a sugar cube 8 ohm speaker. its running on my earler layout
     
  18. Toto

    Toto I'm best ignored Staff Member Founder Administrator

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    Nice Video there. How many wagons was the Garret hauling there. My guess would be thirty odds .
    Just sent away for a PSX - AR whilst its in my mind.
    :thumbs:

    toto
     
  19. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    Probably a good guess, Toto. Before making the video I had over 90 wagons behind the Garratt. I was doing a test with my Bachmann 9F as they were the locos that took over from the Garratt's.The Garratt outperformed the 9F by about 15 wagons. :facepalm:
     
  20. Peter Beckett

    Peter Beckett Full Member

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    After watching Gormo's excellent video on chimney tops (I have always hated the rolled paper ones), I spent about half an hour today on the lathe and made about 20 tops and they look so much better. It is easy to do variations and different lengths of top as well. As soon as I paint them I will post a pic.Thanks, Mate for a good idea
    Peter
     

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