Peate -A portable Inglenook

Thanks Richard,
Almost finished my lockdown layout that I started last year. Now my attention is turning to rolling stock. One of the best locomotives for this layout is the Powerline 48. They are robust, with not too many details to get lost, important as this is a traveling layout. Not having a flywheel they have a rather direct control feeling, which is good for inexperienced drivers, and there will be many of them. They have a small scalelectrix type motor mounted on one bogie, which drives 2 axles with traction tyres. Electric pickup is from the side of the axles without the tyres. The other bogie has no driven wheels and has electric pickup for the other rail. Despite this, as I am using electro-frog points, there are no issues on the points with this arrangement.
Added kadees instead of the hook and loop couplers supplied, and done a light detail job, blackened the wheels and found some flushglaze in the details box. Probably not going to weather it, as this loco will be handled a lot. Now onto a Tuscan one, then maybe a blue one. Can't believe the prices of these old things on eBay at the moment, they seem to get almost to the price of the much more detailed and better running modern ones, glad I have had these for a while.
Cheers
Tony

 

I now have the Tuscan one fully serviced, new traction tyres, glazing, blackened wheels and Kadee couplers installed.

One more to go now, the blue 4807 in the picture above. This unit appears to have never been used, its wheels were totally unmarked. Pulled it out of the box and was greeted by a loco that performed faultlessly for what it is, which was a bit of a suprise, as it would have been in that box for years.
Cheers
Tony

 

Haven't done a lot with this layout for a while. Pulled it out last weekend just for fun. Had a play with some different light conditions to the usual.

It almost had its public debut 2 weeks ago. Almost there.
Cheers
Tony

 

Finally getting back to an update on this layout after about a year...But I have been busy, finishing off another layout, and starting a new one.
But i might finally have a chance to exhibit this layout in a couple of months, so there are some mods I would like to do.
I decided that changing the points was just a bit too awkward with a finger under the layout. Also I wanted to be able to change points from either side of the board. One of the main things I was concerned about this though was that there should not be any knobs or wires poking out the side, these could get damaged in transit, or damage the layout or something else.
With a bit of pressure on I finally had an idea. I needed the switch to be directly moved, as this is the point of highest friction, not the point mechanism itself. I needed something to act directly on the switch. I have been using threaded rod for a lot of other things lately, then inspiration hit me. I could use threaded rod to go from one side to the other. Feed that through a piece of metal that grips to the switch. Then at either end of this threaded rod, which would finish before the edge of the layout, there would be a joiner piece, that would allow a bolt, or in the future, a nicer actuator, to be screwed in, so a finger could reach it easily.
I was going to use brass for the piece to grab onto the switch, but i found some aluminium, hopefully lighter, certainly easier to work with as i needed to make a 5x6mm rectangular hole in it. I then needed to come up with something to hold the rod in place, this was some left over sleeves from 6mm shaft dynabolts, which i had lying around. Then a bit of fabricating to hold it all together, and a means of being able to pull it all apart should something fail.
In about a week of on again off again work (what that means is about 10 minutes per day, all i can get) I had a system that seems to work and fits all the requirements. This layout has 2 sets of points, so I need to do it all again for the second one. That will need some slight differences due to the method of attachment of the original system, I never planned to do this in the construction phase.

Cheers
Tony

 

Finished this little project off, ended up making removable knobs for users either side of the layout, colour coded might help some people, certainly helps in getting the right knob for the right actuator, as they are all different lengths. If I was making this layout again i would have planned this from the start and it would be a lot neater.
Now to spend time on scenery and rolling stock.

Cheers
Tony

 

Well, the big debut is tomorrow at Thornleigh. All set up now, just have Maynard on the platform, waiting for his train and the exhibition to start.

Cheers
Tony

 

Well, it's time for another outing for this layout. I have been invited back to the Sydney Marklin Club's exhibition in Thornleigh NSW in a month's time.
It has been to a few board game events in the time since its last exhibition in 2023, and I have decided that it would be good to give the layout a little spruce up.
It has been stored in a nice dust free environment for the last little while, so onto the bench it goes.

I have a packet or two now of a very nice Woodland Scenic product, briars, which i have in 2 colours, this should help change things up a bit and provide a bit of relief to all the grass areas.
Opening the layout up i found that some of the foam at the join seems to have lifted. Easy fix, just remove the pins of the hinges, plus one end of the wiring harness (2 wires) and get some glue in and there is now easy access for a clamp.

Looking forward to this exhibition, also a luxury that I will be able to be seated for most of it, this being the board game layout.
Cheers
Tony

 

All ready to go, my second exhibition in one year, not sure I'm ready to do 3 yet!

Added some more plant life and there have been a few rolling stock additions, one being this delightful shunters truck. The crew that had this one decided to paint it like the locos, rather than safety yellow or all over grey, looks quite good with this loco, a NSW 70 class shunter.
Will have to keep it connected to the loco, there is pretty much no friction in the wheels of this wagon, it's basically a wheeled spirit level for the layout. Even if the layout is dead flat, just the slightest bump to the table will send this wagon somewhere.

Looks like we have a bit of rain again this weekend, last weekend I was part of running a lego exhibition, there was a huge amount of rain, this brought the crowds in, it might just happen again!
Cheers
Tony

 

It is now about 1 month to go until the next exhibition outing of this layout. The Hills Model Railway Club exhibition at Clarendon (Richmond) at the end of May. I had planned the Anzac Day long weekend to be the change-over from working on other layouts to checking over Peate and maybe adding something new, but I have jumped the gun a bit from a couple of weekends ago.
I decided to make a sign for the layout so that people can easily identify it. I am pinching the idea of member Rich Ferraro who has one for his layout Cowan. I was juts waiting until i could get some letters that suited. Finally found some in the craft section of Bunnings and got to work.
I like the older style NSW station signs that were phased out in the 1980s, this is one of them. I had the dimensions of one from somewhere, I might even has 3D laser scanned a historical one on a station somewhere, then scaled it to suit my letter size.
Once that was done it was time to do the tricky curved cuts. I have had bad experiences with jigsaws doing this, doing it freehand is not going to be accurate enough, I have a fairly recent AEG jigsaw with provision for an arm that comes off the plate to rotate about a point, but last time i used this the sideways forces on the blade popped the blade out of its guide, changing the radius of the curve cut, which was not what I wanted. My good Metabo jigsaw does not have this feature.
I decided the better way was to use a router, the guide for this can do the same. I accurately plotted the centre of the curve for the pivot, this made a hole in the sign which i will have to putty later, and then accurately mark the start and stop points for the router cut, these would be holes, once the router bit was in I could set the radius. This method produced a perfect result.

I then was able to use a jigsaw to come in from the sides to make the horizontal parts of the sign.
The eyebrow piece for the top was going to be difficult. This would need the same radius as the sign for its outer, and a radius that was 10mm smaller in my case for the inner. I used another piece of wood for this and left rough wastage around the top.

I then glued the eyebrow piece with the insides lining up and the rough edge of the outside curve that was not yet formed sticking up. Once the glue was set I used a trim bit on the router to get both curves exactly the same. (The trim bit for a router has a bearing that follows the "stencil"part, the cutter cuts the other part to natch the strencil)
Then with a bit of glue, putty and paint I have a result.

This will likely hang off the lighting rig, or if that annoys me I'll have to make stand for it.
Cheers
Tony