Return to Model Railways

I decided against going to the Warley show at the NEC yesterday. I considered paying £8 to park, and then a further £10 to get in a bit steep. Plus the fuel to drive there (I’d guess about £10) then it’s the best part of £30 just to get in the door. The RMWeb forums suggested it was also very busy at the event, which whilst not neccesarily a bad thing, was something I didn’t really feel like doing, so I vetoed the plan and drove over to A&H Models in Brackley.

Fate had conspired against me though. I’d phoned ahead to make sure they were open (having wasted a trip over before to find they were shut). I drove over, and found they didn’t hactually have everything I needed – they’d taken a load of stock to Warley!

DAMN!!!

I managed to buy two points, and some set track, and slinked home with my purchases. I took a scenic route, which added about a million miles to my journey, so probably spent almost as much on fuel. But never mind! I later ordered the other bits I needed online, so they should arrive in the week.

Today I got into some more track laying, and cabling up. The extension board had no power, so I soldered wires onto the copper strips that form the join. I then joined them up to some Molex connectors, to allow for easy removal. I did a similar thing at the back in the fiddle-yard area. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking, and wired these back to front. I’d been using Black wire for the furthest rails, and Red for the closest. I did the same in the fiddle yard forgetting that it flips seeing as the track forms a circle. Rather than re-soldering, I just swapped them round in the terminal blocks, and all was well.

I finished off with laying out the other sections of track as much as I could, and pinning things into place.

I ran a few tests with my two class 67 locos. I ran the full W&S train around the end curve, with the EWS 67 going the other way with a couple of wagons. Thankfully, neither struck eachother. One issue cropped up with the join between Code 80 and Code 55 track causing the W&S train to occasionally de-rail. I beleive that can be filed down to make up the difference. Also, the fiddle-yard track seems to be dirty as it has gained a few dead spots.

One thing I have decided on, is that the rear fiddle yards will be partially obscured by a low-profile multi-storey car-park, modelled on the one in town. Along with the depot building, that’s two buildings I now need to scratch build. I just need to learn how to scratch build now!

Earlier today I saw a picture of a small roadsign somebody had made for their layout. A quick bit of research, and I found a remake of the font Transport, as used on the real UK roadsigns.

I played around a bit with Inkscape, Xara, and Microsoft Expression Designer. I had some issues with the colour palettes in Inkscape, so tried Xara, which I just don’t like. Expression Designer crashed out changing a colour. The latter two I got free; Xara from a magazine cover CD, and Expression Designer I got under one of our licensing schemes at work.

I tried Inkscape again, and finally managed to convince it to do what I wanted. I made up a custom colour palette, using a Department for Transport guide to road signs as a reference.

I dug around and found a good picture of a roadsign, which I used as a reference, and got to work drawing up my sign:

It looks pretty good! The original is here on  the Mid Beds website.

Inkscape is a very good piece of software, and great for drawing things like this. It has a few bugs, but a new release it just round the corner and should address them.

I’ve made a few subtle changes to the track layout (surprise).

Yeah, it’s changed a bit. But the explain. The bluey/purpley shaded sections are ‘non-scenic’. I could turn part of them into scenery, but the right hand side disappears under a shelf, and the left hand side is removable, so it’s a bit pointless I feel. So basically just the front is the scenic area.

As you can see, there’s a station area down front, plus the depot up the back. There’s a small headshunt for the depot. It’s simple, but I feel it’s not necessarily making the best of the space available. I can’t really think how else to do it. The thing is, Code 55 track has very shallow curves on the points; the rear storage sidings are quite tight, but they are Code 80. I want Code 55 in the scenic areas as it looks nicer.

I do have a large expanse of nothingness on the right, which would make for some nice scenery, so I’m not too worried about it being empty. Not sure what will go there mind!

I’ll need a couple more points, which I’ll probably pick up at Warley this weekend. Hopefully this’ll be the last change, and I’ll start gluing things down properly!

So, comments and suggestions?

I managed to actually accomplish quite a bit today!

Over the last week I’d added some bolts and wingnuts to the end of the board where the return extension bit goes. The solution works – sort of. The extension bit tends to hang down a bit. Not a bit surprise I suppose. I need to figure out how to make it sit level with the main board.

That didn’t put me off starting to lay the track down properly. In the process of layout out the track again, I decided to forgo a few bits of track. Firstly, the double-slip crossover is out. As this is Code 55 track, it has a lower profile. I’d read that in some cases re-wheeling rolling stock would be required to avoid derailments. Having run various locos around and other stock, I’d not encountered any such problems – except on the double slip. It added additional headaches with wiring, in terms of getting it to switch polarities about. This all seemed like too much effort, so it had to go.

Additionally, the storage sidings at the back have turned around. This is mainly so all the points are situated at the more accessible end of the board. Not only that, the sidings will go into what is otherwise dead space at the back. As it was, the end of the rear, hidden storage was almost right next to the end of the ‘live’ sidings where I intend to put a depot. Again, I didn’t like this as it reduced the amount of space for scenery. Now I have plenty of room.

Having decided on that, I started track laying. I’d bought some pins from Wilko (the notice board type – long with a little bobble on the end) which I used to contain the flex-track on curves. Basically, I’d flex it round, using the pins to retain it. Then I’d draw an outline with a Sharpie so I knew where it belonged. I also used my Peco 6ft-way gauge to make sure the spacing was good. Radii are the same as, or less than some Code 80 Settrack I have, so that’s good. I think the Class 66s bind a little on tight curves, being CO-CO chassis, but it should be OK.

Once I’d got the track down, I added in the copper-clad PCB. I’d picked it up in Maplin. I cut a rectangle to fit over the join, which covered both tracks. I screwed it down to the board with two screws either site. Next, I pulled the webbing off the flexitrack so the rail bottoms sat flush on the PCB. Next out came the soldering iron and I put down a few tacks first to hold it in place, then ran a bead along the outside edges, plus a bit on the inside edges to retain it. It’s not exactly pretty, BUT the wheels all seem to roll over it. Finally, I used one of those funny hacksaws with the extended blade for hard to reach areas to slice along the PCB, track and all. I’d made sure to insert a spacer between to two baseboards the same thickness as the hacksaw blade, so that when the cuts were done, everything would be flush. The spacer in this case was my steel rule!

In my zeal to cut through, I twisted the saw, and snapped the blade. I replaced it with a better quality one, which whilst being longer, and thus at a higher risk of breaking, it sliced through with ease. I repeated all this for the second one, removed the spacer, and it all went together beautifully!

At this point I hadn’t glued down the tracks on the extension board yet, so I simply lifted them a bit, and used some Evostick wood glue to stick it down. I sat some weight on it for a while, and it all stuck very firmly. That Evostick is some good glue! I’ve also got some bog-standard PVA I got in Hobbycraft, but this stuff is pure awesome in a bottle!

With that done I laid out the other track, and glued down the curves at the other end. One nice thing I found using the pins to hold the track is that the track can be lifted in position; it’ll slide upwards, but retain it’s shape, and leave enough space underneath to squirt a bead of glue along, then use a spatula to spread it. Then it’s a case of lowering the track back down, and applying a weight to make it stay put. No fiddling around re-aligning it, as the pins keep it aligned. A real time-saver, and it means I could fiddle about using the pins without getting glue all over the place, or making silly mistakes. A good reason for using the cork!

Having done all that, I decided to wire up the original droppers I’d put in some time ago just to sanity-check the layout. It works as much as it can; the return curves and back section need power, but the front bit still works, save for a small dead section on one of the point frogs. Nothing I can’t fix though.

The new revised layout mean only a few of the original holes I’d drilled for point motors will now fit. Not a bit issue, as I’ll do new ones, and the old ones were mostly badly aligned. I’m still looking for a fool-proof method to align the Seep motors though. I’ve still got some track laying to do before that’s a worry though.

Quite a lot of progress!

I went to Wycrail today which is held (oddly enough) in High Wycombe. They’re outgrowing the venue a bit (which is great, as it shows lots of visitors) but it’s a bit of a pain in places because the halls can get a bit busy. But it’s a nice show, with some really nice layouts.

A few really stood out for me. First up was Dairy Lane.

It’s an N-Gauge layout, and it crams SO much in to such a small space. It got me thinking of rejigging mine, but I really want to run long trains, so I need the longer track sections.

Another favourite was Cement Quay.

Some wonderful detail on this layout. There was a lot of texture to things. The grass and general background muck (piles of waste cement presumably) were so well produced.

The above closeup of the sidings shows some of that detail. It’s a OO (or thereabouts, I forget exactly) layout, so it’s relatively easier to produce such detail. I intend getting close in N though. I liked the fact most people viewing this layout just stood silently looking.

By far my favourite layout was Wells Green TMD. For a OO layout it’s remarkably small (just about two metres I’d reckon), and packs in an amazing amount of detail.

The loco stock is all super-detailed, some including drivers hanging out the doors. There was so much to look at, I have to be honest I can’t recall a lot of what I saw! The crime scene down the front was great. The police paddy wagon even having working lights which flashed a very convincing cycle. The disused tracks down the front were also very good. I stood and stared for a while at this one!

I also invested in a Digitrax Zephyr starter kit, and a couple of DCC modules. I’ve already loaded them into my two Dapol 67s, and they work like a charm. I did find I’ve broken a wire on the headlights on one though, so that’ll need fixing. But I’m otherwise pleased. Need to play more first though!

Tomorrow I plan on re-laying the track, and sorting the point motors out properly.