Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends

Having fallen off the railway modelling map for some six months, I am now managing to get some modelling done. Our business purchased a second outlet in July and needless to say, this has taken up much of my time!

Anyway, back to more interesting stuff. The priority is to get the layout fully functioning by EXPO 2010 (you haven't forgotten about that, have you?). The second and third boards needed wiring and a bit of trackwork completing. To ease myself gently back in, I started with the third board which only has two points forming a crossover. After a few teething problems (mainly me not reading the Tortoise instructions; the switching contacts aren't Left/Common/Right as I'd assumed, but Left/Right/Common), everything seems to work well on here. The temporary loose wires will be replaced by plugs and sockets at each board joint.

On to the second (middle) board now. This need a few bits of plain trackwork inserting before starting the wiring. Here are the three scenic boards assembled. Looks like I need a bigger house...

Brafferton Update Pt. MCXXII - Pointwork & Drives

It goes like that doesn't it? You do very little for a goodly while and then, all of a sudden, you do lots of things often in a very short timeframe. In these instances I reach for my Latin Dictionary and exclaim "Carp Dime!"; or something like that...

Anyway board No.1 is sort of moving along under its own momentum, so back to board No.2 and get the trackwork sorted. I've been cleaning the soldered elements of trackwork using a copper brush mounted in a mini-drill. This was suggested to me by Bob Jones at a recent NEAG meeting, and it has really helped clean the track and reduce the excess solder thereon.

At the same time I've been preparing the Tortoise Point Motors for fitting. Suitable holes were drilled in the baseboard so that the actuating wire could reach the switch. Several unsuitable holes were also drilled, but I'll refrain from telling you too much about those!

The motors have eight PCB type contacts on the bottom; two for the power to drive the motor and six contacts for a DPDT switch. As I'm using DCC, I reckon I'll only need one double throw switch to alternate the polarity on the crossover of each point. To avoid having to solder the motors into the baseboard, I've fitted each with some screw terminals wired onto the PCB. Each unit can then be screwed physically into position and wired using the screw terminals:

By having a couple of spares available, any failure can quickly be remedied without a soldering iron. That's the plan anyway!

Post-Christmas Blues

Apart from a bit of wagon building over the Christmas holidays, there is very little progress to report on my GJLC entry. The baseboards are part complete, and await a couple of free evenings (and some renewed enthusiasm on my part) for me to try and finish them off. In the meantime, I've been doing some tests on laying and ballasting of track.

The photo about shows my NER brake van sitting on a short piece of painted Easitrac which I ballasted using 'chinchilla dust' (obtainable from pet shops). The track was stuck down onto an offcut of thin plywood with double sided tape, and ballast placed dry around the sleepers and tamped down onto the adhesive tape. The ballast was then misted with car screenwash to hold it in place and Super-phatic resin adhesive dribbled over the ballast. When it was all dry, the ballast was still loose in places, so I gave it a spray of Humbrol matt varnish.

I wasn't entirely happy with this approach - it was a bit messy, and the ballast isn't very secure even now. I'm going to try a few different adhesives and ballast and hopefully find something that works a bit better.

One other project I'm hoping to start soon is an Ivatt 2-6-2t using a Dapol body and the chassis etch developed by Nigel Hunt (and advertised in the latest 2mm Magazine). I've now got all the bits I need to start construction, so watch this space for some progress reports!

Andy

Roll away the Stone(s)

What's going on, you might well ask? Well, having gotten sick of soldering on board No.2, I thought I would progress board No.1 a bit. Which involves... soldering! Actually, I had to fabricate the cross board track from board No.1 to the fiddle yard and then wire in electrical feeds for both ends. 

Having done that, I thought that titivating the trackwork would be a good idea! The odd soldered bits were painted a base brown; the majority having been sprayed the same. I then proceeded to drybrush a lighter cream/brown/grey mix onto the sleepers. Ultimately I will go back and add some brighter rust bits and an overall wash, but for now this will be sufficient painting.

Having let that dry, I have started some ballasting. The results are displayed below:

I used a similar process to Edward; spreading glue in and around the sleepers and then adding the ballast. I am using Woodland Scenics which I think is sufficiently fine and more importantlyto me, is of a consistent grade. 

This is a piece of single track which is actually on a double trackbed; the line was singled very early in its life. I did consider laying a double track bed and ballasting the whole. However, careful inspection of the Marsden Rail DVD "Harrogate & District" clearly shows that the unused portion has been deballasted, lies substantially lower than the remaining track, and is quite overgrown with grass and smaller shrubs. As such, I will make this part of the scenic element and plaster to the track base at a slightly lower height. Having done about 50% of the ballasting on this board, I will continue and then complete the scenic contours in insulation board. Then comes the plaster!

Brafferton Update - 11. Track & Scenery

Progress continues apace. Well fairly briskly anyway! As I mentioned previously, trackwork is the focus and I am quite relieved that the points on the main board are all in place and functioning. You will see that there are a few gaps in the trackwork; these will be infilled with Easitrac over the next week. I also need to fabricate the cross board pieces to take me onto board No.3:

The more observant of you (you are paying attention, aren't you?) will notice the beginnings of scenery on board No.1. This is the cutting with a gap left for the road bridge to span the track. This is the sort of stuff I'm looking forward to!

Also, today, I visited the Darlington model railway shop. What a difference from the old C&G setup. Decluttered and all stock displayed nicely; what a revelation. Made some purchases which will be useful as the layout progresses. Next update soon. Hopefully...

Close to the Edge: Brafferton Update: Track

I've got to say that track construction and laying is far from the top of my preferences. However, without trackwork it wouldn't really be a model railway, would it? So, I persevere! Having almost completed the pointwork on board No.2, I turn my attention to spanning the joins between the two boards. 

You will remember that Edward helped me construct some very accurate boards using what was effectively a kit of pieces from Alan Smith. The quality of these, especially the joins, has proved invaluable. Each time I join up two boards, they come to exactly the same position.

Now, having purchased some milled sleepering for baseboard joins, I proceed. A piece of Easitrac was made up, but with a ten sleeper gap in the middle. The milled sleepers were PVA'd across a board join and allowed to thoroughly dry. I then placed the Easitrac over this join and glued that in alignment with the track on each board. Once the Easitrac PVA had set, I inserted individual chair etches (Fencehouses) between milled sleepers and rail and soldered them solid.

Notice that there are three different track methods in evidence below; Easitrac, milled PCB unit and, at the join between two Easitrac sections, single PCB sleepers with Fencehouses etches:

Happy that all was solidly affixed to each other, I took the piercing saw and carefully slit through the rail and PCB base to re-establish the baseboard split:

I hope to progress and complete board No.2 in the next few days and then carry onto the final scenic board. Then wiring and point operation will be the priority...

1st Movement

And here we have the first loco of, hopefully, many to run along the run-in to "Brafferton".

Brafferton Update - 9. Pointwork Pti

After a brief hiatus (how many more can I get away with before 2010 I wonder) work recommences on Brafferton. The pointwork uses Bob Jones' etches for point chairs. These are sweated to the sleepers using the Blackburn jig:

Once seperated, the sleepers are then overlaid onto the standard Association template to achieve the necessary spacings and the straight stock rail soldered to each sleeper. This template has been superceded by a new one I believe:

As Brafferton is circular, I really need curved points; a straight one in the middle of a curve would stick out somewhat! To this end the partial point is carefully removed from the template and relaid as a curve using just a curve of the correct radius as a guide. The points will be of varying length and curvature as we move from the back of the layout to the front. The point underway at the moment is the tightest being at the back of the goods yard. It is a B7 with the formerly straight section being curved to 29" radius: 

With the Vee and both stock rails in place, the Switch rails are being inserted before finally the Crossing and the Check rails:

 

With I back wind, I hope to have this board complete for Bolton. Wait and see...!

Brafferton Update - 6. Trackwork Pt iii

Once I had cut the many little squares of ply, I stuck them together in pairs and then stuck them at 2.5"-3" intervals along the underside of the trackbed. This was then stuck to the baseboard top. The block at each end of the board was inserted last of all to ensure there was a slight overhang. When the glue dried, The block and the trackbed was filed back flush with the baseboard edge:


Probably somewhat rashly, I have done all this before the baseboard is even assembled. I am hoping that it won't impinge on the construction of the board too much; we shall see!

Next Saturday Edward has kindly offered to help ensure that the baseboards are put together in a professional manner. I shall be whizzing over to Bradford to undertake this task with him. Then I can bodge on with the rest of the layout...

Brafferton Update - 5. Trackwork Pt ii

Suitably enthused by another North East Area Group meeting, here is the next step forward on the track side of things. A couple of people asked about the track template at the meeting: Using Coreldraw, I merely drew the track radius to scale with lines demarking 0.5" either side then copied and pasted this in an offset manner. I then printed off the bit half way down at full scale to gain suitable templates. These were substantially overlapped to ensure accuracy. Below is a jpg (reduced) of the drawing I did:


Similarly, I needed to accurately mark where the track beds cross the board joins; the track starts in the middle, sweeps to the front and then goes back again. This is merely acheived by offsetting the centre of the track circle against that of the baseboards. Again a full scale drawing was made on Coreldraw and the bits I needed (ie the joins) were printed out:



And attached to the actual baseboard with Pritt:

You will note that the template for the joins shows double track; on this baseboard there is only single track, so I have clearly scribbled through those markings not in use:

As I mentioned earlier, the trackbed will be raised up on blocks of ply. Using a steel rule and Stanley knife, I simply scored and snapped multitudes of little ply squares:

In the next bit I'll show you what I did with them!

Brafferton Update - 4. Trackwork Pt i

Okay; now I can tell you about the tracklaying. Whilst the lie of the land around Brafferton is fairly flat, I do want some areas to be slightly below track level and try and avoid that "train set" look often evident when all of the scenery is above rail height.

So the track will be on a base of 4mm ply and this will sit on frequent blocks of 8mm ply (2 lots of 4mm!) giving a potential scale 6ft drop to the main baseboards. I used the computer to draw templates for the trackbed, tacked it with Pritt and then cut the ply with a sharp Stanley knife. I lightly scored the track centre with the knife and then inked it in following removal of the template:



Anybody not heard of Easitrac yet? Right I'll see you after class for detention then. I've mentioned before that I'd been trying out this new system and now I'm ready to dive in the deep end. Some sections of 10"-12" were made up using the Easitrac jig. Then using the recommended glue, I positioned one section at a time:

The glue seems to cure fairly quickly, but doesn't go hard like PVA; it retains a rubberyness and the very slightest "give". You will see that I am using PCB sleepers at each end of the section. This is more for electrical connection than anything else. At this radius (31") I have more than faith in the robustness of the Easitrac bases:

Here we have the trackwork completed for baseboard No.1. I may have to trim the track back slightly at the far end to fabricate an accurate cross-board joint:

Now onto board No.2 and some pointwork. If I get a pass out for Saturday, I'll bring the progress to date along.

Making Tracks

Things seem a bit quiet of late here on the blog. Everyone must be busy modelling!

For my own part, I've spent what little modelling time I've had available making track for my GJLC entry. Most of the plain track is now finished and I've started on the pointwork. These are being made using the excellent jigs available from Shop 1.


The photo shows the first turnout part-completed. There will only be two turnouts on the layout, both of standard B7 left hand geometry. Once these are done I will move onto the traintables planned for each end of the layout. In the background of the photo can be seen some of the rolling stock also under construction for the layout.

And as if making track in 2mm scale wasn't enough, I spend the occasional weekend working in a slightly larger scale:

The photo shows some 2ft gauge track panels that have been built as part of the Moseley Railway Trust's project to build a railway at the Apedale Heritage Centre near Stoke-on-Trent. The railway will eventually carry passengers from an existing museum and cafe up into the adjacent country park.

Andy