As if by Magic

Almost as soon as I'd posted the last post I thought that I might as well quickly put some mock ups in place of the structures I'm intending to use to see if they will fit.


The answer I think is just about.

In fact I quite like that the signal box is quite deep. That terrible Hornby J83 is, by the way, terribly tall and probably not the best loco to use in these shots. The quicker I find myself a suitable ex GWR loco the better.

Also rather larger than I would like are those Tillig fishplates. And unnecessary as well since the track is bonded below the baseboard. Tomorrow's job is to finish painting the track which might disguise them a little better.

In Situ

Part of the concept of the layout I've not mentioned is that it is designed to sit across the edge of the desk in my home office. This will constrain the normal viewing angle and therefore disguise that it is a "bitsa station" design - a term that I think was coined by Iain Rice. That, in any case, is the theory.

Here is a shot of it in place from my office chair:

Where the track currently disappears behind the backscene is where the overbridge will go, modeled in relief but with no depth behind it. The goods shed that provides the visual break on the right hand side will sit just out of the frame of the picture.

I'm beginning to wonder about whether the signal box will fit visually. It isn't that big a structure in itself and I was hoping it would disguise what happens to the non-existent road once it passed over the roadbridge .

Also in the interests of  maintaining some vestigial sense of space  I think the station building is going to have to be represented by just the small shelter from Blodwell, which by this period had  the open front closed off with yet more corrugated iron. In fact I can't make out from any of the photos I have whether it even had an access door by this stage.

Up and Running

The internet is littered with blogs that die a sudden and unexpected death. Not a few of those relate to still born modeling projects. If I had any regular followers they could be forgiven that that is what has happened to this.

Having completed the electrics I was about to start ballasting when I took a second look and decided I wasn't happy with the wiring. It wasn't very tidy either above or below the baseboard and I was worried that if I went ahead and ballasted I would only be covering up problems that would come back to haunt me. That is if I could cover them up -  I suspect that ballasting wouldn't have disguised the above baseboard wires.

So I spent most of Xmas mulling it over and decided to re-wire from scratch using  0.45mm wire for the dropwires from the rails. Trying to do this retrospectively made it a little harder than it should have done but in the end doing it right took seconds. I've even put in the DPDT switch based mechanism for the point and  it is working OK although I'll need to reinforce the collar around the wire to the tiebar at some point.

So this afternoon I finally got to run a loco backwards and forwards at acceptably slow speed. My problem on the loco front remains that my two DCC equipped locos are the most basic Hornby 0-6-0s but now I know things work there is an incentive to invest in something more suitable. A 14xx would probably be the best option for now.

More excitingly it means I'm free to start work on the scenics. The overbridge and the overgrown platform are the first two items on the list. That is once ballasting is complete.

What happened next....

... was I worked out that the Scotchlok connectors used to connect the drop wires to the bus hadn't worked. As it happens this doesn't have a material impact at the moment  because for once my track-laying has been good enough to ensure electricity is flowing to all the right places. However I doubt that will remain the case over time. So I think I'm going to raid the tool box for some low tech chocblok connectors.

Fitting a collar onto the wire connecting the switch to the tiebar seems to have worked as well so I should be able to install that permanently one day this week. So if all goes to plan Saturday will be spent ballasting the track  and Sunday will be spent removing all the ballast and starting again building the over bridge. I can't describe how much I'm looking forward to moving on to the scenic work.

Progress of a Sort

So today I decided I really should get some progress made before getting buried in Xmas preparations and a couple of new work assignments that will probably take me out of the country once again.

I had to buy a new soldering iron a few months ago, but in the end never got to take it out of its packet. SO when I did today to start work on the layout I was taken aback to discover just how short a power cable it came with. Fine if you have a desktop socket on a workbench, but not for me. I could have used an extension lead you are thinking, but that would be to forget that it is Xmas and every extension lead in the house has been re-purposed for the festivities.

To some extent I could compensate because the baseboard is so light it is relatively easy to take it to the tool rather than the other way around, but it made everything very awkward, that's my excuse for what follows...

My plan had been to use Tillig's own power clips to attach to the rails, and then solder drop wires through the baseboard from those. I thought this would be less obtrusive than soldering wires direct to the rail with the power clips being relatively easy to hide under ballast.

Unfortunately whatever the trick is to attaching these clips I haven't worked it out yet and having bent several out of shape without them coming any closer to gripping the rail I moved on to plan B and soldering the droppers directly.

Had I thought things through in advance I would have made provision to do this at an earlier stage by cutting away more of the sleeper webs and removing the chemical blackening that the rail has. Trying to do this with the rail and sleepers already assembled wasn't that easy. It probably would have been if I had put everything down and started again tomorrow evening. It usually is. It would also probably been easier if at this point I'd changed the wire I was using, but having already cut some to length I ploughed on. Big mistake.

The net result was I've ended up with some problematic connections, including one dropper that seems determined not to be soldered at all. Unfortunately repeated efforts have probably made the situation worse, so tomorrow some radical cleaning up will be called for before I start again.

The good news I guess is that the track is actually laid now, and mostly connected to the DCC bus. For such a simple track plan I've probably made things a lot more difficult for myself than I needed

Oh then there is the question of the point mechanism. The use of the DPDT is proving problematical. I suspect there is just a little too much springiness in the wire I've got connecting it to the tie bar, but the tie bar also seems to be lifting rather than sliding. I need a think. I can probably put a  collar round the wire to alleviate the springiness.

Motivation

So after Warley I should be really motivated and making progress, especially since I've been so critical of others.

As usual though life intervenes, or rather work does., with a to do list that has suddenly started to grow again at an alarming rate. The great thing about building a small layout though is that it sits on my desk as I work, so if nothing else I can keep scheming.

I'm still worried about the catch point , or rather the lack of one. Tillig do an extendable piece of track designed to bridge baseboard joins that features overlapping tapered rails - a photo here is much better than my attempt at a description. I'm wondering whether I could butcher one into a cosmetic representation of a trap point.

Perhaps not...
 

On a more concrete level I've been experimenting with ballasting techniques. I've discovered that QuickShine FloorFinish, avialble in the UK from Lakeland is a practical alternative to Johnson's Klear, so it looks like that little problem is solved.

Traders and Demos

In yesterday's post about the Warley show I focused on the layouts. Of course they are just one part of the show. A considerable amount of floorspace, and the attention of the visitors, is devoted to the traders, and perhaps to a lesser extent, on the demo stands.

Not for the first time at Warley I went with a small stash of spending money and a long list of things to spend it on, and came away having spent nothing but the price of a pork bap.

One great advantage of the NEC compared to some venues is that at least there are cash dispensers available, and judging by the queues for them other people were spending money even if I wasn't.

The layout of the hall is zoned, so a lot of the big name traders were clustered around the entrance and the first couple of aisles. Unfortunately this added to the sensation of over-crowding, especially when sharing space with those whose enthusiasm for their own interests over-powered any awareness of others. I saw several children knocked over, narrowly avoided a few carelessly swung rucksacks myself, and felt for the disabled visitors. Perhaps the 16mm AGM where access for the less able and an emphasis on space has spoiled me. Actually it isn't as though the space wasn't available at Warley but some of it wasn't well used. One thing they do get right is the provision of a lot of seating space and food outlets. Then I'm a sucker for a pork bap.

I did get a chance to look at some of the delights on the Kernow stand. Unfortunately my lack of note taking means I'm not sure if it was there or on the Howes stand that I saw the prototypes of the Heljan AC railcar which is definitely on my list for purchase in the new year.

I've had my eye on the Hold and Fold from Eileen's Emporium for some time but decided I can't currently justify the cost. I'll be reporting back soon on an alternative at roughly half the price. I suspect the difference in quality will show, but my needs are relatively simple at the moment.

I wish I'd taken the time to speak to more of the DCC specific traders, especially DCC Concepts and Train Tech. The former because their web site is so badly designed, the latter because I need to convince myself their one touch point control system will work. The trouble is I'm at that stage of being so new to DCC that I don't know what questions to ask, and a busy exhibition stand doesn't seem the best place to start.

A lot of the manufacturers and traders I was most interested in were at the far end of the hall in the MRJ Small Suppliers section. This was good in that the stands weren't busy with the general public, but bad in that by the time you got to it exhaustion was setting in. Whilst I didn't buy anything  - I nearly succumbed to the Deans Siding Neath & Brecon tank to use up one of my spare 0-6-0 chassis -it was useful to see things in the flesh. I think I had the typical male response of being overwhelmed by choice.  Next year I think I'm going to do the show in reverse order and start here.

The two stands demonstrating Rail Simulator are worth a positive mention too. They seemed to really engaging with the audience and also showed how the graphics have improved with the current incarnation. Unfortunately my current PC doesn't have the spec to do it justice.

Finally a mention for the demo stands. Again putting these towards the end had the advantage that they were less crowded, and the disadvantage that time was limited when I got there.  I'm notoriously bad at planning visits to demos at exhibitions and next year I'll aim to have a more targeted approach.

On reflection I can't help thinking that my personal experience of a show like this is inseparable from where I am on this project. Normally I would have spent most of my time looking at the narrow gauge layouts and the big show piece layout and the traders selling the more idiosyncratic products. It felt quite weird being attracted to GWR branchlines and those traders selling the bits and pieces needed to build an atmosphere of total mundaness.