A Little Rearrangement

Here's what it was:

From the front is the headshunt for the marshalling yard. Next is the inbound track. I'm not sure if I can call it the up or down as the layout is one big loop. The track it inbound to the terminus which which make it down from Sydney. However, Up trains from the terminus will travel along this track as well as they make their way to Sydney. The third track from the front is the outbound track. Trains travel from the terminus over this track to the reverse loop and then along the inbound track before joining the up and down lines of the rest of the layout. The last line is the short passing loop. Behind this would be the three or maybe four track loco depot and then a head shunt for the goods yard and its lots of sidings. The turntable in the background was a pipe dream. It was not ever going to fit.

The thinking behind this comes from the old layout. Look at this image below.

The main station was situated on a balloon return loop to the left of the camera. The track layout is virtually the same. The three sidings behind were the carriage sidings. The plan was to have a shed building at the front and retaining walls where the timber is. 2 metres, I thought was way too long for a single building. I just wanted to give an impression of a large building.

As an aside, a few years ago the the bloke who is building Everard Junction on YouTube built a scale carriage shed. It was great.

While planning the loco depot, I was trying to achieve something more than the stabling tracks from my old layout. I have steam, diesel and electric locos and I wanted some facilities for them to be serviced. I also noticed that I was reaching over the marshalling yard headshunt and two running tracks and the new platform.

What if I move the depot closer between the running tracks and the headshunt? The old layout had some loco storage sidings inside the curve of the headshunt could I put a turntable there?

I looked for ideas through a stack of Byways of Steams, model railway magazines, a Railway Digest article about Yeerongapilly loco depot and other sources for inspiration.

Here is what I have ended on.

Right at the back with be a two track incline to the terminus. It is 2% and identical to the old layout. Most steam locos make it up with a suitable load. A couple more will need some more weights.

In front of the incline is the headshunt for the freight yard. It is designed to have a loco and eight of the wheat hoppers clear of the first point which will be to the wheat silos.

Next, where the Tangara is, is the outbound track. When running from the terminus, the Tangara would stop at this station, carry onto the return loop as though it has travelled to its suburban and return on the nearer inbound track to the same station. Then it will travel back up the hill to the terminus.

The 70 class is at the end of the marshalling yard headshunt. On the old layout, operators never have to handle trains on the headshunt. It is just a straight bit of track. The downside is that the exit crossover to the mainline can be blocked by locos. I plan to have all my points thrown by hand by the operators. That discussion is for another post. 

The 46 and 85 class locos are on the electric loco storage track. This will have access to the shed as well. You can just see that to the right of the shot.

The 48 class is on the access track to the shed and can be used for storage.

The track in front is the arrive and departure track. The 45 class is on the fuel track for diesel locos. The GLX is on a track for a storage shed. I reckon that they need spare parts coming in and they'll need to be put somewhere. I don't really know how that works. I figured that I'd need some S trucks at the back of the shed  for rubbish as well.

Moving to the right you come to the coaling stage and turntable. See below.

I'm using a Peco turntable. Before it's installed, it'll need some cleaning up and some paint. The arrival and departure track is directly in front of the shed. The opposite track of the turntable needs to be long enough for a Garratt. The track in front of the arrival and departure track is long enough for a couple of BCH hoppers to supply a coaling tower. It won't quite be 100% prototypical but I'm looking for an effect. This track probably won't be connected to the turntable. 

Four of the tracks off the turn table should be able to hold at least 2 diesel locos each. I know that round houses hold one loco only per track but I am after storage.

Behind the turntable are two points. The closest is for a storage siding off the headshunt, which was handy on the old layout. The furthest is from a passing loop onto the inbound line. Both of these points are easily accessible across the turntable.

One thing to consider when planning reaches is a baggy sleeve that could catch on things.

The three tracks curving in from the right have been removed and will need to be realigned.

I reckon that I could have up to 18 locos stored in the depot. Not only that but a goods train will need to replace the S trucks full of rubbish, spare parts van, oil tank for the fuel siding and the coal hoppers for the the coal tower. That is an extra train and destination, as well as an interesting bit of operations.

Here is the big problem. The turntable sits directly above Bega Station. I can put a wall up the top to hide it from Bega platforms but the bigger issue is the need for support.

I will need to remove one retaining wall section underneath. That shouldn't be too hard. I will also need to prop up the top from the platforms. The right edge of the turntable is on the baseboard join. I'll need to do the Bega platform tops sooner rather than later.

If I put the turntable on the other baseboard I would have less support issues but no space for tracks off the turntable. I could have a long siding big enough for up to seven locos stacked on after the other. So long as they were in order of need this wouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't have extra space for the coal hoopers and vans.

My plans for during the week is to re-lay two of the curves that I need to adjust. I've done one so far. 

Then I can do some wiring and have something running by the end of next week end.

Here's hoping.

 

It Really Has Been a While...

6 and a half months. Crikey! I didn't realise it was that long.

To carry on from the last blog post. The top layer went on and tracks were laid. The same four locos were used to test the next level. 

However, not all of the top level tracks were put on. Enough track for a running session was put on. Missing were the goods yard, the loco depot and the marshalling yard and a suburban station. The latter was replaced by a relief loop which was big enough for a loco and six of Austrains GME wagons with a guards van. That's all that went in there.

I had an April deadline for a running session with blokes from the club. 

There was lots to do. An empty coal train to swap with loaded wagons, the fore mentioned container train to take to the harbour yard, a couple of other trains to take from staging to destinations to shunt.

Nope. They just ran trains and watched them go around and chatted. Which was good but it didn't test the layout out, except for the mainline.

There was one major problem that I discovered when I was wiring the layout. The junction was totally wrong.

In the image above the points at the top are the entry and exit to the goods yard. Trains are meant to enter from the left, cross over to the year road and exit the image to the right. When the last wagon is clear, the train and set back, uncouple and the loco head off to the shed to the right of the image. The mainlines are the bottom two tracks. The middle tracks lead to and from the passenger terminal which will be on the upper level.

Trains from the mainline can't access the goods yard.

It should look a bit like this.

I could not believe that I had made this mistake in the planning and I was sure that I needed another double slip. Then I worked out that I was following an older draft. It would do until after the running meeting.

Then nothing happened until last weekend. I took a break from model railways. I just wasn't feeling enthusiastic about it.

When I think about it, my lack of enthusiasm was because, despite a couple of compromises and faults, my old layout had ten passenger stations planned. A couple were small and one of those would have been a request stop. It had seven destinations for goods trains to shunt outside of the main yard.

The new layout has effectively three stations. The terminus, Bega and Tathra. My freight marshalling yard is planned to have more sidings but they are all shorter.  There would be four destinations for goods wagons too.The loco depot wouldn't be effective either. It was looking to be three tracks wide and more for loco storage than for servicing locos. I might be able to get four tracks but that might be pushing it and a turntable is impossible. Turning locos would need to be done on the reversing loop which all trains would travel on.

The new layout just doesn't seem as exciting.

It is however, more exciting than listening to trains go past. I live 400m from the railway line and since I've been working at home, I've heard a lot of freight trains go past.

So last weekend I fixed the dodgy junction and took out the relief loop to put a narrow island platform in. And that was the start of a major rethink and ripping up a fair bit of track.

If I hadn't had that break, I reckon I would have soldiered on with the plan and would have gone past a point of no return.

More in the next post. I'm hoping it will be sooner than six months.

New Year, New Update

 It's been a while but work has been progressing. 

This image was just after the track was laid but just before wiring. I use a Digitrax system which was placed on the last layout. This time it's going to be housed on a shelf - roughly where the rubber gloves are.

The DCC bus wires are run around the edge of the layout for ease of access. Next to these wires the six strand phone cable for the hand held controllers.There is still some of this cable to be fitted as I had run out of double adaptors. I do have a Digitrax WiFi box thing that lets me use four smart phones. This is enough as, in less restrictive times, the layout could quite easily keep five people busy and a couple of those folks will be operating a couple of shunters.

When I laid the track, I used a couple of rolling stock which sometimes cause me problems. We've all got them. Pushing them about seemed to go well. After power was applied to the track, I employed my awesome foursome of track testers. All of these locos have found faults before - especially the electric locos. They seemed to find the faults that were in the hardest to reach spots. These spots were joins on curves.

This time I tried to stagger the joins so that they are about four sleepers between the left and right track joins. Extra track pins were put in next to a couple of the tracks to make sure the joins weren't too sharp. The 43 class was very happy with my track. The B class wasn't. It found a few issues. use of a track gauge and track pins solved this. The other locos didn't skip a beat.

However, there was one train that I had forgotten about. The Auscision V Set. When running a certain direction over a certain section of the old layout, it reliable came off. It was given a run and found another fault which was soon fixed and thoroughly tested. I'm not saying that Auscision make trains that fall off the tracks but I am saying that sometimes my tracks make Auscision trains fall off. Hopefully my track is better this time.

As this is the lower level, most of what you see here will be covered. Before I add the next level, I want to ballast the tracks that transition into the covered area. There are a few lines to do.

Until next time.

Where Do You Start?

I have a plan. It's not as complicated as the last plan but it still has three levels and it is still set south of Bega on the Sapphire Coast of NSW.

The baseboards have been put down, I've painted cork to put the tracks on. I'm ready to go.

From the bottom level the tracks rise up to meet the middle level in pretty much the same place, along the back wall and curving around the outside of a return loop. I use the Woodlands Scenic 2% inclines as they are easy to use. I have found that if I use picture mounting cardboard the I can use one incline for two tracks. This set up worked faultlessly since I installed at the end of 2016.

This is a good place to start so tracks were placed on the highest curve of the incline. Too easy.

As you walk into the room, it's on the left. Closest to the edge of the baseboard will be a coal mine. I loved the feature on the old layout and had plans for a flood loader along with the tipple. To access the flood loader without having to run around the train the track needs to pass under the incline. So I built a bridge... a couple of times. The crossing is effectively one curve crossing another.

To work out the bridge, I needed to work out the coal mine. The last one had a loop for the flood loader and another loop for an empty train to arrive and be shunted - normally by a Garratt as it's a great loco for a coal train.

I don't have this luxury for the new mine area. I want an avoiding road for the loader, otherwise there is no need for the tipple. That problem needed to be worked out.

The next issue was the headshunt for the coal mine. I have a train of 12 loaded BCH hoppers which is swapped with another train of 10 empty CH hoppers under the tipple as part of the operations of the layout. On the old layout the headshunt was Platform 2 of Bega Station. It was good as it did not interfere with passing trains. When I measured the headshunt to where the coal branch rejoins the main line I realised that shunting operations would halt operations on the layout as it would block the return balloon loop that turns trains around to continue on their circuits.

The plan for Bega is/was similar to the old layout but with an extra platform and as I found out yesterday, 10 cm narrower. I cut the new boards 35 cm wide for the bottom level with the plan to use 30 cm. The middle level will be 60 cm wide with an incline along the back.

When I eventually looked at a copy of my old layout plan I discovered why the old layout would not fit when I explored different options. I sort of need my 60 cm for the middle level but I need Bega to work. I'm now using 33 cm with 19 mm for the support for the next level. This now gives me enough room for four tracks around two island platforms. This should help me operationally later.

By redesigning Bega I was able to alter the junction with the coal branch. This meant that I could plan the coal branch and the bridge which then meant that I could start with the incline.

I started at 10:30 with the idea of a couple of hours on the layout and then mow the lawn and a couple of other gardening tasks. By the time I finished on the layout it was time to start dinner and I hadn't laid much track except for a quarter of a curve. The lawn can wait until next weekend.

I'm glad that I had the time to do what I did yesterday as it will make things easier as I move through the lower level. When I started the planning I worked from the top down. The coal branch wasn't really planned neither is the branch line to Tathra. I'm still toying with ideas for this and I figured that it could be the last thing to think about. That's a job for future me to worry about.

I like pictures in my blog but I don't have any images of the layout worth publishing yet, so enjoy an image of my travels in January. It's a Class 170 DMU operated by Cross Country Trains at Leicester on 15th January 2020. Similar to my plans for Bega, Leicester has for platform faces on two island platforms. Leicester was my first stop outside of London that trip. I'd caught an HST from St Pancras and was waiting about 20 minutes at Leicester for a service to Sheffield. From Sheffield I went to Leeds for and hour and then Liverpool Lime Street. After some trainspotting, I caught a train back to London Euston and the Tube to Paddington for the overnight sleeper service to Penzance.

Until next time.

Time For Mark Four

I haven't posted since January. That was 11 months ago.

January was great! I couldn't have asked for a better January. I spent 11 days in the United Kingdom riding trains.

I first had the idea a couple of years ago when Qantas advertised cheap fares during the Australian Open. My wife has been known to head to Melbourne for the event so she wouldn't miss me. It didn't happen. Nor the next year. This year it did.

I was spurred on by the withdrawal of HST sets form the GWR and LNER networks. I have spent a lot of hours on these trains over the years. I wanted one more ride.

I also wanted to ride on a Pacer - just to find out how bad they were.

Of course as the time drew nearer, a fair amount of planning had to take place. I wanted to make sure that I could see as much as I could as well as catch up with family and friends. 

I travelled on a Britrail Pass. It gives you unlimited travel for the duration of the pass. I bought a first class pass. You get free drinks and snacks and depending upon the service, a full English breakfast or a fancy dinner.

It was expensive but on my first day I travelled from London to Leicester, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, London and finished on the overnight train to Penzance. (I did have to pay for a sleeping berth though.)

You also get access to the First Class Lounges. The Great Western First Class Lounge at Paddington is my favourite. The Avanti West Coast Lounge at Liverpool is pretty funky with a Beatles theme.

Here's a photo from the first day. I had just caught this HST from London St Pancras to Leicester. I took a lot of video too. I should do something with that.

February was very different. If January was great, then February just kicked us in the guts.

Remember that storm on the 8th - 9th of February? It flooded the train room on the Sunday. It also damaged our kitchen but it was the shed that concerned me more. It came up from the floor and soaked the carpet and ruined furniture. The legs of the layout seemed okay.

However, what could was brought inside and the insurance company called. A couple of old department shelves rescued from the skip bin would need some surgery but the old Ikea stuff was... well stuffed.

Lots of plastic boxes were then bought.

We lost a couple of people in quick succession from February too.

If February kicked us in the guts, March delivered the knock out punch.

The shed was drying out. Fans had been going for a while and the musty smell had all but gone. Then we had a couple of hot days around the 19th and 20th March. The musty smell came back and the layout was covered in mould.

A green fuzz covered a lot of bare timber. I cleaned off what I could but I kept finding more. I was also on the bottom of the plywood in areas that I couldn't reach with a spray bottle full of vinegar. Some of my trains had a dusting of spores on the top of them. This was terminal. There was no way that I could make sure the mould would be gone.

The hours of work put into the layout, the hours of joy that it had brought, the hours of fun it would bring. This was the ultimate layout that I could build. It should have seen me good for the next fifteen years.

Everything was packed away into those plastic box that I had bought.

I started to work out a strategy to deal with the problem but with the world starting to fall apart, I'm going to be honest, things were getting to me. Not to mention that I suddenly had to re-invent what I do for work with as little time as possible.

It was time for a break and a venture into a new hobby.

LEGO is a great modelling medium these days. It's a lot different from when I was a kid.

But it's not the same as building a model railway.

For some reason, all the walls in the train room needed to be re-gyprocked so the old layout was in trouble anyway. This was all done by the insurance company. Over a weekend, I went from this...

...to an empty space.

As soon as the money came through for the damaged contents, carpet was put down and timber bought.

After a couple of weeks it now looks like this...

So that the timber doesn't go mouldy again, everything is being painted. The colour of choice was supposed to be a green. However, when I bought the paint in March the store couldn't do that particular colour (I can't remember why.) and gave me other options. When I saw Indian Red on the colour chart, I didn't think that I could pick anything else.

The benefit of having a few months off modelling was that I couldn't do anything so that I had time to think about the new plan and chat with some mates about ideas. After talking to one friend, he went home and came up with a plan. With a little tweaking, it's almost settled. The mainlines and main features are planned with a couple of small industries to place.

The fourth version of the Sapphire Coast Line is firmly underway.

Until next time.  

North Eastern Corner Part 5

Happy New Year!

December was busy. Apart from short bits of modelling, there was a running session. As I'm a messy worker, (A new year resolution to sort that out this year.) there were a couple of days tidying up.

Here is where I am up to now.

4. Sort out fences - paint them too. Completed
5. Create back yards. Completed

6. Glaze and light houses. 

7. Add static grass and trees to landform. In progress. Needing to finish ballast loading area.
8. Create platform for loading dock. In progress. Needs tarmac top.
9. Place on the layout. 
11. Build the new building for the conveyer to run from.

Number 12 was the Goods Yard. Here it is finished.

13. Ballast Points near the station. Completed
14. Build signal box for the station.
15. A fence, or hedge for the station.
16. Build grain unloading facility for brewery.
17. Finish brewery. In progress. Needs coping stones for the wall.

18. Finish industry next to brewery. In progress - needs some detailing.
19. Build warehouse backs for back scene between Brewery Lane Station and houses. In progress. I have built two but I might need one or two more.

20. Retaining wall in front of brewery and the next door industry.
21. Finish off static grass and scenic touch ups. In progress.

22. Paint the sides of the tracks. In progress - there is still the station to do.

Another small project was painting an HO scale Michael Portillo with a copy of Bradshaws. He came from a box of Preiser figures bought second hand. A small - more like tiny - piece of styrene was placed in one of his hands. He was then painted in appropriate colours.

Don't forget to check out my other blog Billabong Marina.

Until next time.

North Eastern Corner Part 4

I've been pottering about the layout making small progress in little bits. Here's where I'm up to.

4. Sort out fences - paint them too. In progress. - fences on order. Still waiting
5. Create back yards. In progress.
6. Glaze and light houses. 
7. Add static grass and trees to landform. In progress. Waiting for fences to do this in one go.
8. Create platform for loading dock. In progress. Needs tarmac top.
9. Place on the layout. 
10. Ballast the siding and the mainline. Completed
11. Build the new building for the conveyer to run from.
12. Plaster Goods Yard. Completed Used sand paper instead.

The image above has just had a bunch of scatter material and static grass put down. The sand paper gives the goods yard area a bit of compacted dirt look. I'll experiment with some paint to try and match it to the panted plaster in the foreground.

13. Ballast Points near the station.
14. Build signal box for the station.
15. A fence, or hedge for the station.
16. Build grain unloading facility for brewery.
17. Finish brewery. In progress.
18. Finish industry next to brewery. In progress - needs some detailing.

The brewery and the other industry are on separate boards. The brewery needed to be raised as the wagons hit the awning roof and the platform was a bit low. The other industry (an engineering company) is on some matte board covered with tarmac paper.

19. Build warehouse backs for back scene between Brewery Lane Station and houses.
20. Retaining wall in front of brewery and the next door industry.
21. Finish off static grass and scenic touch ups. In progress.
22. Paint the sides of the tracks. In progress

I've a busy week this week. The overnight work thing that was postponed due to catastrophic conditions is on this week and I've a couple of evening meetings. I reckon that my fifteen minutes a day might not be much more than that this week.

Until next time.