New Year Update 2017

Into a New Year and forging ahead..


We continue to make progress since the exhibition...

The usual busy Tuesday night at the club and we are working on the main boards and also the link half circle to the selector board. The green surface in the foreground is the 3mm foam underlay for track on the link board.

Ted and Kevin M are both working on completion of the first of two rotating selector plate boards, these will be placed one at each end of the main layout. The rest of the club members are stood around chatting - as usual!

This view shows the selector board trackwork almost complete, again Ted and Kevin M are hard at it!
We have had great "technical" support on this part of the project from Ian, who given any challenge seems to come up trumps!- thanks from all of us Ian.
We are arranging a team meeting soon to agree the remaining priorites on the layout contruction - more on that in our next update.

Our first exhibition !

We have attended our first exhibition with our "in progress" OO layout, here are some shots from the set up for the Poole & District Model Railway show this November...

Kerry Pope put together a super story board to show in pictures and words our journey in choosing, designing and starting the building of the layout

We were positioned on the stage at a height where visitors could see the actual construction and we had several loco and train formations running on the day. Both Kevin and Ted gave up their time to run stock and answer any questions.

We also took our first almost completed "rotating sector plate" both to show progress and get feedback from visitors. Our next outing whenever and wherever that is will have the layout up on its legs and fully operational with much of the scenery and building work well on its way.

October 2016 Update

Here are a few photo's to show progress on our new OO layout...

 We are approaching completing what can only be termed as 'a rotating sector plate' which will allow full turning of trains - we intend to build a second so we have this facility at both end s of the layout.

 The start of forming the landscape - using blue insulation boards for the main shaping then plaster bandages followed by a thin coat of plaster filler to form the final surface level.

 The bridge you see in this shot is for the branch line to disappear off scene

The new OO layout for youngsters to play on at exhibitions is nearing completeion.

July 2016 Update

Keeping up progress as you will see from the pics below...

Weathering of all track now underway using Railmatch Dark Rust for rail edges and Sleeper Grime for overall cover.

We have now reached the stage where we can choose the makeup of our ballast and here are the first two test sections.

Now we can start to move on, look at the overall scenery form and begin to fill in where we need to.

Kevin 3, James and other colleagues have made excellent progress on a new "Kids" layout for use at our next and future Annual Exhibitions.

 

Summer 2015 work and progress

Most of our work has centred on getting the track-

work and joints for the 5 main boards complete so we could move onto the electrics we need to do further test running and point control...

Ex N.A.S.A. Senior Electronics Engineer (Kevin) is seen here starting to fit the CML Dac 20's that we are using to fire all the Cobalt slow motion point motors (he looks so happy in his work!)

Here is what one of the boards looks like in close up.

This is the underside of our No; 2 board, this is the most complex with 14 points inc double slips etc.

You will see on the extreme right what appears to be more Dac 20's actaully one of the two boards is another Digitrax board called a PM 42 - this splits the power bus into 4 distinct districts.

The board on the left is the Dac 20 (these are from CML Electronics who produce several similar products for assisting with DCC control) The right hand board is the PM42. We programme the Dac 20's using CML's own software called Locoanalyse which is a free download.

Once each point is programmed, a one off job, then all points can be operated by hand throttles, command stations and or mimic?control boards.

We have also started to consider how we might section the trackwork (zip)

for the isolation joints on the electrofrog pointwork. 

Here, Kevin and Bernie are figuring out how many cuts we need in the trackwork 

and which are the best positions.

Keep tuned in for further updates.....

Trackwork and points progress

Despite the last post showing how we work in the cold, watch out for clues that these next photo's were taken on a hot day!

Above is the main Station area and goods yard

Most complex area, the station approach and link to goods yard and lower yard and sidings as well as small track down to quay area.

 Here trackwork splits in heights, upper area to main line and yards, 

lower area to branch line and sidings

Swivel your head! to see central area of layout.

Here is the last main board, (left hand side as you look at it) where there are 4 levels; lower tracks are siding on level, next is branch line coming in from right and going down, above that are the two main lines and at top, on level are three industry sidings.

So, did you spot the clue? - yes my feet! in open sandals! Anyway we took these as a record of the track plan for future reference.

The most complex board of the five is this one with 14 points, Bernie is smiling because he set us off on all the wiring!

 Now we are in a position where most of the wiring is complete, next step is to link point control to two CML Dac 20's and programme the points on CML LocoAnalyse software.

The layout in typical "tidy" state! somewhere under this lot is some trackwork! 

as Steve searches for some more wire!

We are fitting several full width magnets to operate with Kadee un-couplers.

They have to be fitted central to track for optimal working.

We have now fitted the last Cobalt point motor on the main boards, here you see another mark out for a under track magnet.

Where space under the board was an issue, we mounted the Cobalts using small nut and bolts, 

here you can see the final bolt ready for tightening.

Keep tuning in for further updates.....

Progress even in the cold!

Making progress, Brian came prepared - wrapped up for the North Pole 

he continues to solder the trackwork!

We are worried about people breaking into the clubroom - so we keep a Kerry under the baseboards!

Still more wires to connect - will it ever end? !