Thursday 26th November

Worklist:
Fit tee-nuts to board joints
Make 'permanent' packers to support baseboards, for running sessions in the shed
Repair trackwork around electromagnet

Stephen had purchased 8mm Tee nuts on eBay and these were fitted on both ends of the Platform board. This board was chosen as there was more space on the adjacent boards for turning the bolt heads.

Stephen had also purchased some 63x38mm timber for making permanent supports to speed up erecting the layout. There was much discussion as to whether they should be 'over-sized' and completely loose, captive - fixed to the baseboards, or something in-between. Geoff came up with the idea of cutting them exactly as the board widths and fixing two blocks that went either side of the central board stiffeners. This restraint was tested on one support and the boards could be rotated from the vertical (when the bolts were tightened) down to the horizontal, without them slipping away. Another two were made for the middle boards and a similar design with a longer, single down-stand, was made for the yard board. The supports then had additional strips of wood glued and/or screwed to them, to bring the layout level. They were then marked to record their order. We all felt that the layout had never felt so level or solid before - a good job!

We then turned our attention to the track over the electromagnet, which was found to be a 'switchback' and highly unstable. After a brief discussion on how much and how the track would be repaired ensued, and the track cut out. By the end of the session, new wooden 'stringers' had been glued along each side of the magnet plates. Geoff subsequently covered this with tape and new track of PCB sleepers code 75 flat bottom rail fitted. New ballast completed the repair.

Thursday 19th November

Worklist:
PLAY TRAINS!

It's been a while and we needed a 'fix'. We'd also decided that the layout needed to be used, so we could identify any issues and get an overall feel for it.

We'd all been to Tolworth Showtrain the previous weekend and Stephen was interested to review things like baseboard colours and backscene construction.

We always set the layout up straddling our three work-benches, which requires several lumps and lengths of wood. We decided that it was high-time we produced permanent fittings to make this much easier. We assessed the requirements and Stephen will purchase the necessary timber, in due course. We'd long-ago upgraded the bolts from 6mm to 8mm, but never put a set together. 8mm nuts and bolts, purchased for the purpose were 'dug out' and fitted. Some would need adapting - Geoff to sort out. We also decided that free-nuts were a nuisance, so tee nuts would be fitted. Stephen to source.

We then realised that we'd never fitted the new control panel before, so two brackets were fitted, for today's session. They get in the way, so permanent fittings will be designed and made.

After we finally assembled the layout, Stephen produced a second-hand loco he'd purchased at ExpoNG, Swanley. It was a long wheelbase 0-4-0 Piko (East German) loco. A test run showed it to be a superb runner and after checking/adjusting the back-to-back, it was soon showing up issues with trackwork all over the layout, which took until lunchtime to rectify. Post lunch, a major problem with trackwork over the electromagnet could not be resolved, so we decided to replace the track completely. One for another week. Let's play trains!

More stock was added - John's Hunslet loco, coach and GVT brake van are always to hand, together with a rake of ore wagons and verandah brake van. These were joined by several of Laurences loco's - including some small IC's and a Deceauville on a Fleischman chassis.

The session threw up some issues with the control:-

We'd changed the AC/DC supplies to the controller to eliminate a shorting problem due to John's unusual point manufacture, but this did not solve the problem, so a policy of never switching points while a loco is running, will have to be employed.

Power lights would be useful to confirm both supplies were working.

A space to 'park' the hand held unit on the top could be useful for one-handed operation.

And general realignment of switches and features on the panel to reflect the actual layout.

All-in-all it was a very positive and enjoyable session.

Thursday 12th November

Worklist:
DC feature power to the baseboards.

Laurence on another lunchtime jaunt, so just two this week.

To run DC power to the boards for lighting, motors, sound(?), we could either run a separate supply to one board and have jumpers across the two joins or add it to the loom. The latter was neater, but the central ('platform') board had no spare pins. We decided to add a separate 2-pin plug on this board.

We have a DC and an AC supply to the control panel. The AC supply for the speed controller was originally used for the point relays and servos as well, after running through a bridge rectifier. However, we discovered that the frog micro switches on the point actuators created a momentary short-circuit which interfered with the loco speed. We subsequently added a 19v DC supply (laptop) to power the electromagnetic uncoupler, and this supply could be used for the point power.

First job - move the feeds to the point actuators to the DC supply. At the same time, a pair was taken to two spare pins on the loom wiring strip, off the same supply.

Pre rewiring layout. Blue/brown AC feed.

Instead of running three new pairs from the control box, a single pair was taken down to the first junction in the loom and then three pairs joined with crimped connectors. The DC supplies (black/red) were run out of the board sockets to a 2-way connector. From here, supplies can be run to individual voltage regulators, for each 'feature'.

'Bridge' board

'Yard' board

 The 'Platform board pair ran to a floating, female socket, with a male plug mounted on the board, running to the 2-way connector. Not very pretty, but it prevents accidental short circuits of the 19vac 3amp supply. We'll keep our eyes open for a neater plug/socket.

'Platform' board

 The final layout. The bridge rectifier has been left in place, as it doesn't have to be removed.

Thursday 5th November

Worklist:
A mixture of tasks today, but mainly scenery and track cosmetics.

Laurence filled in loads of holes all over the layout - old fence posts, redundant track-side equipment, pointwork and wires etc. He and Stephen then shared the over-painting of the old grassed areas with brown acrylic paint. Laurence then switched to painting sleepers, with a paler colour than before - a light grey/brown instead of dark brown, which Geoff says is very un-prototypical.

Geoff worked on trackwork ballast, infilling delicate areas such as around point actuators, then moved on to patching sparse and missing areas of ballast.

Stephen laid out buildings and features around the main yard. The coaling stage was moved to the head shunt, as discussed previously, which was approved by all. There is a separate track electrical section in front of the coal stage, which is perfect. The coal will be delivered via the yard access road, which will require a little amendment to accommodate lorry access. An old crane from Langley Works (Geoff's section of Cottesmore) was tried-out in the yard. The crane legs worked well with the rock mound whilst maintaining access to the store and the access road. Approved by all. (NB it's steam powered at present, so updating to electric power might be in order).

The water tower will remain in the station. Our reasoning is that loco's need regular supplies of water, but coal is taken-on far less frequently.

One of the running sessions had identified an area of road crossing timbers that were too high and fouled the coupling. Geoff first tried a chisel, but changed to a Dremel sanding tube, for much better results.

All areas of the original grass was also given a coat of dark brown acrylic (following Gordon Gravetts advice), prior to base flocking and then electrostatic longer grass. A final added feature was the shed and decking that used to be at the very end of the layout (where the bridge was moved to), has been placed in the gap left by the bridge - effectively swapping places! It's in keeping with our efforts to retain what we can of John's original layout.

Brown paint everywhere

As a finale, we discussed the power supplies for both the layout and future features.

Layout: the new DC supply installed last time for the electromagnet would now be used for the point relays and servos as well. The AC supply would be used solely for the ECM loco controller.

Features:
Mine board - lights down the tunnel and the workshop.
Middle board - Generator building lights and engine motor. Goods shed lights.
Yard - store lights.

As there are no spare wires in the middle board loom, it was decided to provide another power feed to one of the end boards, through the loom. The other boards would be fed though a 'power bus', with some form of jumper, at each board joint. Transformer units would be supplied to each feature, adjusted to provide the appropriate voltage. Switches would be located on each board, for each feature.