Making a Start - The Peak District Midland / Monsal Dale pre 1903

[Le Corbusier]

Ah, i took this

I found that depending upon the direction and which end of each of the rolling stock was running through I got occasional climbing of the point blades on both turnouts (intermittent) with the stock running straight on instead of across the turn out.

to mean the vehicle had run through the wrong route without derailing.

The reason that a small BB and or wide track gauge increases the likelyhood of the first wheel picking up on the points is because it allows the vehicle to slew diagonally to a greater extent when the root radius of the flange can no longer hold the flange away from the point tip.
This effect can also be seen if the axles are slightly off parallel. Always worth running the vehicle on a flat surface to see it it follows a straight path or curves a bit. Another cause is wheelsets where the wheels are not quite in line even with parallel axles, that is another item to be checked.

I don't really agree with widening the gauge at the point toe as it is the same as reducing the BB. If the planing and stock rail set are done properly you can keep accurate gauge through the switches without any unwanted narrowing.
Regards

Thanks Kieth,

I would say from my initial observations this is exactly what was happening.

Firstly I did widen the gauge at the toe. Secondly I can't be absolutely certain about the quality of all the wheel sets. The latest build wheel set on a Bill Bedford Wagon are certainly the best and these from recollection ran through well the whole time. This fact made me assume that the primary problem was with the wheels (and thus re setting the B to B at 17.75 following Roger's article).... but from what you say the widening will also have had an effect. Re-setting of all the wheels to 17.75 will presumably have taken out the excessive slop and hopefully any undue wobble limiting diagonal slew. All three vehicles are either sprung or compensated and all have suffered from a high learning curve.

I have had no issues at the crossings at any point so the check rails and crossing Vs are presumably fine. As everything is running great now I will monitor and keep fingers crossed.

[Le Corbusier]

Tim I have not read all your thread so I may be missing some things. I think the issue of running through facing point switches is the where P4 is most challenging. The issues are on both stock and track. Replies here have mentioned several possible stock issues. I wonder if you have analysed the full range of possibilities. Is compensation or springing used or are they rigid? Do they go better in one direction than another? What is the failure rate? How heavy are they?

Propelling vehicles through is the real test.

I am very dubious about Roger Sanders article, though it is to be welcomed for posing the questions about running reliability, for several reasons. Chiefly because he makes no mention of the check gauge. I recently found that a friend and highly skilled modeller with much successful train and track building experience did not properly understand the issue so it's possible this is not unique to him. Any BB setting more than 17.75 with compliant P4 flanges gives the possibility of derailment at crossings. Martin Wynne has replied to you about this too. See the P4S4 pros and cons thread for exhaustive discussion. My main point being that if 17.75 is the minimum it is impossible in sheer practicality to make it the maximum too. I have complete reliability touch wood but very variable BBs, several less than 17.67. But my maximum speed is 30mph. I can well believe a scale 90mph might call for tighter control but that is not your issue.

What switch length is it? Tony Wilkins reply confirms what I said to you before about switches though I made mine with a gradient just towards the tip the place from where the width should become less than a knife edge 0.2mm.

Here is a switch at the quayside of the Rhine in Mannheim, so this is not a tram line. Being so bright it's quite difficult to see the end of the switch so I've shown it in a close up. Still very difficult to see! The place where the switch rail becomes full height and begins to take the vehicle weight shows some irregularity. Perhaps if the vehicles weighed 50g this is where they would derail!

It's important to control the blade height. Not to go lower, by using slide chairs at least at the tips, and preventing lift by some means as you have mentioned.

I wonder if you might consider dividing your thread into two: researches etc, and practical issues. I'd be more likely to keep up with the latter, while some people may not be interested in these matters.

Nice pictures Julian

If I have any further issues with the track which means that my back to back adjustments were really only a temporary fix I will probably take up your suggestion. However, at present all is still running through fine, and I think Keith may well have provided the explanation for the reasons why.

Thanks for the input though ... I always find your thoughts instructive

[Le Corbusier]

Always worth running the vehicle on a flat surface to see it it follows a straight path or curves a bit.

That's another really helpful tip Keith. When I ran my Barney on the table for a bit of fun as it was battery powered the path did indeed curve. Another thing to adjust me thinks

[Le Corbusier]

I managed to take a few further photos of my progress on the test track which I thought I would upload for record purposes (click on images for enlargements). Just another four panels to complete and 3 more buffer stops, and then I can start serious experimentation with both the rodding and the track weathering (including forming the cess and a bit of grass perhaps) I am tempted to model some dry stone walling and perhaps the odd shrub at the back and maybe a simple sky back scene

ballasted track - 1.jpg

ballasted track - 2.jpg

ballasted track - 6.jpg

ballasted track - 7.jpg

And here is a rough video of my Barney navigating the crossover .... still no de-rails since adjusting the back to backs ... though the video shows a high point at one point if the tender movement is to be believed

[Winander]

Hello Tim,

I have been lurking in this thread and finding it very useful and inspiring. With regards to the tender movement in your video, how much weight does it carry as it seems to be moving around quite a bit along all of the track (that or my eyes haven't recovered from celebratory excesses!).

I surmise that if a tender transfers weight to the loco through its drawbar, its weight is critical, otherwise you would weight it as for a freight wagon. What's the conventional wisdom?

All the best for the new year

[Le Corbusier]

Thanks for the input Richard ... I suspect your surmise is correct. However I am not sure there is much I can do about it ... or maybe want to with this particular loco. It is of course white metal which gives it a fair degree of weight at source. Added to this it is also housing the battery and logic board for the Protocab system. It is compensated using a Perseverance chassis and has a fair amount of movement.

Having said all of that, at some point in the future it would be interesting to see if it is something CSB springing might sort out.

[Philip Hall]

Tim,

From looking at the tender as it goes along I would suspect the wheels (or possibly one wheelset) not being as perfectly concentric as you might like.

Philip

[Le Corbusier]

Tim,

From looking at the tender as it goes along I would suspect the wheels (or possibly one wheelset) not being as perfectly concentric as you might like.

Philip

Thanks Philip,

I will take a look and report back.

[Will L]

Tim

You can embed youtube vidio by using the Youtube button on the Post A Reply screen and enlcosing the code which follows the v in your URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=062OYmY2y7c

[Le Corbusier]

Tim

You can embed youtube vidio by using the Youtube button on the Post A Reply screen and enlcosing the code which follows the v in your URL

Thanks .... have done.

[Andy W]

It's wonderfully red and midlandy. Well done Tim. To get anything running is an achievement. If you're worried about the tender's ride, I think Philip is right re concentricity of a wheel set. It should be easyish to replace the suspect axle with another and see if that cures things.

[Le Corbusier]

It's wonderfully red and midlandy. Well done Tim. To get anything running is an achievement. If you're worried about the tender's ride, I think Philip is right re concentricity of a wheel set. It should be easyish to replace the suspect axle with another and see if that cures things.

Thanks Andy ... even with the tender wobble I have to say I am chuffed to bits with the whole malarkey - very rewarding and I am sure future efforts will get better. I will just finish this exercise and then have a bash at starting Monsal Dale.

How do you test for concentricity ... is it just by eye or is there something more scientific?

[Julian Roberts]

Really great Tim. Thanks for sharing all these pix and videos.

[Le Corbusier]

Really great Tim. Thanks for sharing all these pix and videos.

Thanks Julian ... slowly but hopefully reasonably surely

Now I just have to figure out how to test for non concentric wheels without a lathe! You don't happen to know if Iain Rice had a 'kitchen table' method do you?

[Colin Parks]

Hi Tim,

Your test track with the crossover looks very good and enjoyed the video. I cannot comment much on wheels and their eccentricities other than to say that not all the P4 wheels that I have installed on stock have been perfectly true, with the notable exception of Ultrascale ones.

Is it diffcult to change the wheels on your tender if it comes to that?

All the best,

Colin

[Le Corbusier]

Right ... a few tentative thoughts on rotating rivets and switch blades....

I have been pondering Tony's advice below for a while now, and Howard's - shall we say 'forceful' - comment yesterday has brought everything into sharper focus

Tony Wilkins wrote:
Hi Tim.

I note earlier in the thread, that you have pivoted your switch blades on a soldered rivet. I tried that dodge many years ago but found that the soldered joint failed with monotonous regularity. I know it can be re-soldered, but each time the wood gets a bit more charred and eventually the rivets pulled out one by one, so a rethink may be required.
Regards
Tony.

JFS wrote:

Perhaps linked to this, it seems that persons hereabouts are contemplating using fishplates to locate the heel-end of their switches, and whilst they are perfectly free to do so, when the whole thing turns out to be a disaster, should those individuals allege that they did so "because Howard Bolton does it", I will again be suing for damages.

If I could also add a piece of advice to any such individuals - use a track rivet as a pivot if you wish - but it will not last 10 minutes. I suspect that it has not be tried more than a half a million times in the past 50 years...

The comforting side is that people have been here before ... so the idea wasn't totally idiotic however it would be pretty foolish to ignore two such pieces of advice .....

Firstly, a small digression .... on re-reading the turnout construction notes in the digest, my understanding was that when using the rivet method of construction, the switch blades were soldered to the rivets up to the start of the slide chairs? The digest also advises that it is ok to create a break between the switch and the closure rails. Now, my understanding of a pivoting rivet is that because of the action of the rivet (its ability to rotate) the stresses on the soldered joint ought to be less than if the same rivet were to be simply clamped? This being the case, would I be right in assuming that the soldering of the blades to the rivets up to the slide chair as described in the digest (in my case this would be 3 rivets per switch) would suffer in the same way if not more so than the pivoting rivet, and result in the solder joints failing over time - one after the other? Or is there something I am missing here?

I am still keen to introduce rotation at the heel for the reasons originally discussed and Howard has been pretty unequivocal that using a fishplate to do this is not going to work. Unfortunately I can't use Howard's neat switch anchor solution as my prototype was 'sans' anchors. I am also assuming that Tony's and Howard's issue with the pivoting rivet was not the rotation but rather the strength/robustness of the soldered joint?

I have therefore returned to John Palmer's earlier post and the ingenious method he used for the loose heeled switch. I am currently wondering if it might be possible to construct a hybrid still using the rotating rivet. My thoughts are to drill through the bottom bullhead of the heal above the rivet to allow a piece of wire to pass through. To drill the centre of the rivet to allow the wire to be housed into the top of the rivet. Then to solder the wire into the rivet, pass it through the hole in the bullhead, bend it through 90 degrees as John did and solder it into the web of the switch rail hiding it in the gap between switch and stock rail. This I would hope will give a much stronger connection between the rivet and rail whilst still allowing the heel to rotate. I shall have an experiment with offcuts, but any thoughts or advice anyone might have in the interim would be much appreciated.

Tim

[Le Corbusier]

First quick experiment is hopeful I think

I have part notched part drilled the bottom bullrail to allow some NS wire to project through .. bent and soldered it into the web. I have then drilled the rivet and dropped the wire in to the rivet and soldered into position. I used higher temp electrical solder on the rail and 145 solder for the rivet which allowed me to solder the second without unsoldering the first. The connection appears strong and the rivet rotates easily.

rotating heal - 1.jpg

rotating heal - 2.jpg

The trick I think will be to locate things accurately in position. I now need to experiment insitu as it will not be possible to pass the wire through the sleeper and rivet as shown. My thinking is to get the wire soldered to the blade and cut to an appropriate length so it can sit in the pre drilled hole in the rivet (the switch rivets on my test track already rotate freely). Then carefully mark and drill the location hole in the rivet with an oversize drill to allow a little tolerance for wriggle room. Then fit the switch rail using chairs to ensure that the rail angle is correct, clips at the planing to ensure it is sitting against the stock rail correctly and a fish plate to ensure good alignment with the closure rail. Then solder the rail to rivet including wire within its hole. Ideally I would do this before fitting the stretcher bars (to allow me to thoroughly test and if necessary ease the rotation) ... but on the test track the whole unit is already formed so I will forego this and keep fingers crossed .

Can anyone spot any elephant traps

[Armchair Modeller]

First quick experiment is hopeful I think

Can anyone spot any elephant traps

What's bigger than an elephant?

The main problem I see with this arrangement is the amount of end swing at the blunt end of the point blade. It will look a little odd and make it more difficult to fit dummy fishplates at the joint.

On the real thing, the fishplates would keep the blunt end in line with the rail it is joined to. With a pivot even a few mm away from the blunt end, there will be noticeable side swing.

I went through all this thinking and experimentation on Neversay and decided in the end that a pivot was best, but it absolutely had to be at the joint, not on the nearest sleeper. An L shaped piece of rod soldered to the underside of the switch blade and pivoting in a vertical brass tube set into the baseboard seems to work well and is relatively unobtrusive, provided the tube is moderately long and the rod is not a loose fit.

See my threads for photos and explanations. Best to experiment a bit to see what you like best.

[Le Corbusier]

First quick experiment is hopeful I think

Can anyone spot any elephant traps

What's bigger than an elephant?

The main problem I see with this arrangement is the amount of end swing at the blunt end of the point blade. It will look a little odd and make it more difficult to fit dummy fishplates at the joint.

On the real thing, the fishplates would keep the blunt end in line with the rail it is joined to. With a pivot even a few mm away from the blunt end, there will be noticeable side swing.

I went through all this thinking and experimentation on Neversay and decided in the end that a pivot was best, but it absolutely had to be at the joint, not on the nearest sleeper. An L shaped piece of rod soldered to the underside of the switch blade and pivoting in a vertical brass tube set into the baseboard seems to work well and is relatively unobtrusive, provided the tube is moderately long and the rod is not a loose fit.

See my threads for photos and explanations. Best to experiment a bit to see what you like best.

Thanks 'Armchair'

and a happy new year to you .... hope you are quartering the hills again as is your wont.

Interestingly I went through all the above permutations earlier in the thread and decided to try the pivoting rivet ... and for whatever reason it has worked pretty well (see reasoning on page 21 - half way down). What I am suggesting here is no different to what I have already built, except the joint will no longer be a simple solder joint between rail and rivet but instead a wire connection into the web and down into the body of the rivet. My stock appears to run fine through the crossover and personally I find it hard to discern any offset visually. I think the reason it works also has something to do with the fact that the rivet joint is made whilst the blade planing is clipped to the stock rail and the end captured in a fishplate, so any offset only occurs when the blade itself is not in use. The offset in fractions of a mm is really very small.

Thanks for raising it though, it might well have been something I hadn't thought through.

Tim

[grovenor-2685]

As requested wheel fettling ideas moved to https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5672
Regards

[Philip Hall]

Thanks Keith.

Philip

[Le Corbusier]

I thought I would post some advice rather than ask a question for the first time on this thread.

I am uncertain who reads this thread, apart from those more experienced and helpful souls who have been kind enough to give encouragement and a gentle prompt or prod here and there when needed or requested. I don't know how interesting, boring or annoying it might be.

However, if anyone out there is like me, a beginner finding there way rather than a more experienced modeller in another gauge perhaps dipping their toe in the P4 waters, I would say that the best advice I have been given to date is to 'build a test track - don't run before you can walk'.

I am champing at the bit to start building Monsal Dale .. but building a 6" wide shelf along one wall of a room has been fantastic. I have been able to learn some of the basics of templot. Design a length of double track long enough to run some stock on and (surprisingly) enjoy a bit of playing trains . I have been able to research and experiment with ballasting; try some track laying and point building; experiment with options (still ongoing) for rodding and switch actuation. There will be some scope for a small amount of scenic experimentation (a tree or two, some bushes, ground cover, static grass application, dry stone walling etc etc). I can test and get a proper look at the stock I am building. ..... and the main point is that whilst all of this is helping to work out how to build Monsaldale, the mistakes and bodges are made elsewhere avoiding compromise or disillusionment. Skills are being honed - hopefully to the necessary level, without having to be too precious.

What led me to share these thoughts, was some adjustments I made yesterday. Having got my track down and the trains running reliably (a great feeling) ... I have been led to look at the stock more closely. This has highlighted issues with the concentricity of the wheels .... not enough to materially effect reliability so far but never the less something to be addressed (I think I will leave this to my next build as the Barney itself was very much a test piece - see the start of the thread). However, in studying the stock it highlighted that the wing rails either side of one of my crossing V's were sitting higher than the V itself. Again not such that it would de rail anything, but causing a slight click on the wheels and wobble to the stock. It being a test track I had no preciousness about this, but simply lifted the configuration, re-formed it and re-laid ... running now much smoother. I think such freedom is pretty essential to the learning curve .... it doesn't matter its just a test track!

I wonder how much more I will learn whilst completing the test track ... I suspect a fair bit. And the track now exists ... so it will be there and running - testing how robust my modelling is - from now on, continually informing decisions on Monsaldale.

So if I were to give any advice resulting from my progress so far (alongside just have a go) it would have to be .... start simple with experimental builds and construct a test track

[Colin Parks]

Agree with you there Tim!

Colin

[Noel]

I can test and get a proper look at the stock I am building.

It can be helpful to photograph the stock - it's surprising sometimes what then becomes evident that wasn't with the naked eye - and very cheap with a digital camera and computer screen.

[Le Corbusier]

I can test and get a proper look at the stock I am building.

It can be helpful to photograph the stock - it's surprising sometimes what then becomes evident that wasn't with the naked eye - and very cheap with a digital camera and computer screen.