Construction of a Test Track

[Colin Parks]

Just a small query - should it not be an 09 for the Southern

Class 09 were introduced for the SR in 1959, with dual air and vacuum brakes and with the air pipes duplicated at waist level, plus motors regeared for higher speeds. The waist level pipes were so that they could connect to and move 'dead' EMUs. However, the SR also had quite a few 08s [which were built VB only], for jobs which didn't need the expense of all the additional air brake equipment, including local goods workings and shunting. D3220 was one of these, allocated to Norwood Junction and then Brighton in the mid-1960s.

Thanks for the information on Southern Region 08s Noel.

Re. D3220, it was definitely in use at Newhaven during the 1970s. There is a picture of this loco at Newhaven Town here: (third & fourth pictures) http://www.semgonline.com/diesel/class08_01.html Admittedly, the real loco did have ladders at the radiator end, so adding them to the model will be a little project to do one day. Also on the same SEMG webpage is a photo of D3273 at Eastbourne in 1969, again it only has vacuum brake hoses.

All the best,

Colin

[Noel]

There is also a page on 09s on the site - http://www.semgonline.com/diesel/class09.html - which gives a rather different story to the info I have. All three locos pictured are the original 1959-60 version.

[JFS]

Just a small query - should it not be an 09 for the Southern

Class 09 were introduced for the SR in 1959, with dual air and vacuum brakes and with the air pipes duplicated at waist level, plus motors regeared for higher speeds.

Not quite my understanding - which is that the 30mph max speed was the (main) distinguishing factor - there were very few 09s with high-level pipes and they were at a few and specific locations. As you say, the SEmg page paints a reasonable summary I think.

And - so much for my encyclopedic knowledge - I don't even know which class Colin's loco belongs to And if Colin has a photo then all discussions are closed

Cheers,

[Re6/6]

The wheelsets were absolutely perfect right from the start, but much tweaking has had to be done to the pick ups, which are difficult to access on this model.

Hi Colin,

This was the solution for the troublesome pick-ups on the Bach 08. It was done some years ago by Tim Maddocks and has proved most reliable ever since. l guess that a similar method might be possible on the Hby version. Wheels are U/scale.

002.jpg

[JFS]

IMG_8767 (2).JPG

Tell yer wot Colin, that looks pretty splendid to me. Nice change (even in P4) to see such attention to getting the track right and what a difference it can make. Nice also to see that ballast done so well and at such an early stage in a project. Think how well it will look after a lick of paint and a bit of "weathering"!

And I bet it runs as well as it looks.

Very Best Wishes,

[Colin Parks]

The wheelsets were absolutely perfect right from the start, but much tweaking has had to be done to the pick ups, which are difficult to access on this model.

Hi Colin,

This was the solution for the troublesome pick-ups on the Bach 08. It was done some years ago by Tim Maddocks and has proved most reliable ever since. l guess that a similar method might be possible on the Hby version. Wheels are U/scale.

002.jpg

Hi John,
My Hornby 08 has something similar in addition to the original pick-ups. After some more fiddling, the loco is working well now..

All the best,

Colin

[Colin Parks]

IMG_8767 (2).JPG

Tell yer wot Colin, that looks pretty splendid to me. Nice change (even in P4) to see such attention to getting the track right and what a difference it can make. Nice also to see that ballast done so well and at such an early stage in a project. Think how well it will look after a lick of paint and a bit of "weathering"!

And I bet it runs as well as it looks.

Very Best Wishes,

Thanks Howard,

With the amount of advice you have me and after careful reading of your articles in the S4 News, it was more than likely to work out well! Only time will tell if my construction skills will result in durable track - the ultimate goal! Scale point rodding to follow, hopefully it will work too.

Ballasting is much easier without the rails in place and again it remains to be seen how long-lasting the Quick Shine polish will be in keeingthe ballast in place. Nothing has come loose yet. Weathering the track will be at a later stage, once the track on all three boards have been thoroughly tested. Not looking forward to painting the rails, but due to the small size of the baseboards, the rails can got at from all angles while the baseboard is on the bench.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of sleepers to glue down on next two boards. It takes quite a while to build track from separate components, but the resulting appearance makes it worth it.

All the best,

Colin

[Colin Parks]

Re the 08, I have found a website which lists 08 numbers pre and post TOPS.


It is not the site where originally looked for information, but the numbering is as expected for D3220. http://www.railway-centre.com/uploads/7 ... t_list.pdf Wading through the list, it can beseen that D3220 was renumbered 08 152 in December 1973. Er, that must mean it was an 08 class shunter I suppose.

[Tony Wilkins]

Hi Colin.
Further useless information.
D3220 was reclassified class 08, it was previously classed as DE/360/1. The 09s were DE/360/5.
The Southern region also had its own small class of English Electric shunters for a while, Numbers 15211 to 15236 with Bulieid pattern 4' 6" wheels. Later reclassified class 12. They had a top speed of 27MPH, same as the class 09s.
Regards
Tony.

[Le Corbusier]

Colin,

I wondered if you had given any thought to a lever frame yet?

Tim

[Colin Parks]

Colin,

I wondered if you had given any thought to a lever frame yet?

Tim

Hi Tim,

Re. lever frames, it has been on my mind and I understand that there is a redesign of the Society 5-lever frame unit in the offing, with an interlocking kit also to be offered. (Hope that is a. correct and b. not confidential!) So that is the way I will eventually go.

By good fortune, the operating rods which emerge on the side of my [central] baseboard are pitched at 10mm, which was a flying guess, but it is the same spacing as the Society's lever frame, making it easier for installation of a 20-lever frame in the future.

Given all the other work to done to get the test track fully operational (cosmetic third rail installation, electro magnetic uncoupling system, signals, some form of fiddle yard, baseboard supports, etc.) the lever frame could be about the last part of the project to be completed.

All the best,

Colin

[Colin Parks]

Colin,

I wondered if you had given any thought to a lever frame yet?

Tim

Hi Tim,

Re. lever frames, it has been on my mind and I understand that there is a redesign of the Society 5-lever frame unit in the offing, with an interlocking kit also to be offered. (Hope that is a. correct and b. not confidential!) So that is the way I will eventually go.

By good fortune, the operating rods which emerge on the side of my [central] baseboard are pitched at 10mm, which was a flying guess, but it is the same spacing as the Society's lever frame, making it easier for installation of a 20-lever frame in the future.

Given all the other work to done to get the test track fully operational (cosmetic third rail installation, electro magnetic uncoupling system, signals, some form of fiddle yard, baseboard supports, etc.) the lever frame could be about the last part of the project to be completed.

All the best,

Colin

Edit: I now learn that the Society lever frame as is, does not really cater for mechanical operation, but plans are afoot to change all that.

[Le Corbusier]

Hi Tim,

Re. lever frames, it has been on my mind and I understand that there is a redesign of the Society 5-lever frame unit in the offing, with an interlocking kit also to be offered. (Hope that is a. correct and b. not confidential!) So that is the way I will eventually go.

By good fortune, the operating rods which emerge on the side of my [central] baseboard are pitched at 10mm, which was a flying guess, but it is the same spacing as the Society's lever frame, making it easier for installation of a 20-lever frame in the future.

Given all the other work to done to get the test track fully operational (cosmetic third rail installation, electro magnetic uncoupling system, signals, some form of fiddle yard, baseboard supports, etc.) the lever frame could be about the last part of the project to be completed.

All the best,

Colin

Edit: I now learn that the Society lever frame as is, does not really cater for mechanical operation, but plans are afoot to change all that.

Did Howard use the Society lever frame with adaptation?

[Allan Goodwillie]

Colin,

John Stocks has a fully interlocked frame on his layout Kettlewell, which he built himself and he used the Society levers as a starting point. It works beautifully. I will have a look and see if I have any photos - I must have somewhere. It was the last bit to be built on the layout if I remember correctly.

[Chris Mitton]

Admittedly, the wiring of the tandem turnout did present a challenge because the wiring diagram (John Shelley, available at: http://www.finescale.org.uk/pdfs/3way.pdf), showed the plan view from above whereas I had to reverse the diagram in my head to wire from underneath!

Try printing out your PDF, scan it and save as a JPG, then load it into any graphic editor (I use an ancient version of Paint Shop Pro but I'm sure there are umpteen others) and mirror the whole diagram on its longitudinal axis - you then have, in effect, an "upside down" plan you can print and use without mental contortions. If you've got any software that can reverse engineer a PDF, so much the better.

Regards
Chris

[Colin Parks]

[quote="Le Corbusier"]
Did Howard use the Society lever frame with adaptation?

Hi Tim,

This not something I could be sure saying exactly how it was done. You would have to ask Howard how he went about adapting the Societys' lever frame kit for mechanical operation.

All the best,

Colin

[Colin Parks]

Colin,

John Stocks has a fully interlocked frame on his layout Kettlewell, which he built himself and he used the Society levers as a starting point. It works beautifully. I will have a look and see if I have any photos - I must have somewhere. It was the last bit to be built on the layout if I remember correctly.

Thanks Allan,

It would be good to see how others went about building lever frames. As with John Stocks' layout, building such a mechanism could very well be the last operating equipment to be built on my project too.

All the best,

Colin

[Colin Parks]

[quote="Chris Mitton"]

Try printing out your PDF, scan it and save as a JPG, then load it into any graphic editor (I use an ancient version of Paint Shop Pro but I'm sure there are umpteen others) and mirror the whole diagram on its longitudinal axis - you then have, in effect, an "upside down" plan you can print and use without mental contortions. If you've got any software that can reverse engineer a PDF, so much the better.

Regards
Chris

Thanks for the advice Chris!

For the sake of mastering the procedure you have described, I shall experiment with mirroring the pdf. file.

The wiring of the tandem was not so bad once I had laid the wiring diagram on the turnout, then turned the base board over to double check the locations of the crossings, which is easy to do with such a small board. Due to one micro-switch not opening, I nearly went out of my mind because the test meter was not showing the expected continuities when one switch was reversed, leading to much double-checking of the wires! Once the problem switch was noticed and adjusted, everything was fine.

All the best,

Colin

[Le Corbusier]

Due to one micro-switch not opening, I nearly went out of my mind because the test meter was not showing the expected continuities when one switch was reversed, leading to much double-checking of the wires! Once the problem switch was noticed and adjusted, everything was fine.

Oh the joy of Protocab

[JFS]

Did Howard use the Society lever frame with adaptation?

Hello Tim,

I did indeed. And of course, as frames get bigger it gets less easy to provide the interlocking. Minories has a 25 lever frame, though if it were a railway other than the Southern (where one ground signal can lead to 4 routes) it would have needed at least 30. The downside of how the Southern did things is a lot of conditional locking which is tricky to do.

I posted a few details here:-

viewtopic.php?f=78&t=1537&p=14787&hilit=further+distractions#p14787

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see some photos of the Minories frame under construction, including the conditional locks. As Colin mentioned, I have been doing some redesign work to enable the locking to be much more easily fitted to the society frame and these should be available via the stores shortly, though further work remains to be done.

Best wishes,

[Le Corbusier]

Did Howard use the Society lever frame with adaptation?

Hello Tim,

I did indeed. And of course, as frames get bigger it gets less easy to provide the interlocking. Minories has a 25 lever frame, though if it were a railway other than the Southern (where one ground signal can lead to 4 routes) it would have needed at least 30. The downside of how the Southern did things is a lot of conditional locking which is tricky to do.

I posted a few details here:-

viewtopic.php?f=78&t=1537&p=14787&hilit=further+distractions#p14787

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see some photos of the Minories frame under construction, including the conditional locks. As Colin mentioned, I have been doing some redesign work to enable the locking to be much more easily fitted to the society frame and these should be available via the stores shortly, though further work remains to be done.

Best wishes,

Thanks Howard,

I shall enjoy reading through this.

Looking forward to the point when I stop feeling a numbskull all the time

[Terry Bendall]

Looking forward to the point when I stop feeling a numbskull all the time

We were all in that category at one time (:D) and as time passes most of us learn about some things, and can do them and some of us learn a lot about a lot of things and can do them. For example DCC is a closed book to me and will probably stay that way. I can weather wagons fairly well but draw the line at weathering locos and coaches. Others will be expert and highly competent in both those areas. I have an interest in interlocking of lever frames but whether I get as far as designing one remains to be seen but I could probably build one that someone else has designed.

If you can build track that is reliable and wire it up, convert RTR locos and stock that run reliably and do some scenic work you are well on the way to having sufficient skills to get started. How do you get better? Practice, just like an expert musician or sports person does.

Terry Bendall

[Philip Hall]

Tim, we are all still learning. I feel the same way about DCC as Terry and the mere thought of an interlocked frame frightens me. However, I seem to be able to build track and trains quite well. Signals, well I know people who will tell me where to put them, how many I need and what they should look like. I’ve learnt enough to tell me very firmly the way I will NOT do things which is a tremendous help!

Philip

[Le Corbusier]

Terry/Phillip, I'm not concerned and appreciate your modesty ... still very much enjoying learning. But it is amazing how every time you feel understanding is dawning a whole other level pops up and blows a raspberry at you. Its all a bit like peeling an onion.

I have admired Minories ever since I sat down with Howard at Scaleforum as a very green newcomer ... but I actually had no idea what I was looking at I am just wondering how many more layers there are to peel

... And it is the same with every aspect I seem to look at - and there are a fair few I haven't even got to yet.

Still it keeps one humble and I don't expect to be able to master everything ... just hopefully avoid the more glaring cock ups

[Noel]

I am just wondering how many more layers there are to peel

As many as you want really. Keeping your mind active is good for you, and even more important as you get older, according to the professionals. It doesn't even have to be limited to railways - because I'm interested in railways of the late 1950s, both real and in model form, I've looked at railway and street advertising posters; contemporary paint colours; military and civilian road vehicles of the era [the former of which, at least, often travelled by rail]; contemporary buses [the competition!]; and some of the socio-economic background of the period [which I lived through as a child]. I don't suppose that I am unique in this. It all depends where your interests take you.