I was just been browsing the various forums, as you do when you've nowt better to do, :lol: and I was looking at the exhibition calendar on the 009 website and got a real shock.
Some where in the back of my mind I thought that the imminent East Midlands Groups exhibition was jangling warning bells. I normally visit this exhibition because it is reasonably near where I live, and Roger Budd the co-organiser, visits our 009 Yorkshire group meetings near Doncaster occasionally, usually looking for willing modellers prepared to travel to Mansfield with there layout, my last visit was to exhibit Knottworthy, although of course this is an 0/16.5, 7mm narrow gauge layout.
Any way, I must have promised Roger that I would bring my 009 Rabbit layout to the show, now as some of you might know, I have been engrossed in the Knottworthy alterations since its visit to the Pudsey show with a friend from the 009 group who came along to help me on the day, he jokingly pointed out several disparities in the running of the Knottworthy layout, ie. it had very little operator interest really, hence my acceptance of his criticism prompting the ongoing alterations now underway to the Knottworthy layout.
Some years back, I once promised Roger that I would take a layout to the Mansfield show, this would have been with Glen Ogle. I had to cry off because of one of my many visits to hospital for something or other, and I while convalescing, I subsequently gave the layout away, thinking I would never be in a position to venture onto the exhibition circuit in the near future, so no one ever did see it in the flesh so to speak. When I read that Brian Twigg was going to show his UNAMED 009 layout in the pre show blurb on the 009 events page, I was in a real panic.
The layout has languished in my garage for the last four or five years as I worked on Glen Ogle and then Knottworthy, and as such, has suffered from building damage, which I knew about, but I thought I had only to connect the electrics back up so it ran, then sort out the building's and scenery to be able to take it to Mansfield's Portland College.
The layout in its present state, most of the scenery buildings have suffered damage, these have been removed for some TLC except thankfully, not the two station buildings.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4530_zpsehkf2acv.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4530_zpsehkf2acv.jpg.html)
The Rabbit layout was built to please my at the time, very young Grandson, and over a period of time, had many additions to the simple concept of a train bobbing in and out of tunnels as it perambulated around.
I added many little electrical gimmicks to keep him amused, as you do, if you can, so powering it back up, especially as I have not operated it for a considerable period of time, I suppose was never going to be as simple as I thought.
So I ambled into my garage to do the electrical work in powering it up, and oh boy, did I get a shock:
The rear view of the layout showing some of the controls fixed to the back scene.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4533_zpsnzwmwchy.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4533_zpsnzwmwchy.jpg.html)
Unlike my present work, the rabbit layout is all analogue controlled, with electric points, a working wind mill. working lock gates on the canal, automatic train stop and start from a hidden siding, as one came off scene it released a stored one to replace it, there is also a double auto train stop start timer from off scene into the station, which when activated, changed the points from the two hidden sidings onto the main circuit and then off the main circuit and into the station bay platform, plus several automatic colour light signals scattered about.
A view of the whole of the rear of the layout.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4534_zps19qctlfy.jpg)[/
The control panel is a pull out slide drawer on the front of the layout with lots of LED's, outlining the track diagram, point switches, section switches and gismo control switches, all connected with multicore cables to allow the drawer to slide in and out of its hidey hole.
The control panel of the layout which slides into a drawer out of the way.
[URL=http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4531_zpsgwkvqkra.jpg.html](https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4531_zpsgwkvqkra.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4534_zps19qctlfy.jpg.html)
The electric for all this was fed to the base board via an eight way Din plug and socket, from a home made power source with triple transformers, rectifiers and CDU capacitors, for the various voltages, AC or DC as required at various voltages.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4536_zpsuj97r8qk.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4536_zpsuj97r8qk.jpg.html)
This power source has been altered, probably for Glen Ogle in its early build days, when that too was going to be analogue, and is no longer exactly as required for the rabbit layout, and I am puzzled why I used an eight way DIN plug, as potentially, only six wires would have been required from the triple power source enclosure.
So I have to check the wiring to find out what does what, and as usual, most of the wiring is under the base board except for the relays, timing module and some other bits which are accessible as they are mounted on the layouts back scene board, the base board is only 4' x 2' (1220 x 600mm) so is not particularly heavy, I had a quick peak underneath to see what's what, shuddered and lowered it quickly back onto its trestle stand.
This was why I shuddered, the underside of the base board.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4535_zpsoiokflcq.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4535_zpsoiokflcq.jpg.html)
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4537_zpswbn5pcej.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4537_zpswbn5pcej.jpg.html)
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4538_zpsy43ac5gh.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4538_zpsy43ac5gh.jpg.html)
There is a lot of work involved in wire tracing and power supply modifications required before the first train is able to run on the layout, and that is without all the scenery repairs to do. WHOOPEE, I've got four weeks to the show, so any help would be appreciated.
Onward and upwards as they say.
Regards
BrianT.
I have decided to call the unnamed rabbit layout "Burrowby Underhill", so any future postings will be under the new name ;D.
Regards,
BrianT.
Quote from: gtmspyder on May 31, 2019, 19:49
The rear view of the layout showing some of the controls fixed to the back scene.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4533_zpsnzwmwchy.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4533_zpsnzwmwchy.jpg.html)
Regards
BrianT.
I recommend that you sort out that rail joint on the curve.
If you have used flexi-track it is best to pre-bend the rail, but it may be too late for that now.
If it is set-track replace that section with a new one.
If you have a nice solid wood track bed you could screw in a brass screw and solder the rail to that to stop it springing out of place.
Brian Meldon
Thank you Brian, as soon as there is any likelihood of getting anything running anytime soon, ::) I will attend to it.
Just part of the joys of bringing an old misused layout back to life.
Kind regards,
BrianT.
Just an update on my efforts to resurrect what is now called "Burrowby Underhill", a 10 or so year old 009 Rabbit layout that is destined for the East Midlands show at the Portland College, Mansfield in early July 2019 if I am able to get it working again.
This has lain dormant in my garage for the past 7 years when my now 13 year old Grandson lost interest in it and I moved onto building the 009 "Glen Ogle layout".
I have shown pictures of the layout in the earlier post, and a description of the model with the recent pictures I have displayed in the post, and I'm afraid I am having difficulties coming to terms with my memory, lack of mobility and dexterity.
Over the last few days I have spent MANY hours working on the layout, with limited success.
I rebuilt the power box back to its former design which gives me three outputs of 13.5V AC for the controller feed, a 20.5V DC for the point motor power, and a variable 2 to 20V AC/DC output depending whether I connect a rectifier for whatever else I might wish to have a supply to, the output cable was changed from an 8 pin DIN plug to a 6 way DIN on 6 core cable, why I had fitted an 8 way DIN plug onto the 6 way cable I've no idea.
I have changed the 8 way DIN socket input to the layout back to a 6 way DIN socket, identified the wiring to the hand held controller which has a 4 way DIN socket mounted on the base board to match the 4 way DIN plug wired to the hand held controller I will be using.
I have located the track feeds around the layout, a relatively easy job as these were red and black from a ring main around the base board with regular feeds off to the track as track feeds, and managed to get a loco moving around the track, with difficulty as the track was filthy, and there were two in tunnel sections I could not get to where the loco repeatedly stalled and had to be rescued with a patent Ne-odium magnet on a stick, which picked up the loco chassis I was using as a test vehicle and retrieved from the depths of the two tunnels it kept stalling in.
There was also one point just inside one of the other tunnels where it was easy to get my hand in where the test loco would leave the track for some unknown reason, this was easily retrieved without the magnet, but whatever was troubling the loco, I knew would be difficult to sort out because of the restricted access.
I had identified the point feeds, and directed the 20V wiring to them, but the power was insufficient to move several points together, so I had fitted a Capacitor Discharge Unit to give more oomph, and this was no longer working, time constraints were against me building another one, so a quick scan of Ebay located a suitable replacement which I have ordered, and should have been here today Friday 07/06/19, but it has not yet arrived, so I could not test the points, so the test train can only traverse the circuit that the points were left in when last used several years ago.
So thwarted with that bit of revival work, I thought I would cut access holes to allow me to clean the in tunnel track, and a smaller access hole at he side of the sometimes loco chucking off point so that I could tweak whatever was causing the problem, so this little job got under way. A big oblong was marked out on the backscene panel adjacent to the two dirty track sections, and a smaller access hole was marked out at the side of the errant point. To cut the panels out, I drilled a hole at each corner of the two oblongs, to accept my Jigsaw's blade and proceeded to cut the out, the first larger cut-out was made without a hitch, but the second smaller cut-out was a more difficult cut because it was between two decks of the rising trackwork little more the 3 inches, enough I thought to be able to tweak whatever was occasionally troubling the loco as it crossed the point. So holes drilled and Jigsaw blade inserted and the cut was under way, then there was a nasty bump from the Jigsaw, the reciprocating blade had hit the side of the point I was trying to gain access too, and more or less, completely destroyed it.
This meant that what was to be a relatively minor tweak to an errant point, had now become a wholesale removal and replacement job. Now as I'm sure some of you will have had to replace an already fixed point at some time, you will know the difficulties in extracting the point from between the three fixed lengths of track. and replacing it with another point. This was also exacerbated by the fact that between decks the space was only 3 inches, the two out put tracks from the errant point were on a tight rising curved area of baseboard, and I had used set track as it was out of sight of viewers, and because of all the unnecessary, in hindsight electrics, had two reed switches imbedded between the two curved sections of track rails, a section switch cuts slicing through one rail and switched feed wires soldered to the live feed rails, meaning that as well as the usual pin fixings that held the rails in place, there were six through baseboard wires going back to the control panel. The just out of tunnel mouth toe end of the point rail also had section cuts and a reed switch as it curved into the lower station, this time on flexi track, adding 3 more through the base board wires.
To lift the track sufficient to be able to part the joints sufficiently for the damaged point to be replaced, meant that all these nine wires had to be cut, I had left a little slack in the wires below the base board, but not really enough to allow the track to be moved sufficiently to part the rail sections, so snip snip with the side cutters, and at last, the joints could be parted and the new point put into place.
There were several other obstacles that arose during this upheaval that I had to overcome, but I've gone on long enough to warn anyone contemplating replacing an in situ point, to look at the likely pitfalls.
So the track work was reinstated, I decided to abandon the reed switch wire reconnections as these only lit up an LED indicating where a loco was passing, the dead sections were now through tracks until I cut the rails sections again, the dirty track had been cleaned in the two tunnels, there were sufficient feeds else where to feed the track, so I had not yet reinstated the other track feeds I had cut, so I now could try a test train around the complete layout apart from the unpowered points, zilch, no movement from the test loco, and the controller overload was clicking in and out, indicating I had a dead short some where in the circuit. Clearly, I needed to cut the rails again to reinstate the sections.
To be continued later, its 9 am, today 08/06/19, and I am about to travel to Burton on Trent to the 7mm Narrow gauge annual exhibition, so I will save this now and resume sometime later
Regards,
BrianT
Wow - please keep us updated. Good luck!
Good morning each, we are now on Monday 10/06/19, and I spent most of yesterday, ripping out ALL of the original wiring from Barrowby, pictures later.
I have had to admit I have been defeated by my own technology, I just couldn't remember what all the wiring did to be able to modify it, I was spending too much time trying to trace the wires, so snip snip time wholesale, and I am now re-wiring, but in a very basic way, no LED's, No wind mill , no waterwheel, no timed shuttle train into the bay platform, and as yet, no delivery of the new CDU to be able to operate the dammed points.
So, just an ability to circulate trains and switch the points, hope fully.
Regards and dejected in defeat,
BrianT.
I find this an interesting thread as I'm about to embark on a layout combining standard and narrow gauge on the same board and it's good to get an idea about the narrow gauge side of it. What is the minimum radius curve in narrow gauge that can be achieved as so far I've only thought about an end to end scenario?
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/63081785_2557021764349094_782535224490721280_o.jpg?_nc_cat=101&_nc_eui2=AeGbiAZthlAujRD21mVx_obvM3hnDMsn8RtuDRqUP3_g-6TBfs_9kE4hvb0BjUXAo7qteM5HOmWkKfjaA9F9jzad5r6bnwYkautQbHYMGaJVnw&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr3-1.xx&oh=67e1223f81c56dbb44eea8bdfc808976&oe=5D7E977C)
..moved..
Toby, perhaps it would be better to start a new thread rather than add on to this one?
Brian Meldon
Hello Toby, thank you for your interest in my posts, but right at this moment in time, I really am not the person to be able to answer your question.
If you have followed the thread to this point, you will have seen that I am in a great deal of difficulty trying to full fill a promise to a show organiser to exhibit a layout that has not run for at least eight years, maybe more, and I am having many obstacles put in my way by some sort of jinx, aided by my mobility to move around the layout, and my memory loss.
For instance, one of the problems was that the points would not operate, the capacitor discharge unit appears to have packed up, and because of time constraints, I ordered a new one off EBAY. It arrived last Saturday the 8th, three days after it was supposed to, and I was out at postal delivery time. Now normally our postman, if he cannot get an item through my letterbox, will hide it somewhere and leave me a note, but, Sods law, the regular postie was not on, and his replacement pushed the none delivery note through my post box, but bent it and it did not come right through, and I did not spot it until Monday, 10th. But instead of being the usual red one, this one was white, and told me that it could not be delivered as the wrong postal charge had been applied, and I owed them
Quote from: B.Meldon on June 12, 2019, 15:07
Toby, perhaps it would be better to start a new thread rather than add on to this one?
Brian Meldon
Cheers. Done that
As you will have read in previous posts, I am having difficulties trying to resurrect an old unnamed Rabbit layout, which I have now called "Burrowby Underhill".
This has resulted in me ripping out the plethora of wiring that originally successfully made it work, so to visually re-cap, here are some pictures of the layout and its attendant wiring, before my frustrated attack with my side cutters, and after.
A view of the layout, as brought out of my garage, where it had been used as a shelf for the past eleven years, with several of the partially damaged buildings removed in readiness of some TLC. The working windmill, the working water wheel mill, the working lock gates, and the working colour light signals. The track plan on a pull out drawer had all the point toggle switches with there large chrome industrial master push button firing switch, each point had a red/green LED showing the direction of travel, and the rest of the LED's showed sections which could be switched on or off with red/green LED's, and the travel of the train was indicated on the plan by green LED's operated by in track reed switches as the train perambulated around the track. Out of site was a long stretch of track that ran along the rear length of the layout, divided into three isolated sections to hold three separate trains, as one train came out, the other two followed up into the released, sections making room for a circulating train to pull into the newly released section to the rear. This was indicated on the track diagram by three push to make switches and three red/green diodes.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4530_zpsehkf2acv.jpg) (https://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4530_zpsehkf2acv.jpg.html)
A closer look at the pull out control panel.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4531_zpsgwkvqkra.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4531_zpsgwkvqkra.jpg.html)
The single spur in the centre of the control panel, eventually became a double spur out of site under the scenery to hold two further trains off scene. This was controlled by an electronic timing unit that selected a train, set the point for it and brought it out, changing a point to bring it onto the main circulating line for a short way ,and changing another point to direct it into a bay platform at the lower station, this is not being shown on the track diagram as it was probably the last of many additions I made to the layout to amuse my Grandson. While all this was going on a further train would be circulating the layout completely unaffected, would pass through the lower station, and when it had cleared the section, a timer would kick in and reverse the whole procedure to park this loco off scene, and reset the track for the circulating loco for when it returns.
The timer and relay that did all the above jiggery-pokery, picture below.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4533_zpsnzwmwchy.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4533_zpsnzwmwchy.jpg.html)
The three train storage track running along the rear lower deck of the layout.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4534_zps19qctlfy.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4534_zps19qctlfy.jpg.html)
The underside of the layout showing the original wiring, before its wholesale removal as I was getting nowhere fast.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4537_zpswbn5pcej.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4537_zpswbn5pcej.jpg.html)
And this is the wiring after the snip snip exercise.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4547_zpsqvk2okg4.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4547_zpsqvk2okg4.jpg.html)
The new wiring replacing the original the green and white sleeving carries the new point wiring of green, yellow and blue common, the red wires are the new wiring to connect the control panel section switches to the track sections.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4545_zpsdeofkd7r.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4545_zpsdeofkd7r.jpg.html)
The new CDU that I purchased to replace the old original one, the new unit does not work when I connected it into the wiring.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4543_zpsh4rqrh7p.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4543_zpsh4rqrh7p.jpg.html)
The inside of the underside of the track diagram before the snip snip moment.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4539_zpsekxotfdt.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4539_zpsekxotfdt.jpg.html)
The underside of the track diagram after the wholesale clear out of surplus wiring.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4540_zpslwaii7hf.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4540_zpslwaii7hf.jpg.html)
There have been several setbacks during this attempt to resurrect the layout, and I have really struggled, but the final straw for me, was the purchase of a new CDU, that when connected, does not work the points, and I have given up the struggle and called it a day with Burrowby Underhill.
I will be at the east Midlands show at the Portland College, Mansfield, thanks to the kind offer from a fellow 009 member, Mr John Andrews, who has offered me the loan of one of his layouts, and who I hope will accompany me to Mansfield to receive due credit for what is a very nice little layout, which will give pleasure to the viewers, and enable me to honour my commitment to Roger Bugg, by filling the gap allocated to Burrowby Underhill on the day.
Kind regards to all the people who have offered support and encouragement over the last few days, but enough is enough.
BrianT.
Oh, I did not see this coming. Hard luck.
What are the lessons learned from the overall challenge? Improved wire labeling?
Quote from: Tom Haythornthwaite on June 14, 2019, 10:24
Oh, I did not see this coming. Hard luck.
What are the lessons learned from the overall challenge? Improved wire labeling?
Or 'keep it simple' perhaps??
Brian Meldon
It's nice to see that even after all my trials and tribulations members are still following my angst.
Yes Tom, better labelling might have helped, but it would have had to be very comprehensive, and even then, really the only solution to this number of eventual wires would be a proper professional type circuit diagram, which I was well able to produce at the time this layout was conceived, but we are talking about an at the time simple layout for a three year old Grandson, the woodwork to produce the layout being far more complex, than the original electrics.
Keeping it simple Brian was the concept of the original idea, the three year old had simply to turn the control knob, a train would set off, and almost immediately disappear, where's it gone Granpa, and the squeals of delight as it appears from a totally different direction and so on. A press of a button, quickly learned, and lo and behold, a second train would appear.
But children quickly learn, and my three year old was definitely no slouch, as he has gone on to prove over his advancing school years, and so more and more gadgets and train movements were required to hold his attention and continue to delight.
This layout was a toy, one of many I have made him over the years, it was never intended to be other than a short term solution to filling his playtime hours when he visited us, this it did before being discarded and relegated to the depth of my garage, while I concentrated on at fist Glen Ogle and now the radio controlled Knottworthy Magna in 0/16.5, 7mm narrow gauge.
Hindsight is a wonderful attribute, but the lack of that, as well as memory and mobility loss, is where I am today.
Kind regards, I will be at Mansfield on the 13th of July, but not with Burrowby Underhill, a kind member of the 009 Yorkshire Group has offered me a layout to take to the show, and permit me to honour the promise I made.
BrianT.
As some of you who read the other forum may know, a very kind member of my 009 members group, the South Yorkshire group, Mr John Andrews, offered me the loan of an old 009 layout of his, when I failed to get Burrowby Underwood back upto scratch in time to fulfil a Promise to Roger Bugg of the east Midlands 009 group, to take a layout down to Portland College in Mansfield, for the annual East Midlands narrow gauge show on the 13th of July, 2019.
John calls this little layout a decorated test track, but when he demonstrated it to me, I was very pleased to find that it is a very nicely done test track, that only required a quick wash and brush up, to be up and running, so I gratefully accepted his kind offer and brought it home with me, and for the last few days, I have been beavering away getting it into an exhibtionable state.
The layout has now been ballasted, the points have the switch blades of the dead frog points now polarity wired back to seven DPC over slide switches, grouped and mounted on a plate of Opel Perspex, with the operating slide dollies drilled to accept a piano wire operating rod, running in Nylon tubing, when the supplier gets his/her finger out and finally delivers the tubing. >:(
The Gaugemaster controller feed wires have been altered slightly to accept a double pole Mono plug and socket for ease of setting up.
The holes to accept the Nylon tubing have been drilled ready for the tubing runs, to take them below the baseboard. This was done using a 300 x 4mm home made drill to be able to drill through the existing baseboard and scenery at a very slight angle to keep the tubing as flat as possible between switch and point tie bar, only time will tell whether I have been successful in this work.
The scenery has been refreshed with new scatter materials.
Several of my analogue 009 loco's and rolling stock have been test run around the layout, and the local population has had an increase in numbers.
All I have to do now is await the arrival of the Nylon tubing, fit it and hope that the test operation of the switch/point changeover dollies operate the points as intended, no pressure there then? :laugh:
Regards,
BrianT.
Well the Nylon tubing arrived today, just as I was leaving to visit our local hospital for my prostate check, so I couldn't try it out with my piano wire I'd had for years, I've no idea why I nought it in the now very dim and dark past.
I had bought the Nylon tubing from Ebay, from a pneumatic supplier, a lot cheaper than the Mercontrol supplier for point operation.
Having seen the Urology consultant, I was not particularly bothered about getting back to railway modelling, it was not good news.
Any way, I have now got back into the swing of things. the 1/8th Nylon tubing was ok for the purpose. and I'm now busy trying to fit the tubing and piano wire in place to operate the points, and it is not as easy as running a few wires and point motors!!!
Relatively easy on a dead straight run between switch and point, but on a finished layout, and with a centralised point operating position, as you would or could with electrics, not so easy at all.
Anyone who uses this method to switch points on their layouts, will have by now realised that I have never used wire and tubing unti now, but I am getting there, sslllooowwwwlllly. ::)
Regards.
BrianT
It's been a while since I updated you, so here are a few pictures of the current state of the loan layout from John Andrews, that is going to the Portland College, Mansfield, for the east Midland 009 Narrow Gauge exhibition.
The layout is a simple roundy roundy, with a passing loops to the front and rear, an engine shed road off to the front left, and a goods storage road off to the right.
So, simple to operate, with ample room to hold at least three made up trains.
John gave me permission to do more or less what I liked with it, as he had built it more as a test track than a layout.
The scenery he had installed was a little tired, and the track had never been ballasted, the dead frog points were all digitally operated, ie you pushed them with whichever digit was nearest to the tie bar.
This worked perfectly well when John dragged it down from his loft to demonstrate it to me, and he was happy to let me bring it home with me.
The little layout after I had freshened up the scenery and ballasted it.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4551_zpsfsyv09t6.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4551_zpsfsyv09t6.jpg.html)
The black base patches are where John's scenic buildings sit, which are still packed away in my garage just as John
packed them for me to take away.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4552_zpswn8jyabp.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4552_zpswn8jyabp.jpg.html)
My wife bless her, was not so happy, as my garage now housed three railways, and sundry quite large wooden toys I had made my grandson ,over his thirteen years of existence.
One bright red half size all electric Land Rover, a 20 note Barrel Organ built in a stage proscenium arch setting, a Ukulele, three Violins and a Viola for my children when they were in the Rotherham Youth Orchestra during their later school years, and sundry small wooden models of various things.
The three layouts were my 7mm 0.16.5 narrow gauge Knottworthy Magna layout, the 009 Burrowby Underhill, rabbit layout I had made for my three or four year old grandson at the time, and which gave me so much trouble trying to resurrect it after seven or eight years lying unused in my garage, and John's 009 continental swimming pool spa, who's name I have already forgotten.
In mitigation, I have just been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, and Thursday, the 27th of June was our 60th Wedding Anniversary, so she was treating me gently, and I think I've got away without too much aggro.
My postings have shown the problems I have had with the Burrowby layout, mainly due to my ever poorer memory, and my complicated wiring, so with a new layout to play with from John, I set about doing a little refurbishment.
The scenery and ballasting were soon done, and I wondered what else I could do to make the layout less vulnerable to glitches and fingerpokening.
I was wary of the dead frog points, which relied on the side contact of the switch blades to make electrical contact, so I wired the crossings similar to live frog points.
This required each point to have a selector switch to alter the polarity of the point crossing, and so I thought I would use wire in tube to move the point blades and switch the crossing polarity, a method that I hade never used before.
Because I am used to wiring things up, I made a bank of seven DPCO slide switches into a control panel mounted centrally at the rear of the layout, I had to make a 300mm x 4mm drill to be able to drill for the Nylon tubing below the existing scenery and baseboard at an angle, it all seemed simple enough at the time.
When I fitted the Nylon tubing and enclosed piano wire in place, bent the ends of the piano wire and attached it to each tie bar and appropriate labelled switch, and found out that really, this was not the way to use wire in tube operation.
I had clipped all the tubes in nice gentle loops where I could not get a straight run using Burglar alarm wiring staples, from my time of helping friends, by installing burglar alarms for them. and it all looked very neat and shipshape. All the switch wiring was run to the frog positions using multicore alarm cable back to the DPCO switches, BUT, it did not work.
Not because the tube & wire was too stiff due to the bends, but because there was insufficient movement in the slide switch dollies, to take up the slack in the operating tubes.
The underside of the layout showing all the wire in tube runs, and the frog to switch cabling. The switch panel is over the central baseboard support, all the cables and the wire tubes are clipped to the baseboard with Burglar Alarm cable staples.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4548_zps4jlg7vac.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4548_zps4jlg7vac.jpg.html)
Some of the point blades were moving, but not all, and I could think of no way to remove the inbuilt slack in the curved push/pull operating links.
So I removed all the curved sections and just used the straight push pull sections, cut my switch mounting up, to just leave the four straight operators, but even then, the inbuilt slack made the operation unreliable, so all this was removed, and I decided to return to the digital operation of the seven point switch blades.
The mark 1 wire in tube switch block I made , cut from a seven switch operator down to a four block when I tried going back to a straight push pull operator wire configuration. And when that did not work, the MK3 switch mounting block with the DPCO slide switches changed to DPCO toggle switches, geographically placed on a track diagram.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4549_zpswbxrgx9g.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4549_zpswbxrgx9g.jpg.html)
But when I tried the layout running with fingerpoken point operation, the loco's were stopping mid point in some cases, I then realised that because I had altered the frog operation, the frogs needed to have a switched feed for the polarity.
This entailed making a second switch mounting frame, with a track diagram and the DPCO toggle switches mounted in the appropriate position on the track diagram, so I rewired the points with six core alarm cable, with the intention of putting point motors in place, but by this time, my enthusiasm was on the wain, I was constantly tired because of the new medication I had been prescribed, my limbs seemed not to want to cooperate, and I have given up on the point motors.
The under side of the layout with the latest wiring installed, with intention of fitting point motors at each point position, the seven 6 core cables will carry all the wiring from the switch panel position to each point motor, when all was finished, the points would be fed by a capacitor discharge supply using a single firing button when all the point switches had been set for the route.
The single cables dangling are wires from the earlier wiring to the frog live side, all the blacks are wired as common return. The older live side wiring will be replaced by one of the cores in all the new 6 core cable runs back to the new switches, and fed from the live side feed wire from the controller. The six core cable ends have just been left dangling until the new point motors were fitted, then they would have been connected to the appropriate point on the seep point motors and finally clipped to the baseboard. You will be able to see the grooves cut into the baseboard where the first wire in tube runs terminated at the point tie bar positions.
(https://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af229/gtmspyder/DSCF4553_zpsouhcbp6x.jpg) (http://s1010.photobucket.com/user/gtmspyder/media/DSCF4553_zpsouhcbp6x.jpg.html)
So the point operation will be fingerpoken, I will finish wiring the frogs to the switch positions with the already run cabling probably tomorrow, and hope that all will be well.at the next testing session.
We will just have to remember after the fingerpoken movement of the point switch blades, to switch the toggle switch to the correct position to change the polarity of the frog as appropriate.
Kind Regards from a very tired and chaste modeller,
BriantT