Layout Progress

This week's post has two angles.  Firstly yesterday was Club meeting day at Brendale.  A few of us met at the Clubrooms and progressed the Club HO layout.  During the week the layout co-ordinator picked up 3 sheets of 2400 x 1200 12mm 5 ply from our local supplier - Janden Timbers.  We get all our wood from there and we get a good deal.  You will even see his building on our HO exhibition layout along with a few of our other favourite supporters.

Basically we cut up the sheets of ply into strips to support the track around the western wall of the HO area in the shed.  The new HO layout will be dual track and it will have two complete loops on the bottom level.  So there will be at least 4 tracks on the baseboard, two tracks at the back and two tracks at the front of the baseboard.  At the return blobs at each end, where the tracks transition from the rear to the front and vice versa - depending upon your direction of travel, we will also install a helix here to take a single track up to the top deck.  The helix will be located between the two tracks transitioning from the front to the back.  The two tracks are designated the inner and the outer.  So we cut out various radius curves with my jigsaw - at 1200mm radius for the outer track, 1100 for the helix track and 1000 for the inner.  While we were cutting, some bright spark suggested that we could potentially put a passing loop on the inner at this point.  As it will be mostly obscured from view, as it will be within the structure containing the helix, it is no more effort to cut the baseboard wide enough to take two tracks - so we did. 

I didn't take any photos, but a few of the other members did.  I expect that they will post them somewhere, so I will post them on my blog when I can get a copy. 

This photo was taken by PK.  It shows some of the workers cutting out some curved baseboards.  Darryl is adding some additional internal storage to the HO trailer for our new lighting system.

This photo was taken by PK.  He just yelled out, so I looked up.  On the right of the photo in the shed is the old HO layout.  On the left in the front modules of our HO exhibition layout with the new lighting installed.

Next meeting day, we will get another three sheets of 5 ply and cut out some more baseboards for the corner from the western wall then along the southern wall.  The southern wall will incorporate a rather large station with dock sidingc for various outline modellers to run CPH's, 620/720 railmotors, Brittish DMU's, and auto trains from the UK as well.  It will also contain passing sidinsg and will be located on the front pair of tracks.  The platforms will be at least 2.7m long, maybe 3m.  We may have the rear tracks raised at this location and incorporate then into the same scenery, so the station complex may span two levels on the same baseboard.

I think everyone was happy with the progress that we made yesterday.  If we were to lay a few lengths of track on top of the baseboards, all the membres will see what we are planning.  Some members just cannot visualise what we are trying to achieve just by looking at the plans that we have put together.

Today I got down to my shed for two hours this arvo.  I continued soldering droppers from the track on the branch to the track bus that was running from Lismore to Murwillumbah.  I ran out of bus wire.  I installed a few more droppers in Murwillumbah, but I have no wire to add them too yet - that is next week's task.  I also started adding droppers from Lismore south back to Old Cassino.  Again no more bus wire left, so that is also a task for next Saturday after I pick up some more wire from Jaycar.

I also cut in the NCE EB1 for the first section that runs from Grafton Yard to Cassino.  I started installing more dropper within Cassino, but could not get motivated to splice then into the existing bus line.  Again, another job for next Saturday.

During the week I popped down to the shed for 5 minutes one night to check out why the NCE EB1 was not working correctly for the Old Cassino to Murwillumbah section.  While the EB1 was set at 2.5 Amps, the meter was reading it pulling 3.5 Amps when I was shorting the track and the EB1 was not doing its job.  I hypothesised that there was another connection to the section by passing the EB1.  So I jumped under the layout and followed the two wires that I had previously thought went to the top deck of the layout near Border Loop and descovered that they went to Murwillumbah - Whoops!  So I disconnected them and shorted the Branch section again, and magic happened.  That area stopped, but the rest of the layout continued to operate.  Today after installing the EB1 for the first section I tested it and again magic happened.  Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

On Tuesday night, we had a get together at Peter's place.  We were making plans for travelling to the Armidale Convention in November.  Darren and Geoff are going together, and it looks almost certain that I will be going with Peter.  There is a chance that a couple more from our Club will also be attending.  I just need to save up for petrol money, accommodation costs, drinking money, hobby purchases and Convention fees.  This sort of stuff will keep a guy poor. 

Last weekend I purchased a weathered candy 80 Class on ebay.  I just couldn't resist.  I would love a Jumbo but refuse to pay big dollars for one, that is why I puchased the 80 class.  The boss picked it up from the post office on Friday.  I test ran it and it was very noisy.  A bit of an oil, and by Friday night it was decodered and I had 4 LED's installed, front headlight, rear headlight, and lights for the two cabs controlled by function key 1 and 2.  It is as quiet as a mouse now.  Bring on next weekend!