Micro layout in O-16.5

[PinkNosedPenguin]

As I haven't run (played) trains for a while I just made a short video
https://youtu.be/gqKHXW6Z2SI

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Time to connect up my two servos .

1. The Point
The servo was installed under the baseboard, using a Dingo universal mount beneath the rather strange little mechanism that this Fleischmann point uses:


Part of a paper clip was used as an 'actuator arm' passing up through a small cut in the board into a hole drilled through the point operating lever on the side of the point:


In my previous N gauge layout I used Peco points and it was a simple matter to remove the spring to achieve a slow switching motion - I used Cobalt motors. I also used a switch on the Cobalt to power the point frog with the appropriate polarity. But with this point I decided to do it much simpler! It is an insulfrog point after all . Hence the spring action is retained, and my locos (with their stay-alives) have no problem traversing the dead frog without hesitation. But one major improvement with the servo is that is lovely and quiet! And cheap (£2.50). The Cobalts were extremely noisy. And expensive. And a couple were so unreliable they had to be sent back!

Here is a short video of the point being switched:
https://youtu.be/pbWcb8vOBug

2. The uncoupler
For this I cut a small rectangle of perspex and attached it the end of another paperclip, which is then passed down through the baseboard to another servo - seen here at the bottom:


The perspex is quite unobtrusive on the track - esp when I get around to ballasting:


These side views show it in rest (lowered) position and raised:



And again a short video to show it in action:
https://youtu.be/YTdHRrfw80I


Finally here is another video of a little shunting manoeuver
https://youtu.be/Ldjx7k_wGco

Thanks for reading/watching

[Raboliot]

[Daniel]

Excellent!!!

Daniel

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Thankyou

Next up is planning for the warehouses on this second side of the layout . . .

So far I have mocked up three buildings in card (from left to right in the photos):

1. a way to hide the track exit = opening doors into a warehouse
2. a more complex shaped building with an overhang into which goods can be winched up from a (road) truck below
3. a building with large openings and an outside winch

I'll probably build these before working out what to place to their right, so that I know exactly how much space there'll be to play with for something to disguise the tracks exiting from that side.




So, fun times ahead, constructing this little lot

[Mountain]

You could do with a waggon turntable near the end of the siding and a track leading off it to go under the buildings.

[PinkNosedPenguin]

You could do with a waggon turntable near the end of the siding and a track leading off it to go under the buildings.

In an ideal world, yes probably - but my siding ends in a radius 0 curve so not practical unfortunately. This is a micro layout and I am tight on space . . .

[Daniel]

Juts my opinion but the temptation to ad stuff pushing the limits often works to the detriment of the harmony wich is THE essential for a minilayout.
In other words: pushing the limits means creating a tension. If one manage to make clever use of that tension it will work. But is easier to say it than to do it.

Daniel

[Mountain]

You could do with a waggon turntable near the end of the siding and a track leading off it to go under the buildings.

In an ideal world, yes probably - but my siding ends in a radius 0 curve so not practical unfortunately. This is a micro layout and I am tight on space . . .

Some narrow gauge railways would bring a track close and use little over-rail metal things to be able for waggons to go from one track to the other. Not sure what they are called. (Daniel. You might know what I mean). If the additional siding is made of much lighter rail sections (E.g. code 75) it can give a pleasing effect.

[Daniel]

May be you mean a portable point.
The photo shows a rough set-up just to give an idea.
The one in the photo is a Decauville.
Orenstein & Koppel produced their own version which was not built with rail but with pressed steel plates.

P1120881 (2) by Daniel Osvaldo Caso, on Flickr

P1120884 (2) by Daniel Osvaldo Caso, on Flickr


Pages 9-11 of the O&K catalogue shows another way:

http://www.samlingsportalen.se/digitalt ... ar_web.pdf

I am trying to find some image of the O&K steel plate ones.

But the main thing is: railways were and are all about systematization. Narrow gauge was and remains all about improvisation. the narrower the gauge, the greater the degree of improvisation.


Daniel

[Mountain]

Not quite but kind of similar. There is an example in the catalogue. I still don't know what they are called! Haha.

[Daniel]

Neither do I so I propose we call it George.

:- )

Daniel

[Mountain]

Someone on another site gave me this link.


http://www.penmorfa.com/Slate/trackwork.html

The second picture down shows the type of thing that I mean.

[Daniel]

A very interesting one.
You are at the NGRM so you may know Tim Williams and his slate layouts full of such things and, of course, inclines.

Daniel

[Chops]

Such an amazing detail. Never seen the like of it my life, but it tells its story immediately. One of my favorite
micro layouts.