Having got Cramdin's first show out of the way back in March my thoughts immediately turned to the follow-on project. In fact I had been thinking about well before March and had been doing sundry experiments for months There doesn't seem to be any reason to extend Cramdin any further and over on that "other forum" (RMWeb) they have a 2010 challenge running to mark the forum's 5th birthday. Unfortunately I've never been able to pass up a challenge! Well it would be rude not to have a go.
Time for a little foray into 2mm N gauge I think. I've acquired a few bits of stock so I need something to run them on. That's my excuse anyway. the setting is somewhere in the Midlands and it is based on a location well known to many train spotters, Water Orton. As ever the name, Waton, is silly being a compression of Water Orton just as the track plan is compressed. In addition it has 5 letters and every reference/inclusion of 5 in the entry can add points to the score!
Era is present day(ish). Here's an early draft track plan created in Trax2:
All routes end in cassette storage and I think this is comfortably less than 2010 square inches which one of the rules of the competition. Should be able to run a train of 3ft or so which is not wonderful but probably adequate.
I have little experience of N gauge so I felt I needed to see what the track plan would look like full size. A one foot wide baseboard sounds awfully narrow so I was concerned it won't really work. I laid out the basic plan in Trax2 and refined it a little so I set up to print out a set of templates for the scenic area, pretty much the entire 10 foot length. The resulting umpteen sheets of A4 were stuck together with sticky tape and laid out on the kitchen floor. Well it certainly took up a fair amount of the kitchen but it also looked quite interesting.
I did some experiments with track construction. I tried the Peco code 55 track but found the running less than wonderful and didn't like the look of it at all. Consequently I joined the 2mm Society and ordered up some of their track components. I've built track using copperclad sleepers and bullhead rail before, in fact all the turnouts on Cramdin are constructed in this manner. This time though it's flat bottom rail and in N!
Knocked together a rough section of straight(ish) track then painted and ballasted it. I'm trying to get the effect of concrete sleepers and this experiment didn't really work. The ballast colour is yuk as well!
You'll have to forgive the fact that the rail alignment with the sleepers is out, it was a rush job! Doesn't look too bad with a train on it.
Also had a crack at some pointwork. The soldering looks pretty crude doesn't it?
This stuff is seriously small though especially for someone who really isn't good at precision
The plain track is code 40 rail laid to 2mm finescale gauge but the pointwork is adjusted to allow use with unmodified RTR N gauge stock. Well that's the plan anyway.
The point is actually one of a pair of B6 righthanders forming a facing crossing. The other half of the crossover was built and I added temporary tiebars so I could test things and amazingly stock seemed to run through very smoothly in all directions. I didn't do a complete electrical test as I didn't have connections to the frogs but locos seemed to amble around OK. Bit surprised to be honest.
Following on from comments I made some modifications to the wing and check rails on the first point to make them look more like planed rail rather than the bends that are seen in bullhead turnouts. The modifications are partially successful but I suspect I may replace the check rails completely. The second turnout has no bends in either wing or check rails and they have just planed ends. The check rails should have more of a curved profile but that is tricky in this scale (at least for me it is).
You can just about see the difference in the shot below.
The flangeway gaps are a little larger than I would like especially on the curved routes. I have been able to tighten these up with a few more small adjustments on subsequent efforts. From a normal viewing distance the gaps are not so obvious and things improve with paint and ballast. Here is an extreme close up which is pretty cruel. I'm going to have to improve my macro camera technique if I'm going to work in this scale!
A couple of days were taken up in building baseboards. The scenic boards measure 10 feet by 14 inches which I calculate as 1680 square inches leaving just enough for cassettes.
Here's the set of 4 boards with sundry weights and clamps still in place.
The construction follows my normal practices i.e. it's crude. Basically it's an open framework of 5.5 mm ply with softwood blocks glued and pinned at the corners. Cross bracing, if you can call it that, is at approximately 12 inch intervals. The end plates are a double skin of 5.5mm ply, to allow mounting of alignment dowels, with a softwood batten across the top to allow brass screws to be inserted to which rail ends will be soldered.
The track bed is more 5.5mm ply raised about 11mm above the framework surface to allow some more interesting topology and to improve the view of the trains for those who are vertically challenged or seated. There are 4 baseboards, two 3ft long and two 2ft long. These will be bolted together face to face using MDF end boards for transportation/storage.
Here's a closer view. Those of a delicate disposition or competent in woodwork should probably look away at this point!
Of course nothing is straight or square but that's normal for me. Lots to do...
Cheers
Dave
It really looks very good.