Hamdden Railway Co. 00 7'x6'

[Journeyman]

Thanks Bigmet and Buffer, the history of how Hornby worked is interesting. There is some track that still has galvanise on it but most shows no sign of it.
There are no non magnetic curves just a few straits, the most inaccessible part of the layout will be the top left in the photo that corner will be a tunnel but the hill will be quite high and I will be able to get into it from the back. I purposely made the test track from some of the worst track, it was very pitted with rust. It was cleaned up after I painted it about a month ago and wiped it down with some maintenance fluid I use for outboards so far it has stayed clean, at least the Engines still run on it .

Dave.

[Journeyman]

Back working on the railway this weekend, started by cutting lose the track bed and as you can see the glue had failed and was not holding in the middle.

Once that was re-glued I was able to set it up as a reversed grade and measure how much to cut out of the cross bracing.

The Railway Police we hired have been issued with uniforms but we have not seen them since giving them the trousers, jacket and caps, if any of them turnup on your railways can you let me know?

Dave.

[Bufferstop]

I'm intrigued by whatever they are you are using to weight down the ply, cast iron pot legs by any chance. My weights of choice are two life expired 24V drill batteries and their now defunct charger.

[Journeyman]

Hi Buffer, they are spline weights, some people call them ducks. I cast them from lead, the ones you can see weigh about 4 ½ lb each, they have leather on the bottom to keep the paper clean and to stop them sliding. They are used with drafting splines to produce fair lines when deigning boats. There are quite a lot of them in the boat shed!
As you say anything small and heavy is very useful.

Dave.

[Bufferstop]

We learn something new every day. Living on the same OS map as the centre of England the only boats I'm familiar with all have very straight lines and a very narrow beam for their length!

[Journeyman]

O yes, is that the sort that fit in alongside of railways? Very useful for a goods depot with out taking up to much room. Middle of England will have to Google that!

Quick test this morning to see if the clearances work for Lawr Isod,

well that seams OK for my highest loco so will start laying track.

Dave.

[Chops]

Very nice!

[Mountain]

I like the way that you have adapted your spirit level.

[Journeyman]

I like the way that you have adapted your spirit level.

Yes it’s known as a declivity board Mountain, use them in boat building and when laying sewer pipe etc.
Thought I would do an update of where things are at.
Have been laying cork and track, and once points and track are working I’ve glued the track down, the change in nose is very noticeable as the train transitions from the glued down to the loose track.
All the electric wiring is working including the return loop but the trains are having trouble on the old Hornby curved points. First it was the blades derailing them (Mainline
0-6-0 Tank) so I reduced the width of the blades and now it’s the frogs causing the problems.
Thought I would try a different engine (Lima 2-6-2 Tank) and that crossed successfully a few times.

148
The Lima stalled and when I reached across to give it a nudge my first thought was it’s caught up a cobweb then realised it was white smoke! Quickly turned it off and striped it to find out what had happened.
The good news is that the Lima was like new inside don’t think it had ever been taken apart and you could see the flux still on the solder joints. The Commutator was very dirty and there was a build up of dirt in the groves this had caused the one brush to short out two of the segments. Used a sharp scraper to remove the pip formed by the arc, cleaned out the groves and cleaned the faces of the commutator with rubbing compound. Then thoroughly cleaned every thing with contact cleaner which will help to stop arcing. The engine is back up and running.
While I have the tools out have decided to get another Mainline going this one was bought as a non runner and when striped was found to have screws and parts missing. It’s in quite a bad way internally so am working on getting it to run. It’s a 4-6-0 with very fancy valve gear and connecting rods and they are part of the problem.
When I get it going I’ll try it on the points it looks like front bogeys handle points better than just the driving wheels, what are your thoughts on this?

Cheers for now, Dave.

[Mountain]

If trains are going to leave the rails it will be on curved points. This is because the frog angles are shallow so the frog flange gap will be longer causing wheels to bounce in and out of the flanges. If all your stock had the same flange depth one can add a small piece of material in the bottom of the point frog flangeway to reduce the bounce as the wheel flanges will be less likely to drop down, but the chances are that like me, you run stock with both deep and shallow flanges so this can't be done. I avoided using curved points on my main running lines when I was into 00 for the reason that they were not reliable. They were deligated to sidings which were rarely used.
Those Lima motors are so nice and simple to work on which is the main reason why I like them. Some say they are slightly lumpy in slow speed running but I would rather have that and be able to easily repair the things then have something that may run ultra smoothly but if it fails and is taken apart, the chances that I can get it to runagain are slim! So I much prefer simplicity as I have a greater chance to keep them on the rails.

[Journeyman]

Cheers mountain some good thoughts.
As you suspect I have a variety of stock with all sorts of wheels and couplings and I think that the couplings could be adding to the problem.
Looking at the points there is a very long gap between the closure rails that the blades pivot on and the frog, I’m wondering if I can add to the Check rail to keep the wheel under control for longer but still leaving a gap for the wheel when going strait on.
Will have to do some measuring of wheel to corelate the diameters, flange heights, flange thickness and the tread width. Then see if any of them will run reliably.

You have a lot more experience than I do so more thoughts would be good.

As you say the Lima motors are well designed and made I like it that all the connections are soldered together which must add to the reliability.

Cheers, Dave.

[Journeyman]

So another update this time working on the points.
Bought some black plastic card and used that to pack out the points and keep the wheels under control as they transition the frogs on the curved points. This has worked well, especially with the 2-6-2 Prairie. The 0-6-0 tank still gave problems till I changed the coupling to a larger one that allowed more movement between the loco and the wagon.

Now the points are reliable I started to work on remotely operating them.
The springs to keep the point blades in place seem to be non existent so decided to make an over centre spring operating a bell crank. This way I only have to nudge the crank and it flicks over and the spring holds the points over.

The cranks are made from some steel packing strap, the holes were punched rather than drilled and the operating wires are made from 1mm Mig welding wire. The springs are made from off cuts of S/S Rigging wire. The only thing I bought to make the system was some Curtain wire to run the Mig wire through.

So far so good five points working

Dave.

[Journeyman]

Thinking about gathering up stuff for scenery, heard mention of tree moss and lichen being useful?
Could see some at the top of my two Ash Trees but I’m to ancient to climb that high.

So got out my old chain saw, (I’ve owned it 30 years and it was old when I bought it) and felled the two trees.

Now have a box of Lichen and moss, though the moss is already starting to lose it’s very bright green.

How do you use this stuff?

Dave.

[Mountain]

It will be good to see more of your point mechanisms and how they work.

Lichen. I have some myself as I go for walks and pick them up from the path after the wind has blown them down. They do eventually fade, but they last a while. Moss needs dampness to keep its colour. Lichens hold out for longer.

Best to let them stand a while in a shed, as even months after ones layout can have the odd insect come out of hibernation that one had not seen in there! I made lots of trees out of lichen in the past as a teenager and though I had keen eyes, I somehow missed a few ladybirds that ended up crawling around the layout I had in the past.

[Journeyman]

Thanks for the continued feedback Mounting much appreciated, I’ll spread that lot out to dry in the workshop and let the creatures have time to get out.
Will write something up explaining how I made the point controls, there are now nine points using the system.

Dave.