How is my brain nowadays??? (Funicular layout)

[ChrisGreaves]

I missed your posts here but have been following your Blog.

Hello Daniel; you chose the harder route! I don't post the FUNicular railway here frequently because tangible photographic evidence is hard to come by. That is, I seldom have any sort of objective reached.

You are making serious work of it.

Well, yes, as far as a "hobby" goes, too serious. But I like dragging Physics and Mathematics into things.
I confess that it is a challenge, but good for me, as the project leads towards a small but manageable working railway with motive power (just not electrical), involves some scratch building and should be FUN to achieve.
I spend much time just thinking about each little hurdle, sketching out with pencil and paper, crumpling paper into a ball, and so on.

If you happen to be a member of the NGRM or live near de Bala Ry. I suggest you contact Tim Williams.
He is a great fellow and has built several inclines including the operating layout for the Bala.

Two weeks ago I did contact one place where a member had built mechanical coal chutes. I offered my contact details with a suggestion we share notes but was told that the guy was leery of people stealing his ideas! I think that having my ideas stolen is the highest compliment that can be paid, so I reasoned that his ideas can't be very good.

If the NGRM is "Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling Online" I will investigate it. Right now it tells me "The page you are trying to access is not available to guests, but may be available if you sign in."
If you mean the "Bala and Festiniog Railway", then I live about 3,500 km away, whatever that is in nautical miles.

half an hour later: Daniel, you are spot-on with NGRM. I hve joined and found a mountain of data and suggestions in my area. I am especially taken by the threads on tipping-wagons and ore-handling in general. Like NRMF, the NGRM's standards in modelling are much higher than mine, and we shall have to do something about that(grin)

My next hurdle is to make a better job of fixing the tracks. I am reluctant to hammer nails through sleepers; the wire loops obstruct the wagons, so I shall probably lay some batten (thin narrow wooden strips) each side of the track to hold it in place.
Using the RTR wagons was a Phase-0 step, just to see if .... By this time next week I will have moved to Phase-1 and started building huge wagons, maybe as much as 4" wide, balanced precariously on top of the coach bogies. If you are standing outside at the right time you may be able to hear the crash!

Cheers
Chris

[Daniel]

Hi Chris

Thank you for your answers.

Great that you joined the NGRM. I am no more a member since four or more years but there are plenty of great fellows and I am sure, if you startr a thead with your project you and them are going to learn a lot. You will be surprissed by the active response of the members.

You did scared me when you say you spend time thinking... Doesn't it hurt?
Have you seen a doctor or something?

I thought once but my poor memory came in my rescue!

There is an Aussie member at the NGRM (sorry, again my poor memoey here...! I can't recall his name) who built a huge extremelly complex H0 layout of a ...(collery?). I think the wagons were moved by magnets mounted on a mmoving belt under the track... Certainly worth to ask or search.

Tim Williams can you find here (he is the Vice Chairman and has been building complex mechanismes for inclines since I met him at the NGRM a decade ago and at least one or two of his layouts are at the Bala's shows.)

https://bala-lake-railway.co.uk/society/


...and now my lone brain cell woke up and see what brought up! :

Jon Garaty is the Aussie fellow you'll find at the NGRM but here in his Freerails forum version:

http://www.freerails.com/view_topic.php ... orum_id=11

And regarding 'modeling standards' drop them all and enjoy what life gives you without comapring!!!

If you happen to contact any of those fellows, please, give them my greetings.

But, most of all, keep enjoying yoiur project!



Daniel

[ChrisGreaves]

The Upper Wagon full of mung beans, is unable to do its job.

Since I already had a jar of nails handy, and the mung beans are too light (“these beans are as hard as nails”) I decided that a load of nails was a first approximation to a load of one-eighth inch diameter Uranium ball bearings.

I dragged the empty wagon to the right, the heavy wagon traveled an equivalent distance to the left, and then with Gayaneh abandon(1) I used my hands to raise the baseboard at the left-hand (laden wagon) end.

Before I had time to catch my breath in astonishment, neither wagon moved. So I increased the slope from an estimated 5° to something closer to 10°, then to something distinctly further away from 5° than I would have dreamed, and then at about 45° the loaded wagon began to crawl down hill and the empty wagon crawled uphill.

By the time they met my arms were tiring, so I left the two of them there yarning and came here to type this up.

And to phone David and ask him while he is in St John’s next week working on cars, to ask around for supplier of 1/8” ball bearings. David agrees that heavy earth-moving equipment doesn’t use 1/8” ball bearings, nor do motor cars, and the only place we might source them is from within sealed units in the guts of old VCR tape decks.

We shall see what we shall see.

(1) I'm not allowed to use the correct word here, so just lie back and enjoy the music.

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Hello Daniel, and thank you again for the great lead to NGRM. Another mountain of data to wade through, and already I have a new file of points to note.

Daniel >> You scared me when you say you spend time thinking... Doesn't it hurt?

It is my favorite activity, thinking. I have been building a neural network for 74 years now!

Daniel>> There is an Aussie member at the NGRM …

And what a depressing lead that was. John Garaty’s thread is 27 pages long. He began posting midsummer’s day 2009 and is still going strong. He lives just 5km from where I had my first job!
“depressing” because he has practically rebuilt the valley in which his inclined railway works. Me? I have two scraps of plywood and a jar of mung beans.

Daniel>> And regarding 'modeling standards' drop them all and enjoy what life gives you without comparing!!!

My standards have never been high, except perhaps in Mr Puzey’s Physics classes and Mr Feld’s Mathematics classes a lifetime ago. It is my low standards that have set me on this course.
For example NRGM Says “As long as the gauge is less than that of George Stephenson …”. I have eyeballed my Peco Flextrack and it is about an inch wide, significantly less than George Stephenson’s gauge which, from memory, was close to fifty-six inches. (grin!).

Cheers
Chris

[Daniel]

Exactly! Go ahead and enjoy, now you are on the right track!

I'll follow your work.

You are 74? You make me feel young: I am only seventy! ( o.k..., ...and a half.)

Daniel

[ChrisGreaves]

It strikes me that a funicular with a sixty-degree slope would make an ideal functioning diorama for someone like me - restarting in the hobby.

And so it has proved to be, so far.
I do not make progress like those of us with wives and lofts and bank cards, because ***I**** have a town that either stops by to chat, or stops me to chat when I am passing by. Also a garden, and now a wonky stove/oven that must be repaired.

I do devote much thinking time to the project, as anyone who has tried to wade to the end of http://www.chrisgreaves.com/Modelling/Funicular/ will testify.

So I thought I would share a little but of news, because you all deserve it: Today saw the first run of a loaded wagon hauling an empty wagon up the incline.

Now, before you get excited, this doesn't prove anything; I was always confident that a big enough disparity in mass and a sufficient slope could haul an empty wagon up.
And this is, after all, a glued-in load of gravel; there is no filling-at-the-upper-end or discharging-at-the-lower-end, although the hoppers/chutes are built, and I do have sliding-plate triggers, which I am thinking of abandoning for rotary-plate-with-a-hole, like the canister of ground pepper or that of cocoa powder.

I took a movie, but is now ten years since last I played with Camtasia and video formats, and had videos from my web site, and videos on YouTube, so there is a bit more non-modelling time I will have to spend when i can take a break from composting grass-clippings.

Also, I want to record some data here.
Each idea should be tested. For example:-

(a) RTR wagons or custom-built gondolas?
(b) Cotton string, Nylon string, Cotton sewing thread, or Nylon sewing thread?
(c) Key ring #1, key Ring #2, Pulley vertical spindle, pulley horizontal spindle, or two-inch panel pin?
(d) Angle of incline (10°, 20°, 30°, etc)
(e) Mass in loaded wagon

There are more parameters, but already I am looking at 2x4x5x8x2 or six hundred and forty combinations. If I ran through three a day, eight months would pass and I would still have no guarantee that I can get this to work.

In the meantime, if your system can cope with viewing and/or downloading a a 54MB MP4 movie taken with my smarter-than-me phone, then click on http://www.chrisgreaves.com/Modelling/F ... 202107.mp4.
The movie is shaky for the first few seconds.
Oh yes. I now have to work out how to build a tripod and mount the camera and, probably, edit the front and back off the MP4 files while I run around the camera ...
Cheers
Chris

[Renovater]

I saw this one in San Sebastian in Spain it was the same as in this photo i must dig out my own photos, very pleasant with all the trees overgrowing...


Net

[ChrisGreaves]

I saw this one in San Sebastian in Spain it was the same as in this photo i must dig out my own photos, very pleasant with all the trees overgrowing...

Brilliant! Absolutely BRILLIANT.
Why didn't ***I*** think of using old Coca-Cola cans, mounting them as gondola cars on coach bogies, and then loading them with scheme water from a water tank (I can buy a toilet cistern kit down to Swyers) and letting it discharge at the lower-end through a funnel made from the top of a plastic 2-litre Coca-Cola bottle?
And there are those who deny the power of advertising.
I already know how to make trees.

On another note WHAT a gorgeous photo. Is it yours? Or did you grab it from the web? It would make a lovely backdrop to my Diorama.
Thanks
Chris

[Renovater]

I saw this one in San Sebastian in Spain it was the same as in this photo i must dig out my own photos, very pleasant with all the trees overgrowing...

Brilliant! Absolutely BRILLIANT.
Why didn't ***I*** think of using old Coca-Cola cans, mounting them as gondola cars on coach bogies, and then loading them with scheme water from a water tank (I can buy a toilet cistern kit down to Swyers) and letting it discharge at the lower-end through a funnel made from the top of a plastic 2-litre Coca-Cola bottle?
And there are those who deny the power of advertising.
I already know how to make trees.

On another note WHAT a gorgeous photo. Is it yours? Or did you grab it from the web? It would make a lovely backdrop to my Diorama.
Thanks
Chris

Hi, found it on the net, if i remember correctly i put in "San Sebastian funicular", i've been there myself but it will take a while to find the photos which show basically the same as the image above so it was quicker to do that.

[ChrisGreaves]

... if i remember correctly i put in "San Sebastian funicular",

Thank you, Renovator.
¡Hola! Coca-Cola
Cheers
Chris Greaves

[Daniel]

Hi Chris

You are already undewrway and in the flow of joy so there is nothing I could add. But am following this thread and your blog with interest.

Here a link that may contain something of your interest:

https://wrightscaleworks.blogspot.com/2020/07/?m=0]


Daniel

[ChrisGreaves]

[https://wrightscaleworks.blogspot.com/2020/07/?m=0]

Thank you, Daniel.
If I had to move back to a big city, it would be to Paris (or better yet, Poissy).
"His family occupied a farm at Petit-Bourg, Evry on the Seine just south of Paris" this grabbed me. I worked near there in the late seventies, by train from Gare de Lyon to Le Bras de Fer five days a week.
Sigh!
To me, fascinating, because I might be able to weave the Evry/Decauville link into the story of my funicular.
Especially touching is the mention of the gravity-powered incline, which I am striving to emulate in my little toy.
Cheers, and thank you for these fruits of your research.
One last thing: I started with chocolate (Suchard) and am now at Sugar (well, beets). Is this a sign that I should be focusing on more ice-cream?
Chris

[Daniel]

[https://wrightscaleworks.blogspot.com/2020/07/?m=0]

Thank you, Daniel.
If I had to move back to a big city, it would be to Paris (or better yet, Poissy).
"His family occupied a farm at Petit-Bourg, Evry on the Seine just south of Paris" this grabbed me. I worked near there in the late seventies, by train from Gare de Lyon to Le Bras de Fer five days a week.
Sigh!
To me, fascinating, because I might be able to weave the Evry/Decauville link into the story of my funicular.
Especially touching is the mention of the gravity-powered incline, which I am striving to emulate in my little toy.
Cheers, and thank you for these fruits of your research.
One last thing: I started with chocolate (Suchard) and am now at Sugar (well, beets). Is this a sign that I should be focusing on more ice-cream?
Chris

My pleasure, Chris.

Regarding your question, more than focusing on ice-cream you should start learning to speak Kangaroo...!
You will be surprised seeing what getting some sugar will cause on your workbench!!! (Aussie cane railways are top quality chocolate themselves!!!)

Daniel

[ChrisGreaves]

It strikes me that a funicular with a sixty-degree slope would make an ideal functioning diorama for someone like me - restarting in the hobby.

Well, you can't say I haven't given this enough thought! The 36" of paired track is still here, but the past couple of years have seen my available time throttled down with other activities, for which I am gratefuI.

Last week I started watching this video: “This Mining Train Powers Itself: The "Infinity Train" (and how it works)”.

Basically regenerative braking downhill with loaded cars provides enough stored electrical energy to drive the empty cars back to the top of the hill.

My funicular was left at the state of a gravity-powered cable-paired set of just two wagons. The energy supply is the hopper filled with sand at the top of the hill.
Friction on the cable/pulleys was a problem, as was governance of velocity. (speed in a straight line).

But Rosie has started this old brain again.

Electronic control has come a long way since my 12vDC Triang 4-6-2 and two blood and pus coaches.
I am eyeballing T-scale and tiny motors in the T-scale inter-city starter sets

I confess that my inability to scale gravity and friction has been a mental block.
But now I am contemplating the same two ore-wagons, one generating energy and one making use of that energy, and provided that there is enough spare energy at the end of a cycle, some of that energy can be used to mechanically trigger the opening and closing of the chutes in the bottom of the car and in the hopper at the top of the hill.

I will still need a "mountain" of ore in the top hopper to make the system self-supplied in energy, but an electrically run funicular might be a better bet,

I can make the slope as steep as i like. A 36" or even 72" plank with a 60-degree incline is possible in my world.
I am thinking that the DCC-world must, by now, have electronic circuits that will allow me to govern speed (downhill, uphill) automatically.
I suppose too that with this system, I am not restricted to a pair of wagons. I could run just one, or i could run a set of more than two, with a holding bay at one end of the track. (10m52s and 15m 50s in this video)

Meanwhile this old brain keeps churning as i head outside to plant the last couple of dozen bulbs from the bushel that arrived six weeks ago.
Cheers, Chris

[Mountain]

Yes. You still need some weight to overcome friction. Actually not so easy unless one uses those lead balast granuals used for model racing yauchts and boats etc.

As far as the string or twine used. Very fine fishing twine comes to mind. Can't think what else could work as by nature cotton fibres and the like do sligtly add friction, but one could lightly grease cotton with a waxy substance that is dry so it does not stick? Some dry bicycle chain lubes are an idea. (Dry ones have a wax built into them as the wax has the slippery lubricant instead of using light oil which attracts dirt. Worth a try.Could even add it to fishing twine? I have not actually tried the dry chain lube as one had to completely clean the chain so it was void of all dirt and oil before using, but various places I have worked in in the past sold it.
(I don't guarantee that it is the answer..Just exploring theoretical possibilities which might work).