Castell Mawr - A joint GWR/LMS route

[Bufferstop]

Hi Geoff, CM was designed to be a joint effort, but you are now trying to operate it single handed most of the time. The operational problems you face are down to the time taken to assemble and disassemble the long trains. Most large tail chasers I see are club layouts and the best of them all have similar solutions, a very large set of storage loops where there's space for multiple operators to service different trains without interfering with those that are running. Usually these are a shared club resource that plugs into a number of different layouts.
I think what you are trying to say is that CM ought to be used the way it was designed, but unless your club wants to take on operating your layout then perhaps it's time to sell it, you've put in too great an investment both financial and timewise to either give it away or dismantle it. If it went to another group somewhere you might still be able to run your stock on it as an honoured guest. Doing it all yourself isn't a formula for having fun. Your talents lie in the building of stock and scenic items and you seem to cope well with multiple small layouts exploring different aspects of the hobby. It's time to look to maximising the fun hours, stuff the hired vans and heavy lifting. Yes you can still do it, but wouldn't you rather be running Thomas for the kids or challenging their parents to learn the shunting moves of HSII.

[Dad-1]

Funny you should say that John,

Both HS2 AND the Thomas layout are booked for the Association of Wessex MRC's exhibition
at Frome in January. Why take the easy way out ? Double your trouble ! Not that bad really as
I'm taking and supervising Thomas while the clubs exhibition manager will look after HS2.

Certainly £ for £ both those layouts are really good and it has me back to doing something I
seem to enjoy, kind of instructional/training and keeping things working. I suppose the things
that usually got me promoted at work to improve performance at certain distribution depots.

I thought I'd found a like minded guy here in Dorset, we think the same and he was the woodworker
for both those layouts and helped with Castell Mawr. Trouble is he's sold his house and is moving
back to Rowlands Castle where he used to live. I expect him to go by the end of August. Although
designed to be light and easy to move Castell Mawr is 12 boards and the four end boards are heavy.
Just too much for someone now very much the wrong side of 75.
Having said that I'd love to fix and automate the main semaphore signalling, but that would become
quite an extended job with looms of inter-board wiring, something I've managed to avoid.

This may be my last public chance to run CM's longest train which currently stands at 54 !!

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

O.K so it's a rubbish video, but I'd been kept busy at the clubs exhibition and this was snatched
shortly before we had to begin stripping down.

https://youtu.be/t1Ihj0HV5pw

It was voted best in show by the visitors, most were no doubt impressed with my longer trains.
Here we had the 'down' line train of loaded coal wagons included with the joint 'Up' lines combined
coal empties and loaded iron ore wagons - I believe it's 57

I've since been told by our exhibition manager I have to be back with it next year, to defend the
placing !! The sad truth is getting this all set-up takes about 4 hours, using 3 of us at times !!
Because of storage compaction all buildings, vehicles, people, telegraph posts, trees have to be
placed on after it's all up and standing.

Geoff T.

[TimberSurf]

That's a lurverly long rake. Essentially you have 11 months to find and organize some more helpers, so that you can just do "non hands on" supervising! . Give yourself a promotion on the back of your success, to "Castell Mawr Exhibition Manager", then no one will expect you to work, but will not be able stop you turning up and taking over the controller during the day!

[Bufferstop]

They want you back, I think you need to develop a diplomatic bad back, "I'll bring it but I need x number of bods to help set it up, it's the back you know."
If no one else has told you, what's wrong with the video. Don't pan against the movement go with it. It's like trying to watch the action out of the window whilst sitting with your back to the engine.

[Hymirl]

What an amazing layout, I've just been through all 48 pages and thank you for fixing so many image links!

I'm not far from Frome so if thats its next and or last show I'll put it in the calendar!

[Lysander]

Swansea 2019 Geoff. No excuses this time....

Tony

[Dad-1]

Hi Lysander - How I wish !!
Sadly there is no way I can get to Swansea. Blame my age, diminishing strength, and pressure
from her indoors. I have to hire a van, oh easy until you're gone 75 ! Then the insurance companies
decide you're no longer up to it. Locally I hire a man & van, I don't expect clubs I'm exhibiting at to
finance. Last years Weymouth exhibition cost me £80 for delivery on the Friday evening and collection
on the Sunday evening. Our recent Bridport show was £60, Jay is good, reliable and a very steady driver
so I restrict to 1 or in extreme circumstances 2 reasonably local exhibitions a year.

Hi Hymirl,

Thanks for the patience of reading through from starting in 201. It chronicles the ups and downs and
probably acts as a warning to anyone who may fancy a BIG layout.
I'm going to Frome 5th & 6th January, but NOT with Castell Mawr. As you can read above I strictly control
the number of outings for reasons of both cost and effort. At Frome I shall have 2 layouts, my "Thomas"
layout for children to drive, the one I'll be supervising. Then HSII (Happy Shunting 2) a visitors drive
shunting puzzle layout that a colleague of mine will be supervising. Real lazy jobs ? because you don't
have to do any driving yourself !! They are also compact and transportable in cars.

There may be 2 outing in 2019, but both in Bridport. Certainly it seems I'm pressured into displaying
again at our end of July summer exhibition - if just to honor from winning best in show 2018 !!
In the meantime I will be replacing some Peco polarity switches with frog juicers !!!

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

Time to drag this back into a working project.
It may seem a long way off, but our Summer Exhibition at the end of July
seems very near for me.
I noticed that the glue holding my Council Yard diesel tank has failed and it's
dropped onto the shed floor, but inaccessible at present. Then there is the deep
clean of all my tracks.
I've also had 3 of the station lights fail during/before that last outing in July '18.
I bought replacements and these need fitting. After that what else needs repair ?



You can see where the diesel fuel tank should be !
That missing gate for the yard was found and re-attached (Bet you didn't notice that )

Geoff T.

[glencairn]

Ongoing repairs etc. etc. Just like the real thing.

Glencairn

[Dad-1]

First serious problem, one I expected hence this being the first board I'm
checking out.
On the passing and platform 3 crossover a complete failure of the Peco
polarity switch on one point. It seems I have just 1 unused spare in my
spares box.
This board also has 2 of the 3 failed station lights. I think failure of the
LED's is less likely than the resistor. The resistors are right next to the pin
used to solder them into the circuit and were 'heated'. The lights worked for
a while, then began flashing, then died completely. I have got 3 spare new
lights anyway.
My checking out the cleaned track.



27 July seems rather near to me !!

Geoff T

[Dad-1]

Hi Dave,

Not too close if my problem solving and cleaning continues as well
as it did tonight.
One dead Peco PL13 switch replaced, typical it was one of the few
well stuck to it's point motor !! I often have troubles on one side,
but this one just dead.

Failing station lights ? this had been a problem, they all worked at
the beginning, then a couple started flickering, eventually going out.
Then a third following the same pattern.
My reasoning was LED's don't fail that often and not on a low voltage,
I think I was running on 4.5V. The built in resistors were attached to the
pin I was soldering into my wiring loom, perhaps I'd damaged through heat ?

Tonight I un-soldered two that were on the same board as the failed polarity
switch. Cut off the resistors, then fed the wires onto a 4.5 volt supply. Hey
Presto both lit up (Brighter than I want). My cure will be to replace the
resistors, check to see they still work, and wire back in.

The sun will shine tomorrow !!

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

The sun IS shining and so are the lights.
I have a feeling that some of this problem is less than perfect soldered joints
although I'm still baffled.
Put a new 1 K resistors in - Nothing. Put 220R in on one light and it worked, but
rather brighter than I wanted. Tried a 470R on the other - nothing at all. Changed
the 470 to a 220 and yes it worked for a while and then started flashing. Moving
the wires had a vague response. Stripped off more light lead insulating and did
a 'Victorian' solder job and so far it's running O.K.
The power is on 4.5 V and although that's probably quite low it's enough for LED's
with the original 1K resistor - Why wouldn't it work with a new 1K and 470R ????

The fact I've not had to pull off and replace lights is a bonus, but I'd like to know
whats happening !!

Geoff T.

[Bufferstop]

Geoff the light output of LEDs isn't proportional to the power consumed, choose the resistor value the limits them to bright but not brilliant and try putting an extra diode in series with them the volts dropped across the diode leaves them drawing the same current, at a lower voltage, or wire pairs of LEDs in series.
Yesterday I was testing a big bundle of red LEDs cannibalised from Christmas lights, changing the voltage I could get them to light up at a reasonable brightness at around 2 volts, but it was quite critical a touch too low and they flickered on and off like the ones in the fake candles. At 3 volts they were bright enough for indicator lamps and anything over was ridiculously bright, and I suspect they wouldn't have lasted too long. Putting a resistor in series didn't really dim them but the current went down. Among them I found half of one of the candle lights. It comprises a button cell a switch and an led, no other components. When I switch it on it comes on red, then fades to green, then to blue and back to red. There are 3 junctions visible through the clear plastic and what may be small resistors in the legs of two of them. The whole thing works on some carefully balanced voltages as I can cause the colours to switch by touching the exposed wires, I can see I'll have to Google the theory of colour LEDs.

[Dad-1]

Hi John,

I'm beginning to wonder if there are inadequate soldered joints ?
I've always run at 4.5V and the 1K resistors worked .... until
they didn't !!
Here you see the middle light now with a 220R, the other two
are still happy with their original 1K. I prefer the lower light levels.
It's only modern station lights that can be bright - Sometimes ?



I'm also going to look into buying a few (3) Frog Juicers. The replacement
PL13 on this board is working fine, but I know when I get the sidings
boards out there will be problems with polarity switching.

Geoff T.