Building Yeovil Pen Mill in EM.

[Tony W]

Certainly in my experience trying to build fixed 1:8 obtuse crossings on the curve with anything less than scale width flangeways (and even with) can be fraught with difficulties. Margins for error are small to nonexistent. Propelling stock on curves tends to push the leading flange of any vehicle outwards against the outer rail and the rear flange inwards against the inner rail. Unless there is adequate checking at the crossing one or other flange can go the wrong side of the point rail with undesirable results.
Regards
Tony.

 

[AndyB]

That looks lovely, Andrew. I hope you get away with your fixed, curved K crossings.

Many years ago I built a curved 2FS fixed diamond at 1:8 for a customer, When it came to be used recently, he spent hours trying to make everything work. Pushing short wheelbase wagons proved its downfall. Every time he went bed with it working OK, he woke up to find it had gone back to derailing the wagons. In the end I built him a replacement at 1:7. Perhaps the short wheelbase wagons could crab more than the other vehicles, we don't know.

Incidentally, the 2FS standards are the same proportions as EM, except the flange depth is proportionally greater at 0.5mm, instead of 0.35mm.

Keith

I could be wrong (again) but it looks to me that it's switched rather than fixed.

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Andrew a stunning piece of track building, larger turnouts and crossings do have an air of spender about them. I currently have a facing crossing with a V8 and 12' heal, with hopefully the rail joints in the correct positions and 4 timber check rails

Thanks very much John, and yes I agree they do have a certain grace about them. I find though that preventing wheel drop at the knuckle progressively harder to avoid the longer they get.
kind regards
Andrew

 

[Andrew Duncan]

That looks lovely, Andrew. I hope you get away with your fixed, curved K crossings.

Many years ago I built a curved 2FS fixed diamond at 1:8 for a customer, When it came to be used recently, he spent hours trying to make everything work. Pushing short wheelbase wagons proved its downfall. Every time he went bed with it working OK, he woke up to find it had gone back to derailing the wagons. In the end I built him a replacement at 1:7. Perhaps the short wheelbase wagons could crab more than the other vehicles, we don't know.

Incidentally, the 2FS standards are the same proportions as EM, except the flange depth is proportionally greater at 0.5mm, instead of 0.35mm.

Keith

Thanks very much Keith, I fear that it will give trouble but looking on the bright side the double slip is not on the main running line, but in the goods yard so I'm telling myself that if it is a problem it can wait for later to be sorted. And sorting maybe putting in moving K crossings, or completely replacing it with a couple of Y's. We'll see...!
Kind regards
Andrew

 

[Andrew Duncan]

I could be wrong (again) but it looks to me that it's switched rather than fixed.

Certainly in my experience trying to build fixed 1:8 obtuse crossings on the curve with anything less than scale width flangeways (and even with) can be fraught with difficulties. Margins for error are small to nonexistent. Propelling stock on curves tends to push the leading flange of any vehicle outwards against the outer rail and the rear flange inwards against the inner rail. Unless there is adequate checking at the crossing one or other flange can go the wrong side of the point rail with undesirable results.
Regards
Tony.

Hello Tony
Well, we've discussed this before and I very much fear that it'll end in tears, because if you'd find it a challenge to build, then with my skill level, a lot of luck would have to be on my side to get away with it!
Kind regards
Andrew

 

[Andrew Duncan]

I could be wrong (again) but it looks to me that it's switched rather than fixed.

Not so much wrong, I think Andy, as a different piece of trackwork. There is a double slip in question which Keith is referring to and which I (foolishly) built with fixed K crossings, and there's a single slip on the mainline which I built with moving ones.

I really should download a fresh box file of the current plan to remind everyone of what I'm trying to achieve, then all would be clear.

Kind regards
Andrew

 

[Martin Wynne]

Thanks very much Keith, I fear that it will give trouble but looking on the bright side the double slip is not on the main running line, but in the goods yard so I'm telling myself that if it is a problem it can wait for later to be sorted. And sorting maybe putting in moving K crossings, or completely replacing it with a couple of Y's. We'll see...!

Hi Andrew,

You can significantly improve the checking of fixed K-crossings by raising the check rails above the level of the running rails. For example by using code 100 FB rail (with the foot filed down) with code 75 running rails.

The prototype does that too nowadays, although it means locomotives with flangeless drivers have to be banned.

For an existing K-crossing you may be able to solder a nickel-silver strip on top of the existing check rail. Maybe 1mm x 0.8mm strip. File back to match the rail.

Have some Elastoplast handy for when rail cleaning.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Keith Armes]

Just in case anybody gets the idea that the problem is with slips, it's the diamond that causes the problem, whether in a slip or on its own.
Keith

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Hi Andrew,

You can significantly improve the checking of fixed K-crossings by raising the check rails above the level of the running rails. For example by using code 100 FB rail (with the foot filed down) with code 75 running rails.

The prototype does that too nowadays, although it means locomotives with flangeless drivers have to be banned.

For an existing K-crossing you may be able to solder a nickel-silver strip on top of the existing check rail. Maybe 1mm x 0.8mm strip. File back to match the rail.

Have some Elastoplast handy for when rail cleaning.

cheers,

Martin.

Thanks for the tip Martin, I shall remember this (I hope) when it all goes horribly wrong...
Andrew

 

[Tony W]

Thanks for the tip Martin, I shall remember this (I hope) when it all goes horribly wrong...
Andrew

Hopefully it won't.
Tony.

 

[Andrew Duncan]

I thought I'd remind you of the track plan of Yeovil Pen Mill as it's several years since I posted anything like this. So I carefully took a photo of the plan, cropped it, and managed to upload it, only to then see that it was an old version that didn't include the double slip with fixed K crossing that we've been looking at recently. It was a previous incarnation, somewhat half-baked, that I abandoned when Martin made creating slips a one-click operation (what a genius!).

So that is at the extreme right-hand side of the plan, middle top-ish Anyway the single slip is there albeit probably in its original guise with fixed K crossings since modified to moving ones. i shall do the job properly soon, but for now at least you have some sort of reference.

View attachment 579
Kind regards
Andrew

 

[AndyB]

We try and shop once a week, I am mainly there as a labourer. We have always thought Morrisons have the best meat of the supermarkets, and when we moved Morrisons was our nearest shop. This week we got a super bit of beef (it was on offer). Quite often we get 3 meals from a joint. I go off and wander the wine and coffee isles, like all supermarkets they have their own range and I like trying their "The Best" range. I prefer to drink less but slightly better these days. Rather than 2 for a tenner spend £7 or £8 on a bottle, for some you might have to spend a tenner. But its so much better. Old world wines seem to me to be better

We went to a wine tasting at a vineyard in Deadham (well worth it) and a similar one in Italy (lake Garda) where they tell you lots about wine, but they open up your eyes to try something different. I must have a look at other reds, but I do like the less full bodied red wines.

The Falanghina will have to wait a week, we love going to Italy and drinking their wines, now there is much more selection available in our shops

I happened to notice Steven Spurrier has died. He was English and owned a wine shop in Paris. There is a movie about him.

 

[Hayfield]

Andrew I tried the Falanghina last night, a lovely fruity white Italian, well worth a try

https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-the-best-falanghina-421302011

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Andrew I tried the Falanghina last night, a lovely fruity white Italian, well worth a try

https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-the-best-falanghina-421302011

Hello John
Thanks for the recommendation, sounds interesting, I'll give it a go. Let you know how I get on.
Andrew

 

[Hayfield]

Last week I thought I would have a change of reds, good job as the Beaujolais villages had sold out. I got a Valpolicella Ripasso

The while is very light and fruity, enjoyable as most of them have beem with one exception not to my taste (perhaps I am easily pleased)

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Having unintentionally deleted the plan from my earlier post of last week I've now brought this one up to date. The board that I'm currently working on is no6 the far right hand end of the station or north end.

 

[Roger Bristow]

and a little more progress...
The switches are now all in on the three remaining turnouts on this board.

View attachment 296


And here is one of the tie bars under construction, over length at present, this is 3mm wide copper / fiberglass laminate, presumably not called copper paxolin...? suitably gapped twice per side to be on the safe side which seems to give a nice flexible / adjustable result. and one further refinement, I've rounded the top edge to prevent any likelihood of shorting out against the underside of the stock rail. Not sure it was necessary but I did it anyway.


View attachment 297

Food and a glass of Claret are calling so I'd better go...
Andrew

Hello Andrew,

I do like all the good work you are doing on your railway, very impressive. I've been puzzled for a while about a rather unusual looking vehicle on your baseboard. It looks like a bogie connected with a length of wire and has what appears to be a wire frame above. Could you share details of it please?

Kind regards

Roger

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Hello Andrew,

I do like all the good work you are doing on your railway, very impressive. I've been puzzled for a while about a rather unusual looking vehicle on your baseboard. It looks like a bogie connected with a length of wire and has what appears to be a wire frame above. Could you share details of it please?

Kind regards

Roger

Hello Roger

Thanks for the compliment. The vehicle you mention I built years ago on Iain Rices suggestion I think? It is just two W irons connected by some brass tube and rod with a vertical wire (arm) at each corner, bent through 90 degrees about 3" above the wheels. When it's on level track the ends of the wire, which point at each other line up. When I run it over my point work they usually go out of alignment, and the degree to which they miss align determines whether I need to do something about the unevenness or not!

I think it might have been called a "Diplometre", i.e. shows up dips in the track by exaggerating the effect due to the 3" length of the arms. I now don't recall where I saw the original design, Railway Modeller, MRJ or even one of Iain's books. But in any case, a simple thing to construct.

Hope that answers your question. If I've left anything out, please do ask.

Kind regards
Andrew

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Any guesses as to what this might be...?

 

[Martin Wynne]

Signal Box diagram?

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Signal Box diagram?

That was an impressively quick reply Martin, but no, my shed is a decent size, but not that big.
Have another go, you may have as many as you like!

 

[Martin Wynne]

A folding table for all those wine glasses?

 

[Rob Manchester]

Andrew,
It's obvious. It is a picture, probably taken with a camera of some sort, in a house, yours I assume. It shows an old writing desk, quite a few boxes of decent quality glasses and a piece of wood you must have ordered

Rob

p.s. Martin's guess could well be true though.

 

[Tony W]

Backscenes?

Tony.

 

[Roger Bristow]

Hello Roger

Thanks for the compliment. The vehicle you mention I built years ago on Iain Rices suggestion I think? It is just two W irons connected by some brass tube and rod with a vertical wire (arm) at each corner, bent through 90 degrees about 3" above the wheels. When it's on level track the ends of the wire, which point at each other line up. When I run it over my point work they usually go out of alignment, and the degree to which they miss align determines whether I need to do something about the unevenness or not!

I think it might have been called a "Diplometre", i.e. shows up dips in the track by exaggerating the effect due to the 3" length of the arms. I now don't recall where I saw the original design, Railway Modeller, MRJ or even one of Iain's books. But in any case, a simple thing to construct.

Hope that answers your question. If I've left anything out, please do ask.

Kind regards
Andrew

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. It all makes good sense now, and maybe I should have a go at making one as I have a couple of W irons going spare, I can play around with those. As I'm working in gauge one it should pick up any irregularities, particularly over the wing rails and vee.

I would liked to have a go at the competition (what is the framed wood for) you've started but i'll see how others get on.

Kind regards

Roger

 

[Roger Bristow]

Hello Andrew,

My guess is:

You are building another Yeovil Pen Mill in T gauge!

Roger

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Andrew,
It's obvious. It is a picture, probably taken with a camera of some sort, in a house, yours I assume. It shows an old writing desk, quite a few boxes of decent quality glasses and a piece of wood you must have ordered

Rob

p.s. Martin's guess could well be true though.

Hello Rob
Your logic is impeccable, and clearly, I might have been more precise in the wording I used, as it was the wood parcel on the floor that I was referring to, but fair point Rob your observations were spot on although I noticed you left out the carpet and the doormat in your list, twas otherwise without fault

Martin
No, not a folding table.

Tony
No not backscene I'm afraid, although that may not be true in the end as the hardboard that provided protection for the plywood, may become a backscene....not sure at this stage!

Infact, it’s two sheets of 9mm ply ( now rather regretting I didn’t go for 6mm instead to cut down on weight) which will provide the bottom layer of the baseboards for the line going south out of Yeovil (south is to the left of the junction end of the station) the part which goes in front of the main fiddleyard. The slightly unusual thing about these baseboards is that to maintain as much headroom under them as possible, I'm hoping to give them strength/rigidity by building that (in above) into the ground contours(made of 4mm ply) that support and shape the scenery around the track and with the support for the trackbed itself. I'll take a photo of my back of a fag packet drawing to show you what I mean.

If you refer to my plan on the previous page I hope the location will be clear...? They are the last two baseboards to be built and when in place, and some track laid, will allow a train to do a complete circuit of the layout!!!

Roger
I'm glad my explanations on the Diplometre were clear. Sorry you didn't win the competition. Don't feel bad...no one did!



Kind regards
Andrew

 

[AndyB]

Sorry you didn't win the competition. Don't feel bad...no one did!

No fair! I'm eight hours behind and I had to go skiing today. I'm sure I would have got it right.

 

[AndyB]

It's obvious. It is a picture, probably taken with a camera of some sort,

Actually an Apple iPhone SE (2nd generation). Taken on Sunday March 21. Couldn't see any geolocation info

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Actually an Apple iPhone SE (2nd generation). Taken on Sunday March 21. Couldn't see any geolocation info

Scary!

 

[Tony W]

Scarey!

Yes, my thought was "To much information" presumably stored with the image.
Regards
Tony.

 

[AndyB]

Yes, my thought was "To much information" presumably stored with the image.
Regards
Tony.

Hi Tony,

Yes images usually include embedded metadata. It's possible to strip them out but it's a bit of a pain. There can also be geo-coordinates from GPS on your phone too, as some criminals have learned to their dismay

But I don't think Andrew has anything to worry about as long as he doesn't go on about how much money he's saving by using servos for point motors on RMweb

Andy

(Reporting to you from my underground bunker in darkest Idaho.)

 

[Tony W]

Hi Tony,

Yes images usually include embedded metadata. It's possible to strip them out but it's a bit of a pain. There can also be geo-coordinates from GPS on your phone too, as some criminals have learned to their dismay

But I don't think Andrew has anything to worry about as long as he doesn't go on about how much money he's saving by using servos for point motors on RMweb

Andy

(Reporting to you from my underground bunker in darkest Idaho.)

Sometimes I'm thankful I don't have a smart phone and won't be getting one any time soon.
Regards
Tony.

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Sometimes I'm thankful I don't have a smart phone and won't be getting one any time soon.
Regards
Tony.

Tony
If sometimes you are grateful that you don't have one, that suggests there are times when you regret not having one...?

I have a love hate relationship with mine but there's more gratitude for all the convenience it affords, phone(I can answer on phone laptop and Ipad), diary, notebook, camera (just when I need it!), Solitare to distract me when I want to switch off, Vivino Wine app, Skype, and Music. Conversely, I hate it when it runs out of battery and when I lose it.

Andy's the only person in world who will know that you took a photo with it, and what you're inside leg measurement is ...well him and the CIA I suppose....?

Convinced?

 

[Martin Wynne]

There are arguments against smartphones, but the EXIF data in image files isn't one of them. Because all digital cameras do exactly the same thing.

Although only a minority of cameras have built-in GPS recording, so that data isn't normally available in the EXIF.

If you don't want to share the data with the world, don't upload photos straight off your phone or camera. Copy and paste them into a graphics editor to crop or resize them first.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Andrew Duncan]

There are arguments against smartphones, but the EXIF data in image files isn't one of them. Because all digital cameras do exactly the same thing.

Although only a minority of cameras have built-in GPS recording, so that data isn't normally available in the EXIF.

If you don't want to share the data with the world, don't upload photos straight off your phone or camera. Copy and paste them into a graphics editor to crop or resize them first.

cheers,

Martin.mage

Hello Martin
Yes but I did use 'Imagesize' to reduce the size before uploading, but Andy was still able to get all this info. So if it did bother me, I'd presumably need to do something else would I?
Andrew

 

[Tony W]

HI Andrew.
No!
My relationship with smart phones is heavily biased toward the hate side of the equation. My fingers and touch screens don't work very well together. Give me a mouse any time. I know because my wife has one and she sometimes struggles to use it and we have to get one of her children to help as I know even less about them than she does.
I do have a mobile phone (a Nokia brick) but rarely use it. It was my Mum's and when she went into hospital, my Dad put £30 extra credit on it (its pay as you go). Unfortunately Mum died in hospital and for a couple of years the phone was lost. When it eventually came to light, I expect to find it dead, but amazingly it still worked and still had £35 credit available. I use a mobile phone that much that it was three years before I needed to top up the credit and this past year I have barely been anywhere to need to use it. So for me the expense of a smart phone would be a waste of money.
Anyway that's what a landline is for, not that I use that very often.
Regards
Tony.

 

[Martin Wynne]

Hello Martin
Yes but I did use 'Imagesize' to reduce the size before uploading, but Andy was still able to get all this info. So if it did bother me, I'd presumably need to do something else would I?
Andrew

Hi Andrew,

To be serious, you need to transfer it to your computer before uploading it. There are functions in Windows to remove some or all of the data from image files. The easier way is to open the file in one editor to see if it is any good, then copy the bitmap image into a separate graphics editor, save a new jpg file, and upload that. It is still likely to contain some EXIF data, such as the name of the editor program, and the date and time you edited it.

I transfer my photos onto an external drive on my computer, and open them in Irfanview (free) which allows me to see all the data. Then copy and paste the image into PaintShopPro to crop, edit and resize it, then save it into a new file for use. This means I can give it a more meaningful file name than DSC1234, such as "bunch_of_blue_bananas", and means the original file off the camera is never changed or lost.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Andrew Duncan]

Hello Everyone
Here is how I'm planning to construct the baseboards with no framing underneath it, to maximize the headroom underneath. As I get older I anticipate that I will be more and more thankful for this forward planning....if it works and doesn't sag in the middle.
Andrew.

 

[Martin Wynne]

Hi Andrew,

Your previous topic on the old forum is now archived at:

https://85a.uk/templot/archive/topics/topic_2547.php

I have added a link at the top of this topic. I'm sorry it took so long.

It's a long single page. Some of your other topics about your project are at:

https://85a.uk/templot/archive/topics/topic_3342.php
https://85a.uk/templot/archive/topics/topic_2326.php
https://85a.uk/templot/archive/topics/topic_2601.php

cheers,

Martin.