Revisions and more revisions

Revision time!.

Since my last post I have been pondering over this plan for a week or so now and after a few suggestions from friends and also from "The Rail Wire" forum, I made a few changes to get the isle widths wider than I had them.

I made a slight revision to the staging and am now happy with the way Whitehall is looking also.

I now have a branch line to Corinth and reversed the town names so they fit in better.

Here are the revised versions..

Here is the main deck.

And here is the staging level.

The dispatchers desk has been included.
Also the height from the floor to the main level is 1400mm. In some places it reduces to 1320mm and staging is at 1100mm.

In most cases the isle widths is around the 800mm or more mark.

Now to find someone with a A0 plotter to print it 1:1 for me..

Anyone?

Moving out of Oneonta and heading for Whitehall.

Time for a change of location!.

After my last post and a great deal of thought and discussion with Rod, Ron, and Greg, and after receiving a new D&H book called "Delaware & Hudson Bridge Line Freight 1960 - 1983 Volume 1 the North end"..
I decided that the Champlain division was calling and some of the scenery possibilities that the location afforded me was too good to pass on. (besides, Ron has always suggested that the North end of the D&H was the place to be due to lake Champlain!)..

After reading through the new book by Dominic Bourgeois, and finding so many possibilities I decided it was time..

So once the existing layout is dismantled, I will say good by to the Penn Division and hello to the Champlain and Saratoga Divisions.!

Now I have a location and many industries, I reviewed my floor plan with Rod Warren and we decided that a shed measuring 7.6m x 5.8m was big enough to handle 3 peninsula's rather than 2.

So I set to work using AnyRail to replan the shed and the peninsula's and the track plan.

I stuck with the given of NO Duckunder and it worked.

I also stuck with the given of plenty of space between the main deck and staging and have managed to achieve 300mm at the main staging yard point while maintaining a grade of no more than 2%.
The min radius is a much better 443mm (16 inches) compared to the much tighter current layout.

My other givens are already listed in earlier posts such as train length, full CTC etc etc.

Here is a draft of the main deck (things may change slightly in towns but the main floor plan is now about right)

Here is the draft of the staging level.

Im not completely happy with the track plan in Whitehall so will keep working on that.

Please post any comments or suggestions.

Planning for D&H Version 3

Planning for D&H Version 3
Now that the convention is complete and the layout is back in the shed and operational, I can now start planing the next version of the D&H to fill my 7.5m x 6m shed.

As mentioned in earlier posts, I plan on reusing as much as I can from the old layout in the new version.

During the convention I had the pleasure of helping to run Rod's and Bruce's layout. The one thing that struck me was the use of a duck under to enter the room. I had been planning on using one but after reading a few things in forums recently and operating the two layouts, I decided that a walk in layout needed to be on my given's list and not just a druther.

After a heap of thinking and some help from Duncan, we have come up with a foot print that I really like and will become the new layout. This new foot print doe not have a duck under and is a walk in layout. It is very similar to Ron's layout with a change in terms of one of the peninsula's.

I have also done a heap of work and thinking about the isle spaces to enable people to pass and operate the layout with plenty of elbow room.

In the second picture the dimensions are included.

Per this plan the main yard is starting to take shape but not yet finalised.

The plan is for the main layout to all be seen with trains entering hidden staging via the loop at the bottom and also along the edge near the door. The staging or hidden track will then continue around the wall under the layout and descend up to 400mm to the 7 or 14 track staging yard below the layout along the left wall. Then the staging will continue towards the main layout via the peninsula that is against the lower wall.

As trains on the new layout will be 2 loco's, 20 x 50ft cars and a caboose, towns and yards need to be longer than what they are on the current layout. So its now all about planing..

Stay tuned and we plot out the track plan for the new layout..

The D&H fulfils a major milestone.

Melbourne April 2013.

This past week has seen a major milestone fulfilled for the D&H.

The Layout was originally built to be portable and therefore taken to exhibitions.
While the layout is up and running, it is still plywood junction with no scenery etc.
However, it is up and running and filly operational in term of its JMRI Panel Pro CTC / ABS panel.

A few months ago I was asked if I would take the D&H to the up coming Australian N scale convention to be held in Melbourne this April 2013. Naturally I jumped at the chance.

As you have seen by earlier blogs, I had some work to do in order to get it ready such as building and installing the final 7 odd, D&H specific signal masts.

So last weekend, I packed up the old girl and stuffed it into the trailer (loaned from Vic) and set off for Preston and the convention.

The set up went extremely well and with the help of John Colliver, I was running trains within 2.5 hours of arriving.

I was concerned how well a layout that is still a ply wood junction would be received by the 140+ delegates of the convention. I was reassured by the convention committee that the layout would be well received due to the work I had done on the signalling system and the JMRI Panel Pro Panel.

I extremely proud to report that it was very well received. I received many, many comments about the layout not only about the signalling but also how well it ran all weekend from many of the convention delegates.

The layout ran flawlessly all weekend with only 1 or 2 derailments over the weekend.

As part of the convention, we had a number of delegates from the USA including Jim Yonkins, John Benny and Craig Martyn (of BLMA fame). I was extremely proud to get fantastic feedback from the guys about the work I had done on the layout and my scratch built, scale size, D&H signals and signalling system. Thanks guys..

 

Before long it was time to pack up and return the D&H to her home in the shed.

At pack up time is was all hands to the layout and with help from Big John, Little John, John B, Greg and Ron the D&H was back in the trailer and heading home in no time.. (Thanks guys, most appreciated.!)

The convention in Melbourne was a huge success. I have made a number of new friends amongst the N scale community in Australia and look forward to following them along on their layout build journey's like myself.

Now to plan the demolition of this layout and is resurrection as D&H V3 in the new shed. I will use as many elements of this layout as I can when it comes to building the new one. All track, electronics, signals etc will be reused in the bigger, better D&H V3...

Stay tuned.

No more dark territory on the D&H

After many years of planing, design, construction and installation, Im very happy to report that the last signal was installed on the layout yesterday.

Now the entire main line is under CTC (ABS for now) control via JMRI's Panel Pro.

While the single mast and dwarf signals have been installed for some time, the work needed to make specific D&H dual mast signals has taken some time due to the custom brass etching that needed to occur.

As the D&H has two types of dual mast signals, I felt that I needed to build both types to give a good representation of the signals used on the D&H.

Here are a few pictures of the new signals installed.

This signal is specific to the D&H and is a canterleaver type that us used for double track situations.
On the 1:1 scale D&H, each of the 6 search lights can display the aspect of Red / Yellow / Green.
In most cases these display speed and the status of the next 2 signals down the line.
As the legth of line between towns on my layout is short, I decided that I would reduce the total number of aspects that I wuld show and limit them down to just the top and middle search light being able to display Red / Yellow / Green. The bottom pair of search lights remain hard wired to show a red aspect.

One of the key reasons for doing this, apart from the limited need to show anything other than a Red on the bottom search light, is that the number of outputs on the electronics to drive the signals increases from 8 to 12 and therefore hits the funding for other projects on the railroad. Plus the issue of adding 2 more wires to the already very tight mast would be a challenge.

You may be thinking, those signals look rather tall. I am happy to report that they are built to scale from scale drwings provided to me by Dominic Bourgeois from the US who have been very helpfull in my quest to make these signals.

This second type of signal is the older design of the two that the D&H used on the railroad.
This signal says "D&H" as they were the only ones use use this type (I believe!)
Again, the bottom pair is search lights are hard wired to always display Red.

Now that these siganls are installed, I completed a count back to determine the number of signals. The total number of signals installed including dwarfs is 32.
The total number of driven search lights is 71. That then means that there are 142 separate outputs to drive the signals.  Then I also have some panels on the front of the layout to show
 occupancy of track that is hidden.

Well, thats the update for now. I will take a few more pictures of complete interlockings to show all the singals at some of the locations on the layout.

The D&H Comes Home!

Well, As you may have guessed from the last blog update. The railway room is now ready and its time for the D&H layout to come home.

Very soon after finishing painting the room I arranged to loan a tandem trailer from my good friend Vic.
The trailer had previously been used to tansport Rod and Vic's Thompson River Canyon Layout to exhibitions a few years ago. Now the Thompson River is firmly installed in Barrie's railway room, the poor old trailer was sitting now redundant.

After a number of emails to Vic and John C, it soom became apparent that the D&H would fit in the trailer and the move was on. So on the 7th I trecked out to Ringwood to pick up the trailer and then over to Oakligh where the layout has been in storage for more than 18 months at my fathers factory.

To say that the layout fit perfectly would be an understatement. There was about 10mm to spare on one side. The lenght of the trailer was perfect and the layout slid right in. It fit so snugly that I did not need to tie it down.

I then set off and headed for Wantirna for a operating session at Rod's as we were conducting the first test of his signaling project on the SFRSD. With the D&H in tow via Wantrina and the session now complete at Rod's I headed home to Sunbury.

At the crack of dawn, (well 8am ish after a bit of a sleep in) I backed the trailer up to the shed and proceeded to unload the D&H.

Before long she was up on her lanky legs and in position.

Afer a hour or so of re adding the small sections of rail between modules and giving the track a damn good clean, it was time to run trains.

U30C #709 and 2 other sister engines had the honour of runnig the first 20 car train around the layout.

With only 1 minor loose wire on a turnout the layout and the Panel Pro Panel worked perfectly as if it had never been in storage.!

Thanks to all the help I have received over the last 18 months in building the shed and painting it. It certainly has been appreciated.

Now the D&H is back up and running, and looking very small in the large room. Now it is time to plan for bigger and better things.

In the mean time, I will complete the signals for the layout so that the layout can take a brief trip to the Melbourne N scale convention in March 2013.

Stay tuned for updates on the build of the signals.

Regards
Brendan

Fourth and final shed update

Well, time is certainly moving along.. This will be the last update for the shed as it is now ready for the layout to move back in.

But before that happens, lets step back a few weeks..

Since the last update the top parts of the walls were installed and the screw holes and gaps plastered up.

As you can see, I have the 6mm MDF on the bottom parts of the wall, 3mm mdf on the top parts of the wall and 9mm C/D ply on the ceiling.

Next, was the paint.
After closely surveying friends railway rooms recently in terms of paint colour for the blue sky and the dark lower parts of the wall, I settled on the colours Barry Davies has used. (Nice one Barry).

I settled on a blue called British Paints "Levent" in a low sheen and a colour bond colour called "Monument" in a semi gloss for the lower sections of the walls.

Over the weekend, we had previously planned for friends to come over from Ballarat and stay for the weekend. Little did they know, that a shed inspection meant hanging onto the end of a paint roller for the reainder of the day.. Thanks to Liz, Bill, Mary and Al for your help. Also to Sam and Lochie for getting in and helping with the shirting boards also. Michelle kept the food and drink coming..

The ceiling is also painted light blue. The long term plan is to expand the layout and create isles with valance's above the layout. The valance will be painted "monument" along with the ceiling along the walkways. This will then frame the layout nicely. The blue on the inside of the valance will help reflect the light down on the layout.

The walls and ceiling received 3 coats of undercoat in order to cover the MDF and the ply and then 3 coats of blue on the walls. Then 2 coats of the black on the lower sections.

Here is a shot where we are halfway through the painting.. Blue is done..

Once the black was completed, I installed the lights around the outside of the room.

Here is the final panorama shot of the room.

Now the layout can come out of storage and into the room..!

During the last week or so, there has been a huge range of outsiude temp's. We ranged from 18 to 40 degrees. Considering I installed R5 and R6 bats in the ceiling and R2.5 in the walls, the room only reached 25 degrees in the hottest part of the day.. Nery nice.. It was cooler than in the house..!

Stay tuned for the next update.