Rhyd Ddu

I (will) have the following types of stock for the layout:

- Modern WHR carriages/borrowed FR modern carriages to be hauled by 143/87/138/K1/funkeys etc
- Modern WHR construction stock to be hauled by Upnor Castle/Conwy Castle etc
- Modern/heritage Col Stephens FR set to be hauled by Tal/Merddin (photocharters)
and (hopeful) I suppose:
- WHHR heritage carriages and wagons to be hauled by Russell

Then there are:

- Heritage WHR stock and wagons to be hauled by Beddgelert/Moel Tryfan/Gowrie/590 etc (which is a bit of a modellers' licence thing really).

and the following rarely if ever to be used on Rhyd Ddu (but to be used on the proposed future FR layout):

Did some minor work on Taliesin last night, but gave up in exasperation after fiddling around for ages. 
I did manage to glue on the chimney and attach the cylinder back covers.  I also tacked on one of the slidebars and got it running nicely until one of the retaining bushes fell off whilst I was testing it.  Getting that back on (behind the slidebars) proved to be impossible.  I gave up for some thought and now have a new idea.  But first I must ensure that the crankpins stay where they are and so I will be investing in some loctite 601 retainer.
Colin

Despite my exertions in 16mm see here I have also been doing some 009...

This has included the purchase of an apparently dead England off ebay, and within 5 minutes having made it work.  Here it is above.  This will become Palmerston and this is aided by the fact that this model doesn't have the central moulded nameplate on the tank side.  The model does need detailing (not least by finding some replacement sandboxes), and also will need some work to stop it being so rear heavy - liquid lead in the smokebox and a plasticard roof are two ideas so far...

I've also been experimenting with the roco clean wagon I bought...

which works quite nicely indeed and I suspect that I could replace the track rubber with a sponge soaked in some cleaner like goo gone and replicate the CMX cleaner (although not with the auto flow thing unless I can find a way of putting a small recepticle inside this wagon!

Colin

Firstly I have managed to do some tidying work on the wiring on the most congested board – the yard.

and after a most welcome suggestion from a commenter I have altered Beddgelert to take the outside framed Farish 08.  Luckily it didn’t need much to widen the axleboxes to get this in.  I also drilled two holes at the front for the chassis to be attached to.  Work is still required to find a way of attaching it at the rear and also to mount the trailing bogie.  Then it’s just the con rods and slidebars that need fabricating.  A quick touch up with paint and a conversion to dcc (easy) and it’s all done. Oh and nameplates of course…and a driver…and…

 

Colin

Sorry for the delay in posting, this has been due to a very busy week when I was hardly at home at all.

On the 009 front, I have tested the points decoder and there is good and bad news...

The good news is that it functions as it should and each output I tested work - I didn't test output 1 as it runs across to the other end of the loop. The LED lights up and the controller can make the point motor operate. This has thus tested the continuity of the wiring and that the decoder itself is working.

The bad news is that in general the pulse does not have enough uumph to throw the point blade over. Now this may be due to the points being a bit sticky due to ballasting and painting, but I have also heard that many utilise a CDU to give a bit more uumph and I will try this (I have such a unit in stock in anticipation that this might be the case). John from County Gate has said he uses a CDU for each point(!).

I have also been lucky to have been passed some karma from the estate of the late Dr Ben Fisher, who many of you will know through his excellent WHR site and forum. I have been pleased to offer Joe Fisher, his brother, some advice on the models Ben left behind. Joe hopes to get a 009 layout going with the not inconsiderable stock that Ben constructed. In many cases this was either scratchbuilt or heavily modified from kits. The standard is excellent, and when I heard that much of this modelling was carried out when he was in his secondary school/university years, I was very impressed indeed. The stock that is finished included Ashover, Leek and Manifold, Ffestiniog and Blaenau, WDLR and French stock, all built to a very high standard. Joe then showed me Ben's piece de resistance - a beautiful model of the Pechot-Bourdon double fairlie - just wonderful.

Joe is however not interested in the unmade kits that Ben left behind and after an appeal via the WHR forum has passed them on to me. I will be making a donation to the WHRS appeal for Nantmor halt - the Dr Ben Fisher memorial appeal.

I have therefore been fortunate to 'inherit', amongst other things, a backwoods Russell kit - which I will build in the cut-down state - a NWNGR workmans' carriage and a complete WHR Pickering brake (although this is in a freelance livery).

Also I have been passed two 16mm narrow gauge kits, both Slaters - a quarry Hunslet and a De Winton. The garden railway plans are thus being accelerated. I have set up another blog for all things 16mm at http://16mm-ng.blogspot.com and will be posting there about garden focussed developments. I hope that this will not affect progress on Rhyd Ddu, as that remains by top priority.

Colin

So, it was good to see that dapol have brought out a very similar container indeed, pictured below. I had to buy the uninspiring red one too, but I'm sure my brother can make use of this as he got himself a DCC sound equipped class 66 at the show too.

The interesting way in which County Gate uses fixed consists has got me thinking. One of my main worries about using 009 is to do with reliability of running. 009 allows me to model far more of Rhyd Ddu than would ever be possible in 7mm, or even 5.5mm and also allows me to show the trains in their scenic setting. Running is its Achilles heel usually. There are many ways that running can be improved such as:

- Making sure the trackwork is top notch paying particular attention to check rail clearances and board joins.

- Making sure that electrical feeds are introduced more often than strictly necessary to give some redundancy

- Ensuring the track is clean

- Ensuring loco wheels are clean

- Building chassis that are dead square so all wheels are in contact with the railhead at all times

- Running in locos

- Installing flywheels and using the ‘jump start’ feature in many decoders

- Installing extra weight over the driven wheels to keep them from lifting off the track and to help adhesion generally.

- Ensuring locos are balanced and don’t have a tendency to pitch.

- Using modern mechanisms with quality motors and gearboxes.

And for the majority of the time the above will work… but even if I manage to do the above I am still concerned that locos with just two pairs of wheels picking up are prone to unreliability.

So the locos I am concerned about are:

- Prince – using a 0-4-0 ibertren, which I despise anyway due to its deep flanges. A better kit is available from Mercian.

- Upnor Castle on an 4wh bullant with mashima

- Conwy Castle an 4wh bullant with mashima

- Blanche - using a 0-4-0 ibertren (see above), possibly to be swapped for the new Parkside outside framed RTR chassis version.

- (Linda) – I only have a scratchbuilt body, but the same issue with pickups would exist had I a chassis for it.

- Taliesin – 0-4-4 backwoods with mashima. The rear truck can be made to pick up too, so this may not be the problem I fear.

- (Palmerston) – same issue as Prince, but I don’t have a kit for this engine at present.

I am considering whether some special measures should be taken with these engines to ensure better running (and less hand of God [Thierry Henry?] from the sky). This would either involve double heading – Conwy and Upnor could well work that way for example, or utilising the County Gate ‘trick’ of using another vehicle with pickups and passing the juice through micro connectors.

Taliesin was at Rhyd Ddu recently on the Col Stephens’ set and Prince and Palmerston were used in a similar way during last year’s photo charters. So I could use a companion car with these engines and use micro connectors to pass the juice through to the decoder and thence to the motor. The problem with this is that I wouldn’t then be able to run around the train without disconnecting the micro connector, thus limiting my operating options. But at least they would run reliably.

Taking this one step further, I could actually create a small consist of carriages where some of the carriages bogies also picked up from the track and passed that juice through to the loco and also to lighting strips set into the ceiling of the carriages - I have recently bought such a strip from dcc supplies for testing purposes.

Perhaps a small subset of the Col Stephens’ set could be used to improve running AND also as a kind of showpiece lit set?

That train could also draw some serious current – perhaps 200mA per lighting strip and perhaps 300mA for the motor – good job I bought a 3.5A max DCC system!

For an image of the connectors see this link.

Warley was a great day out as expected.