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The evenings are getting shorter, there is less work to do in the garden and therefore more time to play with the trains. Nothing really has been done to the layout throughout the Summer although trains have been run for a short time most days.

The carriage has had a new wheel set fitted and is now working well and the Schools Class has had a new traction tyre to its tender drive and is therefore back on active duties. I have also added a Lima Class 33, another Graham Farish 0-6-0PT and another Gaiety 0-6-0PT to the engine shed roster.

The last two models are totally in the HD time frame with heavy diescast bodies and simple mechanisms. The Gaiety engine is actually running on a modified HD 0-6-0T chassis and the extra weight compared to the original makes for very good running.

One of the things to decide for future layout work is whether I am going to add the extra electric points that I have to the new extension sidings replacing the current manual ones. This could be possible as these sidings are only for carriage or freight trucks and will not have engines stabled in them. The electric points are non isolating and to store engines it would require having isolating rails and switches.

Having made this decision I will then have to decide whether I will ballast this area – not sure at the moment. Still room for a few more buildings which is the winter jobby.

No pictures in this posting I will take some of the Black5 and the Class 33  for the next instalment.

Very little work has been done on the layout although regular evening running is still in progress. I have not ballasted the new sidings or even the main line. The sidings have not been done as I still have a coupke of electric points that I am still in two minds whether to put or stay with the manual ones. Until I decide there is no point in doing any ballasting.

I have built a small industrial complex in this area although this was done a couple of months ago but I have only just got around to taking some pictures.

The running has been less than successful as my new Hornby Schools class has managed to throw one of its traction tyres off and therefore wont pull the skin of a rice pudding and one of the Southern suburban carriages managed to break its axle. Both of these problems need to be addressed before the main season starts in the Autumn.

There has been one new purchase a Hornby Black Five converted to three rail running which is a good strong runner and yet another tender drive loco. Lets just hope that it doesn’t lose one of its traction tyre.

Although I continue to test the track especially the entry into the carriage and engine sidings I am hopeful that the two main lines are now OK and will not need changing. I have been building shops and a Cinema to add to the town behind the extension as well as a Mainline station. With the addition of a wall between the High Street and the railway this area is now nearly finished. The buildings are by Metcalfe and are very therapeutic and

relatively easy to build. I think that they are much better than the alternative Superquick.

The acquisitions are

Two mint and boxed Graham Farish  GWR suburban coaches to go behind the Graham Farish 0-6-0PT. These coaches are all plastic and well detailed but do not have the doors lined out and there no running numbers just the GWR circle. Nowhere near as nice as HD possibly on a par with Triang but they at least had running numbers. This train has been located on the small inner oval which will now act purely as a suburban branch line.

A HD 0-6-2T in LNER Green for the engine shed extension. and a HD BR(WR) coach plus another to come so that I can run WR trains on both lines.

The main activity is still testing the extension track to make sure everything runs smoothly. Plus I have been standing contemplating the layout and have decided to move many of the trains from their current running track to new ones. Then you have to test if they run OK. The Wrenn Merchant Navy with Pullman has moved to the down line and the Deltic with Maroon MK1 has moved to the up line and the small oval now has urban trains rather than express.  Lots of other movements as well as some new acquisitions. I now have two Graham Farish WR coaches to match the Farish Tank engine – a nice little set up.

This is not playing with trains but serious testing.

I have also been adding some buildings to the extension.

Lots to do.

Loving it.

This is just excellent advice from David Simmons of use to all 3 rail runners. Fantastic information on points – really useful.

“I’m sorry to hear you are having all these problems. My experience of Dublo track (on and off for almost 60 years) is that it can be very troublesome, but can be beaten. It needs careful laying and only track that has passed rigourous inspection should be used.

A sheet of glass is useful to check that the rails are absolutely flat. Bases with obvious distortion should be either straightened if possible or scrapped. I avoid all track from the Korean war period (card insulators and steel rail are give aways). I also find that mixing wide and narrow tongues can sometimes give problems. The last section of curved rails is often straight, causing doglegs. Careful use of flat nose pliers corrects this – sighting along the rail shows up this one. Duchesses are near their limit on 15″ curves and don’t need any bad joints to worsen matters

Diamond crossings give trouble because the bakelite section in the middle warps (this also happens with uncoupling rails) and there is a bump between this and the metal part File smooth or scrap.

The real problem is, of course, the points, though I have not had particular problems with electric ones (it’s essential to check that the tiny spring underneath holds the point blades firmly over both ways however) . My investigations of these have revealed several problems. Firstly, the gauge through the blades widens to about 18mm. This is why fine scale wheels derail and only wide wheels like Dublo, Lima and later Tri-ang / Tri-ang-Hornby (This stuff is still Tri-ang to me despite usurping the Hornby name!) run through OK. Then, at the other end, the check rails are often bent out of shape and need restoring to their original form, so that the wheels are gently eased into line. Any burrs need removing obviously. Also check that the centre rail is level. Castles, 8Fs and 0-6-2 tanks in particular are prone to the collector shoes getting caught and derailing or shorting and stalling. Again flatness is essential.

I have found that some wheels are out of gauge (the back to back should be 14.2mm). This has to be corrected to avoid problems. A gauge or a vernier/digital caliper is necessary to check.

I’ve waffled on (as usual!) but a last point. To avoid uncoupling, all couplings have to be the same height (I have reserved one wagon with pristine couplings as my standard and all others have to couple and uncouple with this one). The hooks are ideally all the same (original) shape and it is essential that the actual coupling surface is vertical. Level track and attention to these points should mean unwanted uncoupling is rare.

I hope I’ve not stated too much that’s obvious, but I firmly believe in keeping them running rather than decaying away in some collector’s boxes.”

Thank you, David contributions welcome at any time.

Since this post David has sent me a follow up email with some further advice which is very useful and a picture of his now dismantled layout. Another runner, I hope that he gets a new layout soon.

“Hi Tony,
Thanks for your e-mail. Glad to be of assistance and the best of luck with your investigations. I’ve rescued some bad cases in the past., Corrosion and bad wear are the real killers.
The poorer examples can always be used in sidings or the loco depot where speeds are lower anyway. At worst, they can provide spare parts.

I would agree with you about 4MT tank bogies. they’re not quite heavy enough to take the coupling loads, especially with plastic wheels. I was going to try a phosphor bronze spring (like on the West Country), but have never got around to it. I didn’t have much success with the foam. The N2 (I have several of these) has never given bogie problems however. Possibly the axle is bent and the wheels don’t run true?

I’ve attached a photo of my old layout (now dismantled following a move, unfortunately) if you’re interested.

If you need any help don’t hesitate to ask.

Best regards,
David”

The new electric points arrived that I had bought from Peter Davies and the key one was fitted and wired up. Trains were sent around the track and then reversed into the sidings to check for derailments. Each engine and its train were being checked out and then out of the blue the engine just stopped. The auxilliary controller showed a dead short every time one tried to start the engine.

The multimeter had died over Christmas so the short had to be found by trial and error. The first thing to check was obviously the extension, suely it must be there. The new extension track was disconnected from the existing track. The extension connection from the main controller was removed. The auxilliary controller was wired directly to the extension now running seperate from the existing track. All was fine.

So track that had been laid between 2000 and 2004 and never given a problem all of a sudden had a dead short. Now this track is screwed down and ballasted and in some places almost impossible to get at. All the trains in that area had to be removed and stored. A mulitimeter was borrowed and testing began on each track section. Everything within easy reach was OK. Sods Law was fully operational. More trains were removed cushions were laid on  the track so that I could kneel on them without damage to the track and the far flung eaches of the layout were checked. A short length of track the furthest away from the front was the problem. How, why who knows but there it was.

Unscrew the track replace the offending peice and all was fine but I took the opportunity to remove a point to a very small siding to reduce decoupling in this area and to slightly realign the track.

This took a lot of time as this slight realignment seemed to throw everything off and the re were derailments and decouplings. In the end I renewed all of the track in that area and started running all the trains again.

For the moment work on checking the electric point installation has stopped until this section is running reliably again

Given the position of the faulty electric point there was no way of really investigating what was going on. It was just a matter of watching the engines derail every now and then. So having removed the offending point and replaced it with a manual one I set up a small test track to try and find out what was happening and see if I could correct it. A picture of the test track is shown left.

The test track faithfully reproduced the problem which is shown in the second picture. The engine was jumping off the track just after it had been through the point. I looked and felt and checked and looked again. Nothing was obvious but out came the fine wet and dry paper and polishing of all of the possible surfaces was done to ensure that there were no protrusions even if I couldn’t see them. After a fair amount of polishing replacing, derailing more polishing I finally got the 0-6-2T to go through the points 30 times without derailing. I thought that I had cracked it. So out came the other problem engine, the Silver King and it worked a treat for the first 3or 4 times and then it derailed. A little more polishing and checking made no real difference.

Two things

1) It could be that the rail at the end of the point goes slightly out of gauge and some engines can cope and others can’t

or

2) The wheels on these two engines are slightly out of gauge.

There are no other points on the layout that causes problems for these engines so it really must be the point. But I don’t think that it is repairable.

I had my new points on order so it was a matter of waiting for them.

Judging by the comments received on the website, I am attracting new people to the hobby rather than those who have been collecting or running for some time. This is hardly surprising as my collection has no Dublo gems and a lot of other makes which probably doesn’t appeal to the collector and for the runners they have all been there and done it before and survived the problems.

So if you are not a member of the HRCA and can’t access their collection of literature and you want to know how to wire an electric point, with or without a signal then this will give you the information

My layout has no electric points. I never saw the need for them as I can reach all the manual points although some with the aid of a metal bar assister. However on the extension layout there is one point into the main sidings that is a stretch and is behind another line of trucks and is therefore difficult to reach without knocking over something. So, as I had an electric Left Hand point in my track box I decided to put it in that position.

Rough wiring was put in place and I used the passenger bridge to guide the wires over the track. Having put it place the engine testing started. All seemed to work well on the dodgy engines. Dodgy engines are defined as those which have a history of de-railing at the slightest opportunity. The worst is the 2-6-4T with its front bogie when going forwards and is rear pony when reversing. This is a well known problem engine. The second one to check is the Duchess of Montrose when reversing as its rear pony wheels are prone to derail. These two were fine. So like a fool I decided to put in permanent under board wiring before completing the test work.

Wrong.

After spending an afternoon putting in  the wiring and crawling under the track I re-started testing with the other engines as well as the tricky ones. 2-6-4T, no problems, Montrose, no problems, the converted Hornby Schools class, no problems, Metro Vick the same. Whats left well I ought to try an A4 and although its bound not to be a problem and an 0-6-2T as well.

You guessed it – problems.

The tank would not go throughthe point at all when reversing from the siding onto the mainline, it just stopped with bang every time. Point or engine? Well after a lot of head scratching and checking I noticed that the three rail pick up was slightly not parallel so I adjusted it and bingo all was fine, Engine then. Turn it round and drive it through  the points forwards and it derails just after the point. Not every time but about 10% of the time. Dodgy engine so lets move on. Silver King is put to the test. Reverses into the siding fine but again de-rails about 1 in 15 attempts when leaving the siding.

Out comes the sandpaper, minor smoothing of rails and joins, make sure that the check rail is clear of debris and wide enough to allow the flange through, all of this done by stretching right across the layout. Minor adjustments made, time to re-test. Out comes another A4 from the stable. In and out 20+ times – no problem. Sorted. Silver King comes into play and after about 10 times it de-rails. Now Silver King sits on the layout in the engine shed and to get in and out it has to cross 5 points in and 5 out and has never de-railed once in all the time that it has been stabled there. So its not the engine but the point.

Out it comes to be replaced by a manual one from the box, Try the 2-6-4T and it derails the pony wheels every time. Remove point and replace it with on of the boxed and very good isolating points which I bought especially for this application and which I soldered a wire between the main line joints so it is now non-isolating. Testing has restarted,

What I now need though is an excellent electric point.

I have now painted the extension so that it is ready to start the layout. After that it was off to a visit to the local train fair and the purchase of some rails and points. I then had a follow up visit to one of the dealers houses to buy the rest of the track needed plus a chance to have a look at his train room in the loft.

Amazing layout and an amazing amount of stock. He has been collecting for many years both dublo and Triang and he runs 3 rail and 2 rail for his Triang and 2 rail HD. Fantastic collection with rarities in profusion. How about 3 St Paddys, 4 southern 0-6-0T’s and much more. Jealousy knows no bounds when you see a collection like that. A prewar Mainline station and two of the modern plastic mainline stations one in use as a Terminal and one in use as a through station. Breathtaking.

Back to the mundane of my layout.

With the new rails I was able to loose lay what I think will be the final shape of the track, The first train to run soon showed that I had put isolating points between the mainline and the sidings – Wrong – they have to be non-isolating otherwise the engine will not run into them. I found that out on the last extension but forgot all about it. Still re-laying track is always fun.

I have added an additional power point to each set of tracks and have also added a remote controller for each track so that I can work within the new extension and not have to keep going back to the main controller. This has resulted in smooth steady speed running throughout the layout. The total layout now has 4 electrical inputs to each of the tracks reducing the effects of voltage drop. The current wiring is of course very temporary as it will be under the base board when we have checked out the layout for good running.

Now to check for ease of running, de-railments and uncouplings. This will take some time