Elmer Lane 5 - NZR-ising the Kato Turntable

 DB continues:

So the Kato Turntable isn't very NZR-like out of the box.

As mentioned previously, "it does have a shallow pit (yay), however the bridge girders are 'upside down' compared to NZ turntables (boo), but surely the sides can be flipped to look a little better? Its modelled on an electric one with a gantry in the middle, but I'm sure that can be removed, and there is a little red operators cabin at one end. The bridge length is a smidge short, as we are 1:120 and Japan is usually 1:150 rather than the usual N 1:160, but its not actually a million miles out. In fact according to my calculations it should fit a scaled down Ja wheelbase. "

Well, lets do some more digging.

As predicted, the central brown gantry was an optional part that I simply didn't install. The brown main girder sides (made of an unusual tough but flexible plastic) can also be gently prised out of the bridge (a press fit).

Similarly the operators  cabin can also be gently levered off, and .... surprise(/whoops)... there is unexpectedly a tiny vertical can motor in there which is how the turntable is driven! Nifty, but that means the cabin needs to stay. Good job I was more careful than usual with the removal of this or else I'd have buggered the whole thing. I suppose this could be replaced with a new drive mechanism underneath the pit somehow, but that is well beyond the scope of this wee project.

Underside: electrical wipers that control the bridge's turning, the track power, and the operation of the little prodders at the ends of the underside which mate into holes under each road for positive location. Clever stuff:

The power feeder 'LP' below and the positive location locking rectangular holes can be seen under each track position, above the toothed rail that runs around the outside of the pit.

The first thing to be attacked while "the bridge was out" as the Dukes of Hazzard used to like saying, was to weather up the pit.  I could have ballasted this if I wasn't going to have the turntable bridge girders hanging down as low as I can get them. My efforts were done with some thin dappled drybrushing and chalks. It looks a bit hokey and contrastry in these pics.

The operators cabin has been minimised at its backside, weathered, and the roof painted grey. The girders were thinned to clear the power feed LP, painted a similar colour as used on the Elmer Lane roundhouse window frames, and glued on. Dark weathered scribed stripwood 'walkways' were then added on top of the bridge:

OK, not 100% convincing, and the DBR makes the bridge look pretty small, but not bad for an afternoon's effort.

Next morning I put aside my irrational fear of soldering things to other things and made up some handrails. I got better as I went along: plenty enough flux, minimal solder.

These were installed, and the pliers above are holding one end up of the first attempt (with its solder blobs) at a good height while the glue sets. 

It was then painted - white along the top rail and grey for the supports. This looked a bit overbling, so I made the top handrail grey too except for the ends. I'm not sure health and safety had been invented in the late 1960s anyway. But then nor had TMS numbers or DBRs.

OK, this was never going to become a 'real NZR turntable'. Its a bit small and it has an operators cabin at one end that can't be disposed of. It is a girder type, and although most of our bridges were cast ones with big holes in them, Elmer Lane did actually have a plate girder fabricated type like this one. 

This is also a 'through' type of bridge, whereas our structural parts of the turntable bridge were typically much closer together,  sitting under the rails, with the non-structural walkways cantilevered out from the sides.  Due to the location of the operating mechanisms under and on the bridge, plus that filigree LP power pickup, the Kato bridge can't be thinned easily. Its not something I'd want to hack at. 

Its also just occurred to me that I haven't put any power into it to see if it works. It probably doesn't now!

Elmer Lane 4 - Roundhouse wall

 DB just couldn't resist...

The Elmer Lane roundhouse was pretty cool, alas I only got to see it in its truncated 4-stall edition in the early 80s. Despite owning no steam locos, my Elmer Lane will be late 60s at the turntable end (full roundhouse, sand tower, water vat, light-up wood etc),  and diesel focused at the arrival end (plain sidings to park pairs of locos). 

The roundhouse is obviously the first thing to tackle, especially as I was looking at the site of the real thing on Thursday.

I picked up a few sheets of A4 acetate overhead projector film recently and started playing in Excel, forming some 4x8 panes, using 'double outlines' on each cell. These were copied and pasted along and scaled by trial and error (printing on ordinary paper). When I had these about the right size they were printed out on the acetate. 

My plan below is a little underscale, maybe an inch or so short in horizontal length, but I need to build a little tall, as the locos still have to fit through the doors! I will hide the bottom 5mm with ballast.

I did the same excel/acetate thing for the back walls, although with the Kato turntable legs splayed a little wider than the real thing, each of my wall segments will be a little wider. 

Here is the printout with some indicative side shapes drawn in with a fine marker.

Stripwood was procured from Mitre 10 in various sizes for supports. Some was painted/stained dark grey and some strip plastic for the window frames painted a reddy-brown shade. These were hung out to dry.

After spraying a reject printout with Dullcote once on the front and once on the back as a test, I decided spraying the backside/inside was better, this provides a slightly opaque/dirty look to the windows, but leaves the laser printed panes on the outside. 

The real roundhouse had corrugated metal on the sides and rear walls with massive metal casement windows. The curved side facing the turntable was wood, and the roof a malthoidy thing. 

I have some corrugated plasticard, a little coarse, bit it will do. Oddly it was prepainted the right shade of browny black, I think from some containers may moons ago. A windowsill of my painted stripwood was added on top.

This was glued on successfully with a big honkin tube of Ados contact glue. being careful not to get any on the window glass. Interior beams will provide stiffening, so these were cut to length: 

And glued to the inside:

Additional reinforcing top and bottom on the inside:

Prepainted reddy strip window framing adorns the outside, very carefully glued, hiding the beams:

And the top corrugated piece added:

The top black bit looks a little tall above the windows in the above pic compared to the protype picture from "Steam Inclined", but there is a fairly deep roof fascia that will hang down and cover this, and as mentioned the lower 5mm will be hidden in ballast.

Elmer Lane 3 - real word curve testing

 DB continues:

So, Elmer Lane, with a more-than-180-degree balloon loop, all able to be squeezed into a car... Well the whole turntable and roundhouse thing wouldn't work very split down the middle across two modules... but is it practical? There's only one way to find out.

Lengths of second hand Peco code 55 flex were unearthed and the soldering iron fired up. It only took one joint at the head of the curve, the other pieces of straight flex were just fishplated in. The curve had four or five staples applied to keep it tight

Then the Digitrax DCC was dug up, it took me a few minutes to remember how it all worked, but soon enough, some of my DCC locos had what might be their first real spin in about 13 years. 

First up was the challenging test train: a light 1990-built LC up front with a glued-stuck Microtrains coupler (connected to a long body-mounted DX coupler that will want to throw out on the curve), some lightweight four wheel and bogie wagons (all with fine flanges), including a KP with a loose weight rolling around inside it, the light and long GT car carrier, my new flat UK and the featherweight laser cut plastic ZH, and then at the back, heavyweights and top heavy wagons - resin castings and the new Trackgang Zs and old CF. This pic taken just before coupling up for the first run.

And... no drama to report at all, except I could only get one of my DXs running at first, so it had to take the train, alone and slowly. Success! 

Then when trying to push it back around, a stall, with the middle of the train in the middle of the curve, and the DX's wheels spinning. But no derailments. I knew this floor wasn't level,  but I didn't realise quite how much. Some books were employed to lift one corner a bit, but to no avail, the mighty DX was beaten on the uphills.

The day was saved by DG 2376, on a heavy Kato PA-1 chassis. Man that thing can haul. Up and down no problems. It was only when packing away the train it was found that my GT has a splayed bogie, so the one wheelset that was left on the track when I picked it up probably wasn't rolling at all. 

After this, it seemed like a good opportunity to play trains. something I don't do enough of.

Here's the single DG on a coallie. The heavy CBs are in the middle (they have pizza cutters which rub on the metal wagon floors), and an even heavier Trackgang CF is at the back of the lightweight CWs. No dramas pulling or pushing uphill at quite decent speeds. This train looked nice behind the two KiwiRail DXs when I got the pair running and multiple-united together, although they run slow.

Not entirely prototypical, maybe the DG should be blue

The TranzAlpine then came out, and this is a pretty heavy train with a high centre of gravity as the cars are solid resin, but they have nice metal wheelsets, so I had no qualms with the DG and later the faster DFT pushing this uphill around the curve at unrealistically high speeds. 

So the verdict is that even my creakiest old wagons in a worst-case consist seem to run fine around this sharpish curve. And so they should really, this is flextrack laid out in a smooth, flat circle with a single soldered join, and an 18 inch/450mm radius curve isn't crazy tight. With a more sensibly-ordered train (heavies at the front, free-rollers at the back), I can't see this curve being a problem unless there is way too much speed and herky jerky operator error.

More worrying was that many of my locos didn't work, or took a while to get working, or barely worked at all.

A few may have an incorrect address programmed on the decoder for some reason, such as DG 2330 and DJ 3067, both of which were DCC-ised not long before all this stuff was packed away. I didn't think to get out a programming track to see.

None of the Atlas SD35 chassis under the Da/DBR/DCs worked well. Cleaning and better electrical connections between the decoder and metal split frames are required, although I did have DC 4559 and 7132 (both blue) on the Tranz for a while. 

DF 6277 and DX 5448 ran jerkily, and DF 6064 could barely turn its motor with lots of humming, so something must be binding in there. These are all old Kato chassis with decoders that were hardwired in 1995 for my little 'Wellington' layout, built after I purchased the Digitrax. Amazing to have an electronic anything that still works after 30 years and will even drive modern decoders.

The two KiwiRail DXs on Atlas Dash 8 chassis with clip-in decoders are nice and smooth, but must have their VMax set quite low, perhaps to run with slower locos? Their maximum speed at 100% is preeeetty slow. That should be fixable easily.  

The stars of the show were undoubtedly DFT 7132 and DG 2376. And the curve. 

.....

However, I don't want to get too distracted by this until I have finished the hard work of Studholme...

Elmer Lane 2 - Meanwhile, back in the real world.

 DB continues:

With the arrival of a thin 8x4 plywood sheet on the second of January, it was time for a more realistic think about Elmer Lane. To start, the balloon loop curve was marked out at an 18 inch radius. This is smaller than intended, and smaller than the 600mm specified in the Fremo120 doc, but certainly larger than we have gotten away with in the past.  This wouldn't work being 'split through the turntable' into two modules, so one has to remain moveable, and a 4x8 module is completely impractical for transport, housing, flexing and so many more reasons! But that's one heck of a curve. The Trackgang minimum radius is 600, the same as the standard, and they probably don't have many 180+ degree horseshoe curves. Hmmm. This could be a big mistake in the making.

This setup looked pretty decent though and ended up at just over 7 feet long. While I don't intend to move this in a medium sized non-hatchback sedan car, out of curiosity, I took the measuring tape out to the garage. Crikey, the car would actually take 7 feet from the boot through to the back of the passenger seat (seat far forward and with the seat back vertical). The tightest distance between the carpet on the car's wheel wells is three feet. Wow, so with a little shrinkage, this module could fit in a car if it had to! 

Considering these new self-imposed constraints, as can be seen in these three pics  I moved the loop curve a little closer to the roundhouse, which means I'd lose its workshops extension out the back (or it would have to be minimal). The yard throat end lost about two centimetres with no drama. I reduced the baseboard width to 18 inches at the curve end, and thus obviously the curve radius even more, to about 17.5 inches, or just under 450mm.  The track will be quite close to the baseboard edge at the two widest points, but the baseboard can be out further almost everywhere else. Those two spots could have little fences for peace of mind. 

As can be seen, there is enough space for the two track railcar shed parallel to the Hoki line, the rails of which were extended almost to the roundhouse. 

I also have the track (near the turntable controller box here) which served coal (that white solid resin LC top at the end of the track!) to the shed boiler, plus a backshunt at the other end. I'm thinking all or some of this track might not be powered, but just a place to park locos for show. Some (maybe many) of the roundhouse tracks might not be powered either, depending on how easy or hard that is to do. Not as hard as I feared it seems. 

I remember in past exhibitions we often took off locos to give them a rest, or because they failed or became unreliable, or needed a wheel clean, just to change things up and it was handy to have somewhere handy where they can still be showed off. And be a place for non-DCC or non-working locos to safely sit and be seen. In the past this was the Otaki goods shed or ballast pit! A loco depot is a better setting!

You might also notice four tracks out the back/return of the balloon, which will be visible staging and train storage, ending up at Greymouth station which will be the 'next module'.

As this will be a balloon loop when it connects back up at the top, track polarity will be an issue, so presumably a DCC auto-reversing section (I know little about these) in the curve would make operation seamless, and ideally the loco depot itself would be on its own power district/booster so that any problems, derailments, or mistakes causing shorts wouldn't upset the mainline operations.  

Hmmm. Intriguing. 

Are you mad? Elmer Lane 1 - Genesis

DB says:

When the idea of Fremo120 was floated, operational practicalities at a public exhibition would mean you either need to: 

1. Assemble a loopty-loop layout. This is easier to operate, but challenging given the freeform nature and sizes of the modules. Its not impossible with advance planning and some on-the-day bespoke construction of a basic-plain-join-module using a lump of wood, a saw, and some flex track. Rhys and I did this at our first Dynamic Duo NZ120 exhibition appearance, which used temporary flex laid on a 2x2 piece of MDF (for the end horseshoe curve) and a long stick of 4x2 for the track behind my Otago Central bit. A few screws and a staple gun, and Bob was our Uncle.
2. Have balloon loops at the terminus of each 'end' or 'branch' that you don't want to have to 'run around' trains at and take them out backwards (most of my wagons are different weights anyway so I'm not sure whether my coal train would run too well reversed). While these balloons are an operational necessity on layouts, the ones I've seen at exhibitions have always seemed a bit 'forced' as balloon loops are not common in the real world, and thus are obviously a challenge to scenic. 

So a couple of balloons probably need to be made for a Fremo120 exhibition layout. But what to put in the middle of one? 

While perusing the Kato Swiss RhB offerings on the website of my Japanese purveyor of such addictive substances, I saw that Kato make a clever little motorised turntable (I had no idea). A lightbulb went off. What about modelling the Elmer Lane turntable and roundhouse? With the 'mainline' to Hokitika running right in front (just like the real thing) circling around the roundhouse (not at all like the real thing! But potentially hideable with trees, or a highway overpass, or something.)  And then the track comes back around the back of the depot where the old workshops / yard is. 

Elmer Lane loco depot in 1969 just after the end of steam (Retrolens)

Elmer Lane loco depot  in 1988 after the roundhouse was surgically reduced in the 1970s. (Retrolens) 

Fortunately, the pricey Kato turntable was out of stock, but upon my next order, it wasn't, and one fell into my shopping cart. This was about nine months ago now, as there have been plenty of other things to worry about in the interim. 

During those months, a bit of pseudo-planning occurred in Photoshop. Of course this is very guesstimental, because in the real world, tracks and things are very different sizes and geometries than when drawn on paper, PowerPoint, Photoshop, or even the track planing software I've tried, all of which are coated in a sheen of optimism as to how much can fit in a given space. But here you go (my doodle used the Kato diagram, overlaid with the retrolens aerial pic, and with some tracks drawn over that) :

(Flipped to make it easier to compare to the prototype aerials above)

Here is the the Kato turntable by the way:

Unlike many N scale turntable offerings, it does have a shallow pit (yay), however the bridge girders are 'upside down' compared to NZ turntables (boo), but surely the sides can be flipped to look a little better? Its modelled on an electric one with a gantry in the middle, but I'm sure that can be removed, and there is a little red operators cabin at one end. The bridge length is a smidge short, as we are 1:120 and Japan is usually 1:150 rather than the usual N 1:160, but its not actually a million miles out. In fact according to my calculations it should fit a scaled down Ja wheelbase. The tracks are radially spaced a little bit wider than Elmer Lane, so there will have to be fewer stalls than the prototype's 18. I reckon about 15 or 16 might be doable to keep the same shape as our roundhouse. 

The really nice thing about it, is that it indexes and locks to the tracks, and has some power routing capabilities too. 

As for Elmer Lane's roundhouse, one of two 'proper' ones that NZ had (three if you count the little three track Lyttelton one), the prototype will house the length of an Ab inside, and that should be doable in NZ120. The workshop extension tracks housed another Ab in length (and even longer than that on one track which had a wheelset drop table, and one assumes from the aerial pic that length was added to each of the three tracks (presumably to house J/Ja locos), but I won't have that much room available.

New Year Modelling Day: Waihao Forks Update

The Southern MD contingent got together on 1 Jan 2025. What better way to start the year. 

A quorum was quickly declared with three attendees. 

All the tools, none of the skills.

The first item on the agenda was looking at stuff, chatting and pondering.

The second, and primary item, involved bringing the Waihao Forks module out into the sun for the first time in a few years. Its a really impressive wee piece, with a lovely CNC cut ovoid shape, hand laid code 40 track that was completed by Trackmaster RB about 15 years ago and wired and adjusted by MG around 2016. Time and relocations had resulted in some damage to the ends, so it was decided to add Fremo120 ends for connectivity and protection, 30cm across. 

Damaged code 40 track sections at the ends were replaced with Peco code 55, which looks a little Cold War in comparison to the filigree handlaid stuff, but we needed to extend the tracks out over the new endpieces, didn't have any spare code 40 handy, nor anyone who could deftly work a soldering iron to the standard required. 

This worked out OK. Peco code 55 is of course the same height as code 80 but with two track webs - one visible, and one buried in the sleepers, which is why the stuff is pretty sturdy.

This pic from a precious MD post on track. For the transition to code 40,  bottom web of the Peco track was filed off, leaving a much finer piece of track with a web on the bottom. A fishplate was added to this remaining web, and the top of the rails filed down a smidge to match the height of the code 40.

Some of the sleepers were removed and replaced with a thin PCB one to help with the height change. Sounds a bit dodgy, but wagons rolled very smoothly through this. It will all be ballasted over to hide the worst of the chunky bits.

The ends were soldered down to EB's ModelTech rail aligners (copper clad PCB sleeper module joiners with little notches to facilitate alignment).

The meeting adjourned for a late lunch at a nearby hostelry. 

After sustenance had been taken, work continued on the end pieces, and on freeing up and repairing two turnouts. This required freeing up the rodding and reattaching point blades to the throwbars. One was successfully resuscitated, and one remains a work in progress.

Among a few other projects tackled, MH brought along  "The Grassinator" so we all had our first attempts at static grassing a small test section of DB's Studholme. The first task required was to perform surgery on a donor power adaptor to get the right voltage and polarity into the beast. Our results were mixed, being three men who just decided to crack into it rather than reading the instructions first. This is a topic that we will revisit in a future post. Once we have read the instructions. 

But a success for The Forks, which is looking rather nice. 

Sorry to the purists, but we had no ye olde period rolling stock on hand. 

3 Foot 6 Metal 3D Printed UK review -2

 DB ends the year with:

As mentioned in the previous edition, it would seem a crime to add a bunch of containers on top of the lovely open decking of my second nice open-decked wagon - the 3 Foot 6 Models UK, printed in aluminium.

So in a first for me - I now have an empty container flat - the must-model idem for those who like the Beard bumble bee era.

I managed to glue back on the leg of the nice bogie that I snapped in the previous instalment and added a little reinforcement. I hope that it will hold, as such a nice wagon deserves some nice bogies, and at least there isn't a lot of force placed on that one axle bearing, because my couplers are body mounted, the pulling/pushing forces are borne by the frame, and with no containers, it won't have much weight to bear.

Recycled couplers were installed, the bogie screw holes were filled and sanded down, some more black was used to touch up these and other bits. 

I decided to put a number decal on the deck to add a bit of flair, as I think Russell Trackgang had done with some of his wagons. I found some BNSF patch decals that seemed a reasonable match, and found a few numbers in that sheet that would combine easily enough to match a little UK number decal that I had printed out previously for the sides. I checked with Gerald Petrie's 2000 rolling stock booklet, and it was indeed a valid UK number that was still in service then. The decals were added, some dullcote sprayed on top the next day, and then some weathering powders were applied. 

For some reason I then went mad adding some brake cylinders (turned up from Plastruct rod in the drill, with some piping stuck in one end. 

As this is a plain wagon, I wanted it to pop a little, so I added a handbrake lever to both sides. A little unprototypical, but its rare that people can see both sides at once... These were hung off oversize wire handgrabs that were painted white. (there should really be an inboard set of rodding for these as well).

I then remembered my trick from a dozen years ago of dabbing some white onto the twistlocks and 'painting in' yellow ferry hooks. Must do that to yesterday's wine wagon.

Looking pretty good I reckon. Will have to try playing trains with it to see if it needs any weight. Happy New Ones and all the best for 2025 from the House of MD.