Studholme 10 - Cutting the cords.

DB follows on after a pause - this post has been in draft form, occasionally appended to, for the past six weeks. 

The Studholme module build has been a bit drawn out and higglety pigglety with all manner of things occurring out of the ideal sequence. Here is an attempt to get things back into a more sensible order of operations.  

Its always a good idea to paint the trackbed/scenery so if any ballast falls off there won't be white primer showing through from underneath, so this was done, as was filling in the remaining holes in the baseboard framing with foamboard. 

After these pictures, the track centrelines, obliterated by that recent application of grey paint, were redrawn.  

So finally things are at the state they should have been before any track was laid many months ago! Now feels like a good time to put down more track and start soldering it down across the PCB joins. 

As the old bomb disposal line goes: "Cut the green wire...." Snip. "But first, cut the red wire." A clever tip I picked up from somewhere was to loosen the module joining nuts a little, then place a very thin sliver of cardboard or plastic between the modules and loosely tighten everything up before the track is soldered down and cut. Then after cutting, remove the card and tighten things up to remove the Dremel-cutting-wheel-sized gap between the rail ends left from making the track cut. 

Its also quite hard to cut the track vertical because the Dremel's fat motor body is a much larger diameter than the cutting wheel. You are often left with a V shaped cut. 

Fortunately, the second-hand Dremel that I have (its a Fuller one actually) came with one of those flexi shaft extenders which has a thin endpiece you hold onto, so this makes it a little easier. 

Other approaches: 

I suppose a jeweller's saw could be used if you had the track up on a decent embankment or a really thin wooden module end.

You could also simply butt cut sections of track together and stick them down, but I figured with my module mounting pins providing a reliable location during module mating (ooo, err), tracks that are soldered across the join before cutting should all line up perfectly every time. 

As an aside, a few subtle changes and liberties have been taken with the Studholme track plan for 'model operational' reasons.

The real place had, to the east side (to the 'right' of the picture below), a main, loop, goods loop/shed road, and a loop around that goods shed that I remember being used for fresh fruit. The Froot Loop as American cereal makers might say.

On the model, I've decided to move the goods shed 'east' one track, so that gives me a main, loop, another loop, and then the goods shed. That means I'll be able to practically have four decent sized trains crossing here (including the west 'island loop')without having to run through the goods shed (which was previously, per prototype, on the long eastern goods loop) or loop around the fruit track.  I've left one stub siding in to represent that fruit track, so a Z could be parked there. I doubt that this or the goods shed little loop would ever be used much in operations, but they do have reasonable large radius points for looks.

I made some subtle changes to my plans for the west (left) side too, with a siding that will have the wagon turntable into a seed store, and the coal merchant. This leaves a runaround loop beside the island platform for Waimate branch operations. I've also included electrical breaks so the 'Waimate branch' can be run using the DCC controllers being used for the rest of the layout, or by a separate (perhaps DC) controller. The track on the west side has two switchable and isolatable 'blocks' ... so... 

• the island loop can be used by the main DCC feed for mainline crossings, while a branchline train comes into the runaround loop. 
• or the whole island loop (right down to the far end) can be used for a Waimate branch train to come in, run around and shunt (including accessing the near end of the island loop)
• or a mainline DCC goods could drop off wagons into the far tail of the island line for the Branch loco to pick up.
• or the whole thing could be run by the DCC controller so that a mainline train could shunt the coal/seed siding.

I did consider having another point off the waimate branch to serve the stock yards, but decided against putting another point there. There's not much room, but perhaps a few fake rails might be laid in the grass there and a sheep wagon plopped on them.

Seen from the other (north) end:

So there we have it. Some progress at last. 

Next, some more work on the points (three mainline points still need to be attached at the south end, plus the Waimate branch Y and curved point), some wiring, and after that (finally) the fun can start.

Christchurch Big Train Show visit

DB is barely holding the fort while Dandruff-San visits the far east.

The Christchurch Big Train Show was last weekend. There were plenty of layouts, stalls and chat to be had, so myself and a fellow modeller from Oamaru ended up staying four hours and we both had our wallets lightened by the cunning salespeople and their shiny trinklets.  

And wow! There was some unexpected (unexpected by me!) NZ120 presence there, with Ian Perry, who lives near Kaikoura, showing his model of scenes that are, unsurprisingly, from near Kaikoura. 

Rolling stock was from Trackgang, and all airbrushed - some of the most 'professional' looking finishes I've seen in NZ120. This all ran perfectly (even with multiple tracks across angled module joins) and looked great, with the scenes and bridges being great representations of either actual scenes, or of the general feel of the place. 

Ian and his wife spent a lot of time traveling around NZ in their caravan, and most of this was built during their journeys!

He had a Faller car or two running around as well to add to the interest. 

'Kaikoura' looked great,  ran flawlessly, and was the well-deserved winner of 'layout of the show'. The recabbed DGs didn't hurt either, although there was a TMS red DF there as well...

Regular S scale attendee 'One Track Minds' were there with some lovely models, although some of my favourite modules from last year were not in the layout this time.  This simple one below has nice undulation and shows that a module doesn't need to be in any way complex to be very effective.

Many of the locos on this layout had some superb sounds. The sounds for the DGs were recorded by Peter Ross when the DTG's DG 772 was undergoing load bank testing. A video may appear below if Blogger will publish it:

There were plenty of other US and European layouts and trains in S, HO, N, 009, Z and G, but I didn't end up taking many more pics.

Something that did catch my eye on local purveyor Ironhorse Hobbies' table were these 'ready to run' modules intended to jump start some local OO/HO modular efforts.  There are no legs for these yet, so you'd have to make your own.

I might be tempted to pick one or two up (sans HO track, and locating magnets in the ends) to try out as an add on to Studholme.  Especially as they are considering offering various lengths (these are 300mm x 560mm), and 'curved' and 'drop' versions so you could model a river or undulating scenery if you get bored with  modeling the Canterbury Plains in flat rectangles of land.

In a similar vein, the NZ Model Railway guild just reviewed some laser cut modules from Hamilton-based Craftmaster. Theose may be lighter (being made of thinner plywood) and fancier but I'm rarely passing Hamilton, and I expect postage might be painful. Review of Craftmaster modules

For those of us who are challenged by being located in the Mainland Island may find it easier to arrange (info@ironhorsehobbies.co.nz) to pick one of these "IHH-Trak" modules up from Ironhorse ones if they were passing Christchurch. I'm going to drop ironhorse an email to see what the go is.

An update of sorts

Theres been a bit of radio silence from La Casa Dandruff over the last couple of months. I was made redundant at the end of July (becase the Pharamaceutical industry doesn't need research scientists according to the ICE bean counters). 

Now theres a few of you that might point out that this seems to be a dream come true. I'm finding its not. a couple of hours a night modeling relaxing from a stressful job is quite nice. When theres no job, no stress and infinite time, one tends to drift somewhat. I'm still in the 5 stages of grief, but they all seem to be piling in at the same time. Plus theres a current dearth of scince jobs in this country, and I'm down to single figures for retirement which never bodes well. I got asked at a support appointment "so what do you see as your dream job". My reply was "I've just been fired from it." I suppose I could try Bunnings given I already know exactly where everything is located in their stores. A plus is that the lady of the house is currently enjoying having a "Homme d'Maison"

So tomorrow the lady of the house and I are off to Japan for 3 weeks (planned in March and a break for both of us will be nice). I hope to come back somewhat healed and releaxed as its time to find a new career.

Studholme 9 - tracking it down

 DB says:

Studholme took a pause while life got in the way again, and also because of yet another mental block: how should one affix the track at the ends? My initial intention (and implementation) was to glue it down with contact glue, and the ballast glue would further lock things in place - as it seems unlikely that this will be dismantled or set up that often. 

Or would it? There would be nothing worse than showing up at an exhibition to find the track had been banged up. 

So I thought for a few weeks about soldering each rail to a brass screw and eventually decided to use the old PCB method, even though its a bit ugly. I still have one little rectangle of PCB left over from Otaki (!), but fortunately Jaycar still sells this stuff.

So let the next round of trials and tribulations commence. The first challenge is to cut the big square of PCB into more useful strips of the stuff. I vaguely remember scoring this in the past with a Stanley knife (a million times) and then snapping it off. I think Rhys said this stuff isn't great to power-saw because of the dust.

With the help of a few C clamps and some bits of wood I was able to snap off a few sections about 1 cm wide. A few some strips were then prepared for the first module join to be tackled, and the plastic flextrack sleepers cut away. This was challenging as I'd already glued the track down on this module end, and its always more fun on code 80 Peco track due to the way the lower half of the rail it set into the plastic sleepers. In addition, the PCB is slightly thicker than it should be, but I'm not going to let that bother me. In fact I liked the little undulations as the trains moved through Otaki.

I held the strips up to the track layout and marked the length and where I'd drill and countersink screw holes to fix them to the modules, and cut shallow insulation gaps through the copper with a razor saw.

And then screwed them down...

The near ones were subsequently removed and the holes countersunk a little deeper to hide the screw heads more. I hope ballast will cover the rest - I'm sure I did a worse job on Otaki.  Note the cardboard slivers between the modules in the above pic, we'll come back to them in the next issue.

This post was supposed to end with the joins all soldered up complete and cut, but this has been weeks in the making already, so I'll leave the soldering for now and get this posted. 

The final thing I did today though was to fill all the screw holes and paint the fascia. I went down to Mitre 10 looking for the Resene 'Bokara grey' recommended in the NZ120 Fremo specs and found two test pots, but that's $12 for 120 mls of paint. That won't last long. I then remembered we had some Friars Grey left over from roofing jobs. When I got home I also found we had some non-roofing interior paint in a similar shade so decided to use that instead. Its obviously a slightly different shade to Bokara, but I decided to waste that $12 on coffee and a scone tomorrow instead.

Will give it a second coat tomorrow. 

Turning CBs into coal wagons

DB says:

So excited was I at the rapid progress made in coaling up the CWs that a return visit was made to the dungeon to do the same with the CBs. 

All the CBs had thin card false floors fitted a dozen years or more ago, which were of various degrees of coal-tightness, but the gaps were easily plugged with dollops of PVA. One had been topped with an experimental application of builders expanding insulation foam, but that was a bit of a disaster as it takes some practice to tell how much - or more correctly, how little - needs to be added as it keeps growing for some time after you squirt it into place. This was largely cut away with minimal damage to the wagon.

Those cross braces between the hungry boards were an inspired decision many years ago, as they look pretty neat with coal across them.

While on a roll, I painted the CE, CW and CB Microtrains copper-coloured brakehoses, touched up any chips and scratches accumulated in the last decade, greyed up the CW bogies to match the other wagons, put an additional bit of panel wash weathering onto the CWs and considered a few other improvements. 

So that's 17 wagons for a decent coal train from 2005-2013, which covers the Tranz Rail blue through black, through Toll through KiwiRail period - dated from when the CWs got hungry boards until their demise. I think the red non-chuted DXs were probably gone off the coal trains by 2005 unless in use as an uphill leader through the tunnel as non chuted leaders on the eastbounds were still allowed then? A few more CEs and CBs instead of the CWs and the train would work up to the present time. 

Turning CWs into coal wagons

 DB says:

Ah returning from the madness, I decide to give myself a day off. And as I haven't done any modeling for a while I decided to treat myself to a visit to the dungeon and tackle a quick and easy win if I could find one on the to-do pile.

Since I'd had some fun with CE coal hopper recently, I thought I might put some coal in my CWs, which are stil unfinished 15 years later...

Out they came. These are fairly light, but are weighted at the bottom, and as they are multi-piece castings, they have a nice smooth rectangular hole inside that would suit the false coal-floor which I'd never gotten around to doing..

A few strips of styrene were cut and contact glued inside.

Then 6 false floors were cut to approx the right size and fettled as necessary. Only one of these wagons has any bowing in the sides which is pretty good after all this time. Coal was then sprinkled on and stuck in place (the same overchunky Peco stuff used in the CEs as I haven't gotten around to crushing any of it up into a finer grade). 

Not bad for an hour's work. One of these days they'll get some better numbers and their Microtrains orange brake hoses painted black. I think the bowed one is bottom-left in the pic above, but accentuated by the phone's wide angle lens.

By the way, I still have a bunch of spare CW parts (15 sides and 13 ends) that I'm unlikely to ever use, so if anyone wanted to donate a tenner for postage you could make up six or seven of these unfine wagons for yourself.

SI NZ120ers: Chch Train Show next year

 DB wonders out loud (and not having thought this through):

I can't be the only dude sitting at home with no layout but would love to run some trains... 

Are there many active (or potentially activate-able) NZ120 modellers in the South Island?

The reason for asking is that Christchurch has a pretty big train show each year, and unfortunately, as we don't have a Trackgang layout handy down here*, maybe we could make an NZ120 modular layout for me to run my big coal train on? 

Obviously its too late for 2024's show coming up in October, but if there was any interest, it's something we could target for next year.

This would give interested folks a year to knock a module together and scenic it, and in 8-9 months, if enough progress has been made, we could make a plan for how it could be physically set up, and then apply for a spot on the floor.

The October 2025 show gives some impetus to do that on a relatively grand scale, and a deadline to work towards to make it happen. 

My thoughts are a layout with modules based on the Fremo120 standards for new builds, although I see no reason why MMW modules and almost any other existing module couldn't be attached in some temporary but reliable fashion** to join in:  

• DCC. Possibly with a straight DC operable branch hanging off Studholme if folks want to run DC trains) Or vice versa if DC participants outnumber DCC folks.
• 1200mm track height from floor
• Assuming there are not enough curves to make a traditional 'loop' roundy-round, we could have a long string of modules with a balloon loop at each end. I've started planning and procurement for one balloon end.
• All NZR eras/periods/epochs, diesel/steam/electric and geographies would be welcome.
• No TGV's please - slow to medium speed operation to... minimise derailments, respect other people's rolling stock and modules, and for a better look. 

During show hours, the layout is "for the punters not the operators" ...i.e. 

• Layout is set up and tested before the doors open rather than spending the first two hours having the public watch you building things and trying to figure out how to get a train to run. 
• During the open hours, there's always stuff going on, ideally a variety of different trains, train crossings, maybe the branchline is working or shunting, but there is always something running for the paying public to look at. 
• Minimal fuddling around (i.e. if there is any shunting, it shouldn't tie up the mainline).
• Using the most reliable stock (things that derail or don't run well get fixed, get cleaned or get relegated to the sidings)
• We fix problems and derailments quickly and get things moving again.
• It should be realistic, impressive, and show off NZ120's potential so more people join us for the next show. 

Then:

• We can play with the derailing trains, complicated shunting with timetables and car cards after the punters have left. Or on the branchline if there is one and there are plenty of operators. But ideally over a few ciders after the doors close. 

So ... I have Studholme slowly under construction (3.6m) and have plans for two more modules to match it (one plain Canterbury Plains flatland, and a similar one with a low bridge which might be a curved module). So that could be 6m of modules to start with. Plus my balloon loop.

Ideally there would be another few "single track open mainline" modules. Maybe some have a culvert, or a road crossing, or a curve, or a bridge, or a tunnel or a cutting or an embankment. There might be a few 45 or 90 degree curve modules for variety (or if we end up growing too long for the space available). 

Perhaps someone might build two or three of these as a Module Set for scenic consistency. 

And the other balloon loop. 

If we had enough "open space mainline modules", perhaps someone might make another small passing loop station (Staircase, Seacliff, Tawhai, Kekerengu...). 

Sooooooo...... Is anybody out there interested in coming to Chch in 2025 to run some trains on a decent sized layout and have a few laughs?   And would you be interested in building a module or more?  

Only CE CEs are tasting like theees! - 4

DB weighs things up...

So the four CEs are looking pretty decent, but being 3d prints, they are featherweights that won't track well, especially when they are placed ahead of seven metal Trackgang CBs. 

I saved a few large chunks of lead rendered surplus from our roof, despite it being widely regarded as unhealthy (I'm not going to eat it). But, I don't know whether we cashed this in on a scrap metal drive or maybe its is hiding in a corner of a shed, but they haven't been seen for a while. 

Anyhoo, the CEs are made with a nice slot underneath them that might take something straight and weighty. This slot is obviously really low, and a low centre of gravity usually helps things run nicely. 

So I bowled on up to one of our local engineering shops and wondered if they had any small steel square rod for sale, fully expecting them to say "no, you idiot, of course not". As is almost always the case when I ask such a stupid question, the answer is usually some form of "well, you could perhaps use ..."

And so they have something called machine key steel, available in various sizes. When I had this genius idea, I had failed to actually measure the CE's slot beforehand, so was left scrambling. I bought a 3mm and a 5mm square piece. The 5mm was accidentally perfect. 6mm would fit, but this would obviously hang 1mm lower, so I'm glad I ended up with the 5.

It's pretty tough stuff, and my hacksaw seemed to be fighting a losing battle, so I bought out the spinning wheel of death with one of those really skinny cutting wheels about 2cm across. Cuts were slowly eroded into the steel on all four surfaces until I could snap off each section. I aimed for four 52mm lengths.

Installing:

And as you can see, you can barely see the steel from normal viewing angles. I'll paint it black once the glue dries. Overall these are still a little lighter than a CB, but should be heavy enough for the job. Must weather the bogies too.

Studholme 8 - All together now...

 DB continues:

Buoyed by the success of last night's bracing post, I went down to Mitre 10 and bought some 50mm M6 bolts and wing nuts and an assortment of washers, which let me complete the module's two legs with their fold-in braces. These braces are screwed to the legs at one end (with a bigger hole in one of the two bits of wood for some swivel) and M6-bolted to a little tab on the module at the other end. The braces are all made from the same 18mm square 1.2m long sticks that were procured from Bunnings for legs and braces when this all started.

This enabled me to sit the Centre module on its legs for the first time, with feelings of joy and a sense of pride that I expect a father feels when their first child takes its first steps. 

Like that child, the module was a little wobbly. Perhaps a little too wobbly for my liking, but at least it didn't fall on its face, throw up or poop itself. 

This wobbliness likely stems from the braces being relatively short. So a new plan was hatched: detachable longer leg brace sticks that can be stored within the module. So I decided to add the longest brace that would fit (diagonally) under the module 'lid' of the South module, with the module legs folding up to keep the brace in place during transit. This brace would be bolted with M6s and wingnuts at both ends.

This was proceeding to plan rather swimmingly, all too good to be true when it dawned on me that (six months ago) I'd put this South module's leg at the inboard end of the module, where it would mate up with the centre one with its two leg sets and leaving none at the outer end where support was needed!! D'oh! And I'd made a really nice job of this one too - better than the funky North module leg. Maybe this was supposed to be the module with two leg sets and not the Center one.....

So the wooden dowel pivots were knocked out - always use the correct tool (as above, "dear, where's the hammer?"), the leg was repositioned to the correct 'outer' end, and the brace added. 

This single brace felt a lot stiffer than the twin wee braces on the middle section. So now for the acid test... the South module was plugged into the Centre module. 

More pride and joy! So much so that I decided to reattach the legs of the North module (which I'd never been that happy with, but hey, they work) and put a similar long detachable brace on it, wingnutted at both ends. 

Ooooo. Finally, Studholme is back together again, and with those two long braces on the ends, it's actually pretty solid. The two end modules with their single leg sets are nice and light too. It all looks a little skewiff in the picture above, but the adjustable feet at the ends of the legs have since been wound in and out to level things up.

As an aside, I remeasured the length of the three passing loops - they should be able to hold a 2.1m train each. That sounds like a lot until I went inside to measure a pair of DXs and some bogie coal wagons. That is a 15 wagon train plus two locos. Maybe 16. 

Which again, sounds fine, but I already have a few more bogie coal wagons than that, with bits for another six. C'est la vie, whatever that means. If this ever sees any action at a show, and if it turns out to be a little short for the trains that want to be run, a medium length four track section could be added later on between the Centre and North modules.

Studholme 7 - The quadpod

DB Says:

This blog post was started six months ago, but a other projects and a mental block have kept me from making much progress on the modules.

The first module that I started had some primer belatedly applied onto the bits that aren't tracks, and the single track arriving in from the north was cut square(ish) with the faceplate using an unruly dremel by your half-blind correspondent in the dark.

Results: Not completely terrible, but also, not as perfect as had been expected. Might need an expansion gap added yet on one side and its rail pushed closer to the edge. Having said that its probably fine as long as the adjoining module isn't similarly afflicted. I suppose cutting it a bit long and filing/grinding it back would have been more sensible.

The other tracks remain extended beyond the layout edge so they can be glued down to the neighbouring module in due course and then cut.

Another disturbing development at the north module set end was disclosed by the arrival of a passing set square: 

I think this is because the track isn't perfectly in the centre of the module at the very end. It might need to be swerved out to the right at the bottom of the picture. Fortunately it's only lightly tacked down.

Also fortunately, I haven't drilled the holes at the outer ends of the module set yet. Measure 8 times, cut once I think the old saying goes. 

....Then things stalled for six months with the mental block.

This is because at least one of the three modules needs to have two sets of legs, ideally the middle one, which would give me a setup like this:

But fitting two sets of legs, folded/stacked on top of each other into a thin module was going to be tough to fit, and Then Mr Pythagoras gets in the way when it comes to the angled braces, which I wanted to have attached and foldable for transit, but they should ideally be as long as possible.

So after putting off this task for months, tonight I went down to the garage and hammered out a thinner set of legs that fold up OK.  I even have a 'rest' for the lower legs to sit on (so they won't crush the upper ones) and will add a little twisty-movable 'key thingy' into it so everything stays locked in place during transport. As these three modules are intended to be stacked, I don't want the legs crashing down onto the buildings and scenery of the module below it.

It works! (not enough hands to take a picture and hold the legs at 90 degrees).

I then mounted my first angle brace (below). Just need a thin bolt with a wingnut to complete that, and then I'll build more using this idea for the other three leg sets.

A few thoughts on my spindly legs. They seem solid enough, but the proof will be when this is set up and used. Too much pressure on the wrong place could be a problem, with the holes drilled for the hinge pegs obviously the weak spots. We shall see. The thin legs have kept the modules fairly light, although this centre one with two sets of legs is getting heftier than expected. Still, it's completely self contained (carrying legs, braces and all).