York station in the 1950's.

[David Bell]

Stunning work. Looks brilliant.

Cheers

David

[Harry Lund]

I had a visitor from Brisbane on Monday.  Andrew Turner has been following the thread, and is about to embark on his own rendition of the northern end of the station in the 1970s.   The trains have not run for about 5 months, so it was a great excuse for a thorough tidy up, hoover, and rail cleaning session.

 

[Harry Lund]

Major milestone today.   All 4 main line circuits are now physically complete.

 

The double junction in the foreground was built from reclaimed pointwork from my childhood layout, my first hand made effort of 45 years ago.   I dismantled the layout 20 years ago, and have kept the handbuilt turnouts hoping to use them somewhere.  Because it is off scene, removing some of the old plastic sleepers and replacing with DCC Concepts 1.6mm thick timbers in sufficient numbers to provide a rigid frame does the trick, probably no more than an hour or two per point/crossing.   

 

 

Still need to complete the Up Main fiddle yard (off to the left in the picture), and the Scarborough loop and fiddle yard.   But that shouldn't take too long.

 

Actuators and electrics may take a while .....

 

Giles

 

 

Edited June 27 by Harry Lund
error in the first place

[AdeMoore]

Excellent stuff Giles great seeing the progress.

[Harry Lund]

Thank you!

[Harry Lund]

The next stage is to fit the electrics and electronics to the new boards, and then to retrofit the occupancy detectors to the existing boards.

 

I have drawn up a track plan for each board showing the occupancy zones.   Some of these zones cross several boards, and so the wiring system needs to facilitate this, ie so I can end up with one zone, one detector circuit.   I'm using Lenz LRB08 8 channel feedback modules.

 

These crossovers enable a train to travel 'out and back', but need an auto-reverse section to make it work electrically.   (A problem my first layout, H-D 3 rail, did not have!).   Section 40-8 is 'hatched', showing an auto-reverse section.   

 

Not all trackwork is detected.   Sections/zones that the signaling software needs to read to set the correct aspects, or that report the position of trains in the hidden storage yards, are detected.   Carriage sidings and the loco yard in the scenic section are not detected.

 

 

which corresponds to:

 

 

 

At my age, spending hours and hours under a single fixed board trying to wire it all up would just not be practical.  I'm not sure it would be at any age, as I often find I need to run a multimeter to check a connect from under the board to the relevant rail section.  This is a key driver behind the modular approach that I gave taken, even though the layout is a home layout.

 

Building up the underside.  Each section of rail wired through to copper clad strip under, itself cut into the relevant 'zones'.    Note each wire is annotated, as is the copper clad strip.   Black for J, Red for K, White for a section that needs to be switched between the two, ie common crossings and auto-reverse sections.

 

 

Then actuators, in this case DCC Concepts Digital

 

 

And finally the whole blinking mess - I've run out of wires tidies!   

 

 

Giles

 

   

 

 

 

   

 

 

[Harry Lund]

The 5 main boards in the new section are complete mechanically and electrically, each with plug/socket connections to Track and Accessories Busses, individual occupancy sections (for connecting to a feedback module), and signals.

 

This is the view across the 5 boards.  These do not include the upper and over fiddle yards over to the left, still work in progress.

 

 

I'm now moving onto the 'service board' at the other end of the various connection cables.   Track and Signalling will each have their own 'service board'.  What follows is an explanation, as I go, of the Track Boards.

 

Kitchen table work to start.  At the top of the photo is the various track circuit diagrams, one per board, drawn out on A3 paper..  Below it is an offcut of 9mm ply offcut with a miniature schematic drawn on.   The coloured 'zones' are the occupancy sections, some of which straddle 3 or 4 boards, so need 'patching together'.

 

Zones without detection, such as the straight shed at the Northern end are not monitored, so they are wired directly to the J-K track bus.

 

 

Then short lengths of copper clad strip, one per detected section, glued on, to create a home made 'plug board'.   

 

 

The board will then be screwed to an Ikea shelf, and the occupancy detectors fitted and wired.

 

 

Next up will be a board, fitted vertically, with the various plug and socket fittings installed, then I'll run leads to the relevant bits of copper clad, and the main track and accessories busses.

 

Fingers crossed have that done in a couple of days.   

 

Giles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

On 04/07/2024 at 07:43, Harry Lund said:

These crossovers enable a train to travel 'out and back', but need an auto-reverse section to make it work electrically.   (A problem my first layout, H-D 3 rail, did not have!).   Section 40-8 is 'hatched', showing an auto-reverse section.   

 

Not all trackwork is detected.   Sections/zones that the signaling software needs to read to set the correct aspects, or that report the position of trains in the hidden storage yards, are detected.   Carriage sidings and the loco yard in the scenic section are not detected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building up the underside.  Each section of rail wired through to copper clad strip under, itself cut into the relevant 'zones'.    Note each wire is annotated, as is the copper clad strip.   Black for J, Red for K, White for a section that needs to be switched between the two, ie common crossings and auto-reverse sections.

 

 

 

 

Using DCC rather than 2-rail DC does take you back to one feature of 3-rail.  Forward/reverse depends on which way round the loco is facing.

 

Not directly relevant to the purpose of this particular diagram perhaps, but the highlight pen shading brings to mind a colour coding convention used on the prototype in signalbox diagrams of the NX type and similar.  Separate track circuit sections are shown in alternate colours - blue & yellow (easily remembered as colours of the sky) for Up lines, green and brown for Down lines (colours of the ground).  Orange/purple/pink may be used where junctions and crossovers would otherwise cause clashes, and black for lines not track circuited - as seen here on one of Eastleigh's panels

 

 

Not providing detection in carriage sidings and on shed is a sensible cost saving - such areas would not be track circuited on the prototype either, and as trains would not be subect to signals they should be driven on sight, that is under manual control and of course slowly.

 

I like your wiring number convention - and more particularly the fact that you have numbered the wire both where it emerges through the baseboard and where it connects.  That comes into its own in those busier areas where you ran out of wire tidies!  Murphy's law says if you hadn't done that you'd catch some of the wires under the baseboard one day and be struggling to work out where to reconnect.

 

 

[Harry Lund]

Thank you Michael.

 

The service board is coming together.

 

From the front.   

 

 

And the back

 

 

Hopefully done in the next few days, then its a case of refitting and bolting the baseboards, this on the IKEA IVAR posts under, connecting up, and fingers crossed ....

 

Signal cables are to a separate board.   I forgot this when cutting holes in the front board - hence the row of empty holes for boards 40, 17 and 19.

 

Giles

 

[Tony Teague]

Stunning work!

.......and people say that my DC wiring is complex............. (long live simplicity!)

Tony

[Michael Hodgson]

Always good to see wiring neatly loomed up like that. 

It's not so much a case of making it easier to find faults - the faults are less likely to occur.

[Harry Lund]

Meanwhile, Paul has been at work.

 

This is the corner space just over the Scarborough Bridge.

 

 

into which fits the panel with York Minster as the centerpiece.   These are photos from Paul's studio.  The panels in this section need to be strong enough so they can be lifted on and off should the lines underneath need to be fully accessed, which he is working on before delivery.  

 

The positioning of the Minster in relation to the Scarborough line is forced by the shape of the room, but is correct in relation to the station if viewed from a helicopter hovering somewhere to the south west end of the station.       In reality the Scarborough line runs off to the left of the Minster, but in my representation (for that is all it is) it curves round into the foreground.  The line will be hidden in part by Peter's rising terraces, and by a line of trees along the near side of the line.

 

The carriages in the pictures are on an temporary trackbed to the same shape as the model.

 

The panel depth varies from about 30mm at its left hand end, to about 200mm in the centre with the MInster, and then tapers in again off to the right.

 

Left hand section:

 

 

The centre

 

 

Right hand section

 

 

and some close ups in atmospheric black and white, of the Minster and The Oratory.

 

 

 

Giles

 

 

 

 

[Harry Lund]

My reaction when Paul sent me these about an hour ago.

 

"Wow.  I’m speechless!"

 

I hope you can all agree.

 

Giles

[Roger Sunderland]

Speechless doesn’t cover it. Work of art barely does!

[Harry Lund]

A question.  Can anyone shed light, or even better have a photograph, of a combined semaphore (home) and colour light (A, AA, G) signal?   There were two of these on the Up Scarborough line near then Burton Lane box.

Thanks

Giles

 

[rockmonkey]

57 minutes ago, Harry Lund said:

A question.  Can anyone shed light, or even better have a photograph, of a combined semaphore (home) and colour light (A, AA, G) signal?   There were two of these on the Up Scarborough line near then Burton Lane box.

Thanks

Giles

 

The web site https://www.railsigns.uk/info/appsig1.html has details of approach signals (Semaphore to Colour Light Transition) which includes an example photo of Signal BL3 at Belasis Lane (Billingham) near the foot of the page. 

[Harry Lund]

Dear Rockmonkey.  Thank you so much.  Perfect!    Giles

[Michael Hodgson]

I have certainly seen photos (old thread on here?  on some other website?) of such signals on the ECML introduced as part of a limited resignalling to cater for faster services.  The distant signals were no longer far enough out to allow adequate braking in some cases, so additional outer distants were provided capable of showing YY/G, effectively upgrading existing semaphore signalling to 4-aspect on the cheap.  Classic case of Neville Shute's comment that an engineer is a man who can do for ten shillings what any fool can do for a pound!

 

In some places the extra signal would coincide with the starter of the previous box, so they would add 3-aspect (Y-G-Y) lenses below the starter, unlit when semaphore was on.  I think they also replaced oil lamps on the semaphores to high intensity lamps to improve visibility in fog and to avoid risk of "reading through" to the next colour light ahead.  Unfortunately, the line had been resignalled and controlled from Kings Cross PSB only a couple of years  before I moved to Hitchin. so I don't have any photos.

 

I wasn't aware of these on the Scarboro line though.  Looking at the layout, I suspect the reason was different here - I suspect it was partly to allow Burton Lane box to be opened only when required for the Foss Islands branch and partly because of York shunting towards Burton Lane on the Up Scarborough - semaphores would be cleared on the down when the box was switched out without any problems.  However, you'd need these colour lights in the UP direction to allow the box to switch out because when Burton Lane was switched out, York would have to obtain permission from Bootham for the shunting.  There's a brief explanation in Ch. 16 of "Signalling Centres in the North East Vol 1 - York" by Richard Pulleyn.  I'd be prepared to bet he's got photos of these signals - suggest you contact him (via the Signalling Record Society or NER Associaton).

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

[iands]

Although not one of the signals in question, here is an example of a similar signal not too far away on the ECML at Riccall. Photo by Frank Dean.

[Harry Lund]

Thanks so much everyone.  I have much to learn, and will do a bit of head scratching about how to build these two signals.  At least I know what they should look like!

 

Major progress this week.   Earlier on this page I have shared the development of a distribution board for one of the power districts 

 

I've now completed the other end, i.e. the panel end, to replace the hotch potch that has served the layout so far.

 

Bottom shelf are the power supplies.  From left to right:

 

12V DC 5A

16V AC 

3 x DCC Concepts 18V DC 5A, two of the newer ones and an older discontinued, with fan that occasionally squeaks!

 

Top shelf, left to right:

 

Outlets to power districts

 

DCC Concepts Alpha Box to power the accessories Bus

 

Lenz Expressnet board

 

LV103 DCC Amplifier to power districts 3 & 4

 

LZV100 DCC Command Station

 

And in front receiver for wireless handset

 

And behind a DCC Concepts intelligent circuit breaker for power districts 1-3.  I'll install a second for districts 4-5.

 

 

 

and the distribution board:

 

From L to R:

 

2 pin for Programming Track

 

Zone 1s to 5, each with a 4 pin chassis socket with switchable Track Bus and 16V AC, 4 pin PCB socket for Accessories Bus and 12V DC, and up above the input jack sockets for the Feedback Bus. 

 

 

 

Hopefully all connected up and trains running in the next week or two.

 

As ever

 

Giles  

 

 

 

 

 

[Harry Lund]

Paul was back today to fit the Minster section of the 3D backscene, and to cut the templates for the sections to its left and right.

 

The results are stunning.

 

The terraces in the foreground are too high, and there is excess clearance below over the Down Fiddle Yard.    I'll recut the lightweight bases so that the terrace boards are easily removeable to access the storage lines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The embankment behind the Scarborough line is modellers license.   There will be a line of trees in front so that the train is mostly hidden.   In reality, the line runs to the left of the Minster when seen from a helicopter hovering over the station.

 

Giles 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[grahame]

Nice and effective sky and back scene.

 

[David Bell]

The depth is amazing

[Harry Lund]

Thank you David and Grahame.   The panel is only 200mm deep at its deepest point.  The illusion is not yet complete.  The skyscene is a temporary piece of painted hardboard that Paul uses during the development of a panel.   The final backsheet is aluminium and will have the skyscene and a painted horizon ('the moors in the distance') a cm or two above the skyline on the panel, adding more depth.

Giles