Helston Revisited

[Andy Keane]

I do have a height gauge but find it does not help that much for the little metal hook - I adjust by eye to get it to be just above rail height.

Also with NEM couplings you don't have much control over the height of the coupling knuckle itself of course. But I am only a beginner with these things I must confess.

[Gilbert]

3 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

I do have a height gauge but find it does not help that much for the little metal hook - I adjust by eye to get it to be just above rail height.

Also with NEM couplings you don't have much control over the height of the coupling knuckle itself of course. But I am only a beginner with these things I must confess.

I try to use a "box" version of a KD wherever it is practical (it allows for overset and underset versions if required ) but I agree the NEM heights can be frustrating....

[kingmender]

23 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

I do have a height gauge but find it does not help that much for the little metal hook - I adjust by eye to get it to be just above rail height.

Also with NEM couplings you don't have much control over the height of the coupling knuckle itself of course. But I am only a beginner with these things I must confess.

If using NEM Kadee couplings try inserting a shim of 10 thou plasticard at the bottom of the NEM pocket. It raises them slightly and stops them drooping. I use 100thou wide strip, insert the end then the kadee and cut the strip to length.

[Neal Ball]

I am sure we would all agree that the principal of the NEM socket is a good idea.... But even they are set at different heights or simply droop etc.

 

I have replaced a lot of them with the "Kadee box" and a medium or long under or overset coupling.

 

Good luck Andy.

 

Regards, Neal.

[Andy Keane]

10 minutes ago, kingmender said:

try inserting a shim

Thanks. That's a neat trick - I will give it a try as some of mine are definitely not at the best height.

[Andy Keane]

I am also not sure if I will replace all the standard coupling on my stock with Kadees anyway. Often I have rakes of carriages or trucks that would never really need separating and for those I will leave the standard hooks in place, with Kadees just at the ends. They are less demading of alignment and it also saves effort and cost.

[Gilbert]

22 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Thanks. That's a neat trick - I will give it a try as some of mine are definitely not at the best height.

I often shave the shim slightly to aid insertion. Making it too long and cutting to length with a new blade when in situ also makes the job easier 

[MJI]

On 04/06/2024 at 20:29, Andy Keane said:

I have made a start on the cattle dock that sits on the goods platform but don't really have a clear idea of what colour it should be painted. There are the posts, the stout circular steel rails, the gates and the hinges etc. I have seen this picture https://glostransporthistory.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/images/SVR_2013_07_Highley station_cattle.jpg where it is all painted white but is this correct for GWR in the 1930s?

 

He was the year above me at school.

[Andy Keane]

4 hours ago, MJI said:

He was the year above me at school.

Sorry - who was?

[MJI]

2 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Sorry - who was?

Chap who runs the site.

 

 

[BWsTrains]

15 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

15 hours ago, kingmender said:

try inserting a shim

Thanks. That's a neat trick - I will give it a try as some of mine are definitely not at the best height.

 

Andy,

 

FWOW I've fitted out most of my RTR stock and some different style kits with Kadees and come to the following conclusions:

 

1) RTR - in my experience only Dapol NEMs are seriously problematic - the Dreaded Dapol Droop (DDD) due to the "unique" design of their NEM mounting. I've sometimes added a washer to reduce the up-down slack in the mount or take it off and see (3)

 

2) minor misalignment is best fixed in two stages - add a shim to prevent any up-down slack between the pocket and the uncoupler arms then use the hanger bender tool to open out or reduce the bend in the hanger wire. Others have covered this in earlier posts

 

3) for kits and problematic and old style tension lock mountings, use a Kadee gear box assembly. In bulk they work out quite reasonably in price, #11 + #232. Smaller combined packs also available. connoisseurs swear by the newer Whisker Kadee types but over here I've found them to be typically expensive / unavailable or both!

 

4) older small locos can be problematic, in my case especially Hornby stock, Classes 48xx, 2721 requiring rather inelegant gearbox solutions. Likewise older Bachmann 45xx. on the trailing and leading bogies.

 

Like you, I'll leave tension locks on the insides of freight and coach combos which will be shunted / moved as a block e.g. rakes of cattle wagons.

 

My thinking about uncoupling Kadees has ebbed and flowed over several years with various designs researched. The Kadee #308 is effective but big and requiring a blφφdy big hole cut through the baseboard. Unless planned from the outset this will likely be directly over a joist! Inset mounted is much easier and I settled on a couple of DIY solutions with stronger NEO magnets. If interested in details, PM me as at my current rate of progress I might write this up here ... sometime.

 

Colin

 

 

Edited June 20 by BWsTrains

[5BarVT]

On 06/06/2024 at 16:47, Andy Keane said:

The signalling team clearly are going to install some telegraph poles and have brough two wagon loads down in readiness.

Back then the signalling team wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the pole route, that would be the Telegraph Gang.

And I’m a bit mystified - no pole route for the block circuits but you’re successfully operating trains with block instruments.

What is this new fangled wireless technology that the GWR are trialling in secret in the far west!

 

Looking really good.  Operating is the icing on the cake.

 

Paul.

[Andy Keane]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

no pole route for the block circuits

Paul

I ran into a group with a P4 layout at the EM show a few weeks back that had superb telegraph poles on it and I asked for details. It turns out there is a chap on the P4 site that makes kits but only works via post and cheques, so I sent him one some time back and am awaiting my kit to make the posts. As far as I can tell there were two in the station area that I need to model plus fittings for the signalbox and station roofs. Yet another thing on my list of stuff to do.

The running was much fun and Mike the @The Stationmaster has been coaching me on signal box registers just to add to the general confusion of operating my 'box!

regards

Andy

[Neal Ball]

2 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Mike the @The Stationmaster has been coaching me on signal box registers just to add to the general confusion of operating my 'box!

 

OMG - using a signal box register takes it to a whole different level!

[Andy Keane]

16 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

OMG - using a signal box register takes it to a whole different level!

Well my chums and I all volunteer at the Romsey signalbox working museum so like that kind of thing. One used to be a senior signalling instructor for example. Yesterday the signalman was an ex train driver so was quite happy to fill it in. I have also produced a slightly abbreviated register that only has the columns we need being a terminal station. If anyone wants a copy please let me know.

Andy

[5BarVT]

3 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

The running was much fun and Mike the @The Stationmaster has been coaching me on signal box registers just to add to the general confusion of operating my 'box!

I can read a register (roughly), but whether I could fill one in for some of the less obvious stuff . . .

Paul.

[Andy Keane]

13 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

I can read a register (roughly), but whether I could fill one in for some of the less obvious stuff . . .

Paul.

Luckily we currently only use a very few codes: Passenger or mixed train: 3-1;  Rail motor-car, auto train or streamline rail-car: 3-1-3;  Empty coaching stock: 2-2-1; Light engine or engine and brake van: 2-3; Freight train: 3. We record these plus the engine number as the train description and then the times of  "Is Line Clear", "Line Clear" through, "Train entering Section" and "Train out of Section". And my block instruments send these via texts displays on the instruments rather than bell codes, as  will become clear in the final one of my three MERG articles, due out shortly.

 

The main thing is really to remember to actually fill it out while everything else is going on!

 

But it would be an amusement to consider what to record when the inevitable derailment occurs. I suppose if one was bonkers, at that point the breakdown train would be called up rather than the hand of God and all sorts of unusual codes would be needed. But luckily that would not work with my instruments. 

 

Andy

 

Edited June 21 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

I wonder does anyone know anything about the Gaugemaster grain of wheat station lamps? I put a couple of the bracket versions on the platform face of the station building and powered them via the little step-down voltage control board supplied. These worked fine to start with but now not so. When I check the resistance of the pair it is showing only one ohm when it should be about five ohms (10 ohms per lamp). This causes the control circuit to drop its output to half a volt from the normal three and the lamps don't shine. I would be less puzzled if there was a complete short or an open circuit but for the life of me I cannot work out why they show one ohm. And of course now the station building is firmly fixed down getting to the wiring would be a total nightmare.

Andy

[magmouse]

Andy - what are you using to measure the resistance? Common or garden multimeters won't measure accurately that low. Did you disconnect the lamps from the voltage control board to make the measurement?

 

14 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

This causes the control circuit to drop its output to half a volt from the normal three and the lamps don't shine.

 

Are you measuring with the circuit powered on?

 

If you can provide a bit more info on exactly what you are testing and how, we can probably get to the bottom of it...

 

Nick.

[Andy Keane]

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

Andy - what are you using to measure the resistance? Common or garden multimeters won't measure accurately that low. Did you disconnect the lamps from the voltage control board to make the measurement?

 

 

Are you measuring with the circuit powered on?

 

If you can provide a bit more info on exactly what you are testing and how, we can probably get to the bottom of it...

 

Nick.

Nick, with the circuit live and connected to the two lamps (wired in parallel) the control board shows an output of 0.55v. If I disconnect the lamps completely (both tails) it goes up to 3V. With the lamps disconnected but still in parallel to each other I get 1.0 ohms across the two dis-connected tails. I cannot separate the two lamps as the junctions is (perhaps foolishly) buried inside the building with just the common tails exposed. I am using a professional grade Fluke instrument to make the measurements. If I measure a spare Gaugemaster lamp of the same type it gives 10 ohms.

Any ideas most welcome

Andy

[Neal Ball]

Good luck at fault finding that Andy

[magmouse]

Andy, this sounds like you have a short circuit somewhere. Even a good quality meter will struggle to accurately measure resistances below 1 ohm - it is not what they are designed for. And even if it is accurate, a short caused by a loose wire touching something, or wires having been crushed together, could have a resistance of around an ohm.

 

The fact the power supply voltage drops when you connect the lamps suggest this is the case also. Is there a length of wire between the power supply and the lamps, or are they right next to each other? It is also possible it's a fault in one of the lamps - one of the failure modes for filament lamps is for the filament to break and and cause a short inside the glass envelope of the lamp - this is fairly common in the high power lamps I am familiar with in theatre lighting, but I would think rather unusual in miniature lamps, which tend to be quite robust - they are designed for long life, not high output.

 

If there is a fault in just one of the lamps causing a short, that would prevent the other lamp lighting, as it is pulling the power supply voltage right down, as you have measured, so not surprise that neither lights up when they are connected.

 

Are you able to examine the wiring between the power supply and the lamps to check for damage/shorts?

 

Nick.

[Andy Keane]

28 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Andy, this sounds like you have a short circuit somewhere. Even a good quality meter will struggle to accurately measure resistances below 1 ohm - it is not what they are designed for. And even if it is accurate, a short caused by a loose wire touching something, or wires having been crushed together, could have a resistance of around an ohm.

 

The fact the power supply voltage drops when you connect the lamps suggest this is the case also. Is there a length of wire between the power supply and the lamps, or are they right next to each other? It is also possible it's a fault in one of the lamps - one of the failure modes for filament lamps is for the filament to break and and cause a short inside the glass envelope of the lamp - this is fairly common in the high power lamps I am familiar with in theatre lighting, but I would think rather unusual in miniature lamps, which tend to be quite robust - they are designed for long life, not high output.

 

If there is a fault in just one of the lamps causing a short, that would prevent the other lamp lighting, as it is pulling the power supply voltage right down, as you have measured, so not surprise that neither lights up when they are connected.

 

Are you able to examine the wiring between the power supply and the lamps to check for damage/shorts?

 

Nick.

Nick

I agree with your diagnosis. These lamps use enamelled coper wire to start with and these are twisted around each other. Then the tails are soldered on to conventional multi-strand copper with plastic sheath. I suspect a short between two bits of the enamelled wires is the issue but they are totally inaccessible. So without major surgery those two lamps will just have to be decorative which is a pity.

Andy

[Andy Keane]

I have been painting up another set of people for the layout. A mix of station staff, loco people and industrial workers. I still struggle to do anything very realistic with their faces though. Photos with and without flash. All have piano wire inserted up one leg - ouch.

Edited Monday at 10:12 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

Today I have been working on the Gweek Company's buildings in the yard.

This is the interior before the building goes on:

And then with building in place:

And from the road side (with Ted waiting to weigh something on his weighbridge and the stable block in the far distance):