Wright writes.....

[Lecorbusier]

 The present system is built around the ability of each operator to plug in and control a section or sections. As a result, no other operator or locomotive can enter that section, just as the real thing would have worked. Thus operators can work largely independent of one another without fear of mishaps. Given the potential complication of operations, a fleet of battery powered locomotives would probably be a little hazardous at times.

Operationally wouldn't battery control actually bring greater prominence to the role of signalling? Surely that would be more like the real thing? The driver drives the loco but the signalman controls and dictates the movements.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Lecorbusier

[Anglian]

A possible disadvantage of radio control battery powered locomotives for an exhibition layout would be interference from other transmitters. One of the current systems I've seen is limited to 12 receivers and again for some that would mean switching on and off locos with duplicate receivers. However, could this be resolved by making other frequencies available?

 

For the home layout, to me at least, it would be a nigh on perfect system once they have added wireless charging. As noted previously the role of the signalman/operator would become rather more important and as noted the control of the model would take a step closer to that of the real thing. Combining battery powered radio controlled locomotives with a lever operated mechanically interlocked signal box with servos to power points and signals (all of which is now possible) is my idea of a great deal of fun operating, especially for the more complex moves.

[Lecorbusier]

A possible disadvantage of radio control battery powered locomotives for an exhibition layout would be interference from other transmitters. One of the current systems I've seen is limited to 12 receivers and again for some that would mean switching on and off locos with duplicate receivers. However, could this be resolved by making other frequencies available?

 

 

Protocab uses the wifi protocol similar to computers, which means that interference is not an issue. It also means that there is pretty much an infinite number of wifi addresses that can be allocated. I suspect that this will be the route that all will take in the end, because it piggybacks the massive IT market with all the sophistications and ongoing development that this comes with.

[Headstock]

Operationally wouldn't battery control actually bring greater prominence to the role of signalling? Surely that would be more like the real thing? The driver drives the loco but the signalman controls and dictates the movements.

 

Morning Tim,

 

that is true as far as the operator is concerned but not to the viewing public, exhibition layouts tend to be designed with the viewer in mind There are not that many large exhibition layouts that can provide operators to crew individual positions like signal man and loco or route specific drivers. The amount of operators required is a major factor in the cost of a layout to an exhibition. In addition and away from the mainlines, it is unlikely that one operator will drive a loco all the way to its destination, it will be passed from one operator to the next, a signal provides a convenient change over point. On Leicester an operator can drive a loco all the way from its start point to its destination by setting the route and plugging their power in to that route but away from the operation of the mainline this is really a waste of their time and they can not always physically see their destination.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Headstock

[coachmann]

When I attended model railway exhibitions, admittedly a million years ago, the crowd pullers were the roundies. Be they in 00 or 0 gauge, nothing sophisticated was needed..........Just a full 12 volts to the track to let them rip!  

[Lecorbusier]

Morning Tim,

 

that is true as far as the operator is concerned but not to the viewing public, exhibition layouts tend to be designed with the viewer in mind There are not that many large exhibition layouts that can provide operators to crew individual positions like signal man and loco or route specific drivers. The amount of operators required is a major factor in the cost of a layout to an exhibition. In addition and away from the mainlines, it is unlikely that one operator will drive a loco all the way to its destination, it will be passed from one operator to the next, a signal provides a convenient change over point. On Leicester an operator can drive a loco all the way from its start point to its destination by setting the route and plugging their power in to that route but away from the operation of the mainline this is really a waste of their time and they can not always physically see their destination.

That makes sense ... I freely admit I know nothing about Exhibition operation and the various requirements and limitations. For a home layout though, I suspect it could be quite fun ... unless of course you have a magnum opus like Little Bytham!

[LNER4479]

When I attended model railway exhibitions, admittedly a million years ago, the crowd pullers were the roundies. Be they in 00 or 0 gauge, nothing sophisticated was needed..........Just a full 12 volts to the track to let them rip!  

 

They still exist, Larry!

 

And they don't come much faster than this. On her second lap we do indeed 'let her rip'. Probably doing an estimated scale 120mph as it streaks past.

 

Otherwise, we've several soul-searching discussions and generally try to run the non-stops at moderate speed.

Edited November 1, 2017 by LNER4479

[Anglian]

Different types of control systems, be it traditional 12V, DCC or radio control all suit different layout concepts. For example, having spent a good few hours with Tony operating Little Lytham I believe he has chosen the most appropriate system for his layout. With Tony as the master controller dispatching trains to my father and me to drive there was non stop action. I have this almost OCD fascination with watching faster trains overtaking those slower, on a four track mainline. Somehow I'm more visually fascinated by this then with approaching trains crossing. At one point we had three very long trains on the stage at once. 

 

At the other end of the scale a terminus that might have moves to release locos whilst others pull empty coaching stock out of platform roads or any complex shunting moves, is where radio control could really come into its own. The same with banking engines dropping off, having done their work. I also think that current cost aside that it is the perfect system for a beginner who would surely readily understand that the train goes on the track and like other radio controlled models you take it from there without any external electric wires needed. Certainly when I had a layout as a 12 year old I was endlessly redesigning the track layout and had surface mounted 'gubbins' everywhere. The plug and play nature of battery operation has a lot to commend it.

 

Radio control makes fault finding so easy. (In an exhibition environment a locomotive failure is no more than that – it doesn't signal some impending electric meltdown to the whole layout). Building track is also made easier and at another level it really wouldn't matter whatever type of frog PECO and others used for their RTR track systems. Wiring and switching return loops and other such arrangements, such as isolating sections, become 100% irrelevant. If Hornby or Bachmann wanted to make it easier to build and maintain a model railway RC battery power looks like the future. Within reason the wheels don't have to be meticulously clean either.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Anglian

[Headstock]

Trains on Leicester South should never be travelling that fast, if you spot one going sixty MPH or faster inform control. Leicester Central station was approximately were the fiddle yard is on the layout, a through service such as a southbound runner would slow to ten MPH through the station and would have accelerated to a maximum of thirty five MPH by the time it had reached South box, close to the scenic break. Northbound express trains would would shut off at at South box and drift up the grade still doing about forty MPH as they crossed the Birdcage bridge at the opposite end of the layout. The GC crews were famous for their rapid approach and decelerations as they entered stations. In theory nothing should be travelling faster than about fifty five MPH on the layout and a maximum of thirty five for freights.

[Clive Mortimore]

Trains on Leicester South should never be travelling that fast, if you spot one going sixty MPH or faster inform control. Leicester Central station was approximately were the fiddle yard is on the layout, a through service such as a southbound runner would slow to ten MPH through the station and would have accelerated to a maximum of thirty five MPH by the time it had reached South box, close to the scenic break. Northbound express trains would would shut off at at South box and drift up the grade still doing about forty MPH as they crossed the Birdcage bridge at the opposite end of the layout. The GC crews were famous for their rapid approach and decelerations as they entered stations. In theory nothing should be travelling faster than about fifty five MPH on the layout and a maximum of thirty five for freights.

But Andrew

 

The PUBLIC want to be ENTERTAINED with fast running trains..................or so I keep being told.

[Lecorbusier]

Trains on Leicester South should never be travelling that fast, if you spot one going sixty MPH or faster inform control. Leicester Central station was approximately were the fiddle yard is on the layout, a through service such as a southbound runner would slow to ten MPH through the station and would have accelerated to a maximum of thirty five MPH by the time it had reached South box, close to the scenic break. Northbound express trains would would shut off at at South box and drift up the grade still doing about forty MPH as they crossed the Birdcage bridge at the opposite end of the layout. The GC crews were famous for their rapid approach and decelerations as they entered stations. In theory nothing should be travelling faster than about fifty five MPH on the layout and a maximum of thirty five for freights.

A basic question here .... how do you work out what scale speed would be? Different wheel sizes and different inertias within the motors I assume mean that it cant be via the controller?

[Tony Teague]

But Andrew

 

The PUBLIC want to be ENTERTAINED with fast running trains..................or so I keep being told.

I would say that they want to see trains moving - not necessarily fast, but certainly moving.

The problem layouts for an exhibition visitor are those where nothing moves, and then when it does, it derails and the 'hand of God' descends, or those where the operators are more interested in chatting to each other, exchanging bell codes etc, than running the "show".

Tony

[coachmann]

A basic question here .... how do you work out what scale speed would be? Different wheel sizes and different inertias within the motors I assume mean that it cant be via the controller?

Fit sound and if you hear a machine gun, its going too fast....

[Clive Mortimore]

I would say that they want to see trains moving - not necessarily fast, but certainly moving.

The problem layouts for an exhibition visitor are those where nothing moves, and then when it does, it derails and the 'hand of God' descends, or those where the operators are more interested in chatting to each other, exchanging bell codes etc, than running the "show".

Tony

Hands up all those who have never had a derailment and had to use their hand to re-rail the loco or train?

 

It is called a model railway exhibition, not a show, play, musical, game, match or whatever......I think for the low price most exhibitions charge on entry (£3 this weekend at Caistor) and the modelling that is on show I feel the public get a good deal. Try buying a pork sausage roll for under £3 at Spurs ground, let alone for getting in for that price, and only have 90 minutes of what they think is entertainment.

[davefrk]

A basic question here .... how do you work out what scale speed would be? Different wheel sizes and different inertias within the motors I assume mean that it cant be via the controller?

 

Hi Tim, I operate on Roy Jacksons Retford from time to time and as Tony will testify there is a speed trap on the mainline. As operators we've learnt how fast to drive just by looking at the display and observing the train. Sometimes someone will ask you to guess what speed you're doing with a hand over the readout, most people are now only about 5 or 10 MPH out but it is surprising how slow a 25MPH unfitted goods looks on a big model.

Beware videos though, many have a seemingly increased speed through the conversion process to digital, just watch the people walking or the steam drifting away....

Incidentally the speed record on Retford is currently 165MPH by a Deltic with twelve on and I got my LMS Crab with 60 wagons down to below 1MPH ie it didn't register on the speedtrap.

You'll learn how fast to drive once you start running your layout I'm sure.

 

Dave Franks

[Lecorbusier]

....but it is surprising how slow a 25MPH unfitted goods looks on a big model.

 

Thanks Dave,

 

To try and get a feel I transposed mph to seconds per ft adjusted to 4mm to the foot scale and tried marking a distance on the track related to time. What you say is comforting as I was surprised how slow 25mph felt! It suggests that for anything other than a high speed section of the mainline, the trains will actually appear to be quite leisurely in terms of pace. My stretch of main line is on a ± 1:100 incline, so in 1902 I assume even express trains will be pushing it to break 40mph?

[t-b-g]

Hands up all those who have never had a derailment and had to use their hand to re-rail the loco or train?

 

It is called a model railway exhibition, not a show, play, musical, game, match or whatever......I think for the low price most exhibitions charge on entry (£3 this weekend at Caistor) and the modelling that is on show I feel the public get a good deal. Try buying a pork sausage roll for under £3 at Spurs ground, let alone for getting in for that price, and only have 90 minutes of what they think is entertainment.

 

I think that most people will have had some from of derailment at some time. The difference comes with how the modeller deals with it. Derailments don't ever just happen. They have a cause. Be it track or wheel problems, buffer locking, baseboard misalignment or something else. What I find frustrating at exhibitions is when a layout has a train of, say, 30 wagons. 29 run superbly but one derails. So it gets put back on and derails again next time round. So it gets put back on again and the cycle continues. The idea of simply removing the vehicle to either sort out at home later or even at the show just doesn't occur. Or tweaking a bad rail joint so that stuff stays on.

 

It is the "it always does that there" acceptance that doesn't sit well with me. It would drive me potty if I accepted such things on one of my layouts. I know of one very well known exhibition layout that hardly gets touched between shows and comes out of storage with exactly the same faults that it was put away with after the previous show.

 

The way some layouts are operated at shows is just plain poor. People who have taken the layout along because they wanted a weekend away with their pals, who chat in groups with their backs to the paying punters and seem quite miffed if somebody actually interrupts their socialising by showing an interest and wanting to ask a question. There have been times at shows when I wanted to ask something and I just could not catch the eye of the operators, even those not actually running things.

 

To me, it is down to the exhibition manager to get a balance of layouts. There are some people who want lots of action on a tail chaser and there are others who appreciate the finer aspect of operation, including proper signalling and block bells. For every Gresley Beat or Stoke Summit there should be a St Merryn. The best shows are those with a variety of sizes, scales, prototypes and methods of operation. A show with nothing but tiny shunting planks is just as dull and one dimensional as a show with a dozen big tail chasers and nothing else.

[Andrew P]

I agree with the above about operators, I always operated from the front to interact with the paying public, and to let the kids push the horn button, (DCC) and was usually thanked for the time taken to talk to the public.

[Headstock]

But Andrew

 

The PUBLIC want to be ENTERTAINED with fast running trains..................or so I keep being told.

 

Fortunately we are such terrible operators that there is little chance of the public being bored by slow moving trains.

[The Johnster]

A show with only one type of layout is going to be a bit samey whatever it is, and I have posted on this thread before about the standard of operating on some layouts; this is by no means a recent phenomena by the way.  I agree about the rudeness of some operators who think that the whole shebang is for their benefit.

 

But it is important to keep a sense of balance here.  To my mind, the ideal public show should show as wide a variety of layouts of different modelling standards as it can, not necessarily all modelled or operated to the highest scale standards and demonstrating to punters who may be thinking of taking up the hobby that a workable railway can be achieved out of the box but that better can be achieved with extra effort and skill.  An ideal scale or special interest show is a different matter, with standards needing to be higher.  I would like to see a better standard of behaviour from operators at shows, and would find eating or drinking, overcrowding, and general unprofessionalism offensive, but the reality is that show organisers have a limited range of layouts that will be available, that they will not all be of the best standards, and each layout will have a variable and unreliable selection of operators; the bottom line is that, however we like to project ourselves and however important public image and behaviour is, we are amateurs with all that that implies.  It is not as easy to organise a good show with limited resources and the vagaries of logistics. and if one criticises it would be better if it is from a perspective of experience; those who have never been involved in putting on a show are entitled to their views, but bear in mind that it may be harder than it looks!

 

I have in the past done my share of socialising at shows, and very enjoyable it was too, but once you hit the bar you should stay away from the layout for the rest of the day! 

[Headstock]

A basic question here .... how do you work out what scale speed would be? Different wheel sizes and different inertias within the motors I assume mean that it cant be via the controller?

 

Good evening Tim,

 

the speed trap has already been mentioned, there is also the 'speed wagon' that records continuously as it is part of the formation of a train. Simpler methods involve timing a train as it passes two fixed points. A four mil scale mile is still covered in one minute if the locomotive is travelling at a scale sixty MPH for example, give or take an expectable margin of error. Alternatively, measuring the length of a train and recording the time it takes to pass a single fixed point will work in more limited spaces. Generally, people will underestimate the speed that a train is been driven by quite a large margin.

[Theakerr]

Back to my missive on battery power, I forgot one of the more important aspects for some people.  Specifically, if you have a system already it is not necessary to convert everything all at once.  This alone will be a major cost benefit as well as eliminating a time period when one's layout is not operational.  

My loco speeds are based on the speed the con rods are moving compared to similar locos on videos and DVDs.  

[Tony Wright]

I don't have an electronic speed gun on Little Bytham, so I have to estimate how fast trains are travelling. Guest drivers tend to fall into two categories (with little in the middle). There are those who drive fast (because I encourage them) and those who drive very, very slowly. I appreciate the latter's reluctance to potentially damage something, but I usually grab the box and turn it up. 

 

Seriously, most trains of the period depicted would not be going more than 80 mph; less uphill. I try to get as near an impression of that. Take a video, and it looks too fast. But, not all trains on LB run fast - there are the unfitted goods, the pick-ups and the stoppers. All of these have to work at a crawl, starting and stopping in the smoothest possible way. I'll not tolerate anything else. 

 

With regard to exhibition layouts, it would seem that most punters wish to see something happening. Even at Clapham Junction there will be gaps (dependent on the time of day) between trains, so our model railways have to run a 'jazz' service of the greatest frequency. This can result in absurdities, such as a train departing from a single track terminus (either through a bridge or a tunnel) and then, moments later (after the cassettes have been moved in the fiddle yard), another one appears in the opposite direction. Or, as we had on Stoke, an unfitted Down goods goes into the tunnel and in less than a minute, a flyer is following it (High Dyke would then see an almighty crash). On Charwelton, we abandoned the ironstone movements because it took to long to shunt, blocking the passage of through trains. 

 

 

Of course, if it's a home layout, then the frequency of trains doesn't matter. Today, I visited Gilbert Barnatt's Peterborough North (more pictures on the layout thread) and this turn off the M&GNR came via a cassette. This had to be put in position, the train moved into place and a loco selected and put on. Did this 'time' matter? Of course not, and we just pleased ourselves. 

 

Poor running on exhibition layouts should not be tolerated (irrespective of scale/gauge). The regular derailment at the same spot, by the same vehicle suggests the vehicle at fault. If all the stuff falls off, look at the trackwork. My personal aim is to have no derailments in an operating session (two hours at a time) on LB. I haven't done the maths, but if one calculates the number of points crossed (a hundred?), by the number of locos in use during a session (up to 45) and the number of wheels on the trains (45 trains in use during the sequence), then the potential for derailments could be high. Yesterday, in a full session there were no derailments. On Monday I had one (a wagon being propelled - dodgy b-t-b) and on Saturday a Pacific's bogie derailed at high speed (again, a b-t-b out). Roughly working out the running over the last five days, that's over six hours operation of nearly 150 trains, both fast and slow, backwards and forwards, with just two derailments. Unacceptable? Yes, but it happens. What I find even more unacceptable is a layout the fraction the size of LB (or Retford), where there are no big, fast trains, no complex bits of trackwork and everything runs (if it does at all) at a crawl, yet things fall off all over the place. Again, I stress this has nothing to do with scale/gauge, but it gives a very poor impression at shows. 

 

Finally, and this is an illustration of my not taking my own advice. On Sunday, I was running a Fordley Park (that tells you how old it is) B1, and the motor stuttered. It stuttered again on Monday, despite my cleaning and adjusting it. This morning, it just 'died'. So, fit a spare motor (a D11, fitted into a DJH 'box - not the original drive, I hasten to add, but still over 20 years old). The replacement motor wasn't new, but it was in the spares box so I slotted it in. It twitched, then stuttered, then gave up. Why had I kept the motor? For spares' purposes. It now has no brushes, no magnet and it's in the bin. I fitted a new one in the end. The moral? Always dump dud motors. 

 

 

[Lecorbusier]

What I find even more unacceptable is a layout the fraction the size of LB (or Retford), where there are no big, fast trains, no complex bits of trackwork and everything runs (if it does at all) at a crawl, yet things fall off all over the place. 

Whilst in principle I whole heartedly agree, I do have some sympathy for the newcomer without much experience of exhibiting. I have seen a couple of beautifully modelled smaller layouts where the operator/owner was mortified because things were not working as they should. "I've been testing it all week and everything was working fine...."

Taking a new model to a show, with it shaking around in the back of a car or van, coupled to changes of temperature and humidity I suspect can play havoc with the best efforts of the inexperienced show exhibitor.

As I have done neither I do not speak with authority .... but in certain instances I have felt sorry for the exhibitor.

[Jesse Sim]

They still exist, Larry!

WP_20171020_20_13_57_Pro_LR.jpg

 

And they don't come much faster than this. On her second lap we do indeed 'let her rip'. Probably doing an estimated scale 120mph as it streaks past.

TW_5.jpg

 

Otherwise, we've several soul-searching discussions and generally try to run the non-stops at moderate speed.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR I WAS ON MY WAY TO THE UK! Now you're posting these photos, plus the memories thay pop up on facebook, thats it, see you all soon!!!!!! 

 

one way ticket please.