TWICKENHAM MRC'S OO GAUGE LAYOUT - NORTHWICK

Since the last update a lot has been happening with Northwick. We will be attending The Festival of British Railway Modelling at Doncaster on 7th & 8th February 2015 and in preparation of this we have embarked on a 'refresh' program.

We have decided to replace all of the yard and platform lamps with working ones, and update other parts of the layout to bring it more to life. See the pictures below for an idea on what's going on



This is a picture of the Loco shed from 2011 which shows the old yard lamps



The new yard lamp at the turntable end of the loco shed



The new yard lamp at the coal yard, the lamps (and most of the other additions look a bit bright at the moment but they will be dulled down and weathered before we 'go on the road'

More people are being added.



Sgt Dixon watches 'George' clean some windows while waiting for a call on the Police phonebox



'Arfur' wipes his hands in preparation of a hard shift.



Train crews enjoy a breather and a chat at the grounded coach inbetween duties

Wildlife is being added


A Crow sits in a tree



Pheasants run through one of the fields

The trees are being given a refresh too



This shows the newly refreshed trees in the background while a non-refreshed tree is visible in the foreground.

As you know Nothwick will be attending the Festival of British Railway Modelling which is being held at the Doncaster race course on 7th & 8th February - why not come along and see us in action.

Since the last major update work has continued at a steady pace on the layout.

The hand painted back scene has been replaced with a preprinted one. This has really changed the look about and has brought it to life as well as adding to the feeling of depth.



Scouts now have a camp site complete with an illuminating fire, this has now brought life to the countryside end of the layout.



The new platform lights have been installed and are currently in the process of being wired up so watch this space



Here are a few pictures of the layout with stock on to wet your appetite for what to expect at Doncaster

Northwick will be attending The Festival of British Railway Modelling at the Doncaster racecourse this weekend. So why not come along and say hi.

Since the last update the platform lights, yard lights and the scouts campfire have now been connected up.





Also the issue we had with the road disappearing into the backscene has been solved by the addition of a tree.

Before:


After:


The scouts have now been fully installed.


And finally the new station running-in boards and totems have been installed.

Before:


After:

Northwick will be at the kempton steam museum next weekend (18th & 19th April). The layout will feature some new additions and improvements including:

A rotating goods yard crane.




Ivy growing up the dead tree.



The new and improved water tower.

This weekend we where at the Kempton steam museum, this was a highly enjoyable weekend and the layout was well received by the public who not only enjoyed seeing the layout in action but also liked the fine detail which has been added in the past year.

Below are some pictures from the weekend:


The station approach was well populated.


The goods yard team where busy loading the goods.


Standard class 5 no. 73014 passing the fields on its way to the station.


The goods yard pilot crew hardly had time to rest.


Standard 4 no. 76069 awaiting to depart the station


Ex LMS twin no.10000 awaiting to depart the station


Ex SR Class N15 no.30764 'Sir Gawain' passes the new water tower having left the station.


Ex GWR Hall class no. 4948 'Northwick Hall' arrives with its train just in time to see the farmer being chased by the bull.

The next exhibition that we will be attending is the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition, which is being held at the NEC in Birmingham on the 28th & 29th November 2015.

Since the last update we have decided to update some of the electrics on the layout. We decided that board 4 would be the best one to do first as it has the simplest wiring and is also the one that was causing issues with the running of the layout - we have isolating sections on this board to stop the trains from coming onto the layout until they are needed and these were not working reliably, there was also an issue with the two controllers that can be used on this section conflicting with each other and causing a short circuit.

We have also decided to put a brass screw near where each dropper comes through the baseboard, this is to make it easier when we need to test the circuits to make sure everything is working. The wires have been put in plastic spiral combs which have been stuck to the underside of the baseboard, this is to keep the wires out of harms way when the layout is being set up or dismantled.

The wiring was finished on Saturday and tests were done, everything now works! Minus a few small gremlins that will be sorted this Friday. Below are pictures of the wiring before and after the work.

Before


After



We have also decided to fit a new mechanism for the turntable, this is because the old one was showing signs of wear and tear as when the turntable was operated it would judder whilst making the occasional squeaking and clunking sounds and when it was stationary there was a lot of play. The new mechanism was made by Brandon and involves two bearings compared with the old one having only one, it was also found that the drive shaft for the turntable needed replacing as the old one was severely distorted. The turntable now runs very smoothly and all of the sound effects are a thing of the past, also the the turntable bridge is now level which also eliminates the risk of derailments. The motor still needs to be wired into the layout which should be done shortly. Below are pictures of before and after.

Before



After



The new water tower has now been permanently fixed on and the base of it weathered in.


On the Saturday we had a short running session where an unusual item of rolling stock arrived...

I forgot to say that the wagon pictured in the previous post (the one with the peak roof behind the wagon with the tractor on) is a ex-SR wagon built to Diag 1458 in January 1939 as part of order A969, it is one of Bulleid's experiments, 3 of them were built and at least one of them survived in service until 1966. Part of the idea of the wagon was to solve the problem of leaking roofs that the usual shape SR vans were prone to (solved, apparently, by the adoption of plywood sheeting for the centre section of the roof) the other part was the cladding which was actually lots of rather small planks clad, and presumably held together, with something called 'Ruberoid' which the SR apparently used for roof coverings. This vehicle was created using a ratio SR plywood van kit with new ends, roof and some new bits of metalwork added to the sides. Below is a picture of the wagon before painting showing the new bits (the white parts) that where created using plasticard.

We have now sorted out the electrical problems which remained on board 4, this now means that we can send one train off the layout while bringing in another one at the same time (previously when we tried to do this the two controllers would cancel each other out and cause a short circuit thus making the whole layout grind to a halt).

Below is a diagram showing what tracks can be operated by which controller (there are 3 controllers for the layout). The first one (yellow) operates the goods yard and engine yard, the second one (green) operates all out going trains and the third one (red) controls all incoming trains.



We have also had to replace one of the tortoise motors which controls the points into the bay platform, this is because it had stopped working, we have replaced it with a cobalt point motor. This point motor was chosen because it is smaller than the tortoise one and so reduces the risk of the legs of the layout colliding with it when the layout is packed away. The diagram below shows which point motor has had to be replaced.



With the electrics there are a few things left to do which are to install the new turntable control panel which is going on the back of the backscene directly behind the turntable which will help us to see when the rails are lined up. Previously when we were operating the turntable we would be about 5ft away from it as the control panel is on the back of board 2 this resulted in a lot of going back and forth to line it up. There will also be a reverse function for the turntable so if we overshoot the rail then we can turn it the other way to line it up, this is a new function as previously if we went past the rail then we had to send the turntable all the way round again resulting in a long delay as it takes about 2 minutes to go all the way round.

The other thing is to resolve the power supply issue that we are getting at the entrance of the bay platform at the moment we can set it to be controlled by the green or red controller or neither and the green will move the train through and the red will do nothing. Once this and the turntable are sorted out then the running electrics will be working perfectly for the first time in quite a long time. The area circled below is the affected area.