Hamdden Railway Co.

[Journeyman]

Thought I would do an update of where things are at.
Have been laying cork and track, and once points and track are working I’ve glued the track down, the change in nose is very noticeable as the train transitions from the glued down to the loose track.
All the electric wiring is working including the return loop but the trains are having trouble on the old Hornby curved points. First it was the blades derailing them (Mainline 0-6-0 Tank) so I reduced the width of the blades and now it’s the frogs causing the problems.
Thought I would try a different engine (Lima 2-6-2 Tank) and that crossed successfully a few times.

Railway 148.jpg

The Lima stalled and when I reached across to give it a nudge my first thought was it’s caught up a cobweb then realised it was white smoke! Quickly turned it off and striped it to find out what had happened.
The good news is that the Lima was like new inside don’t think it had ever been taken apart and you could see the flux still on the solder joints. The Commutator was very dirty and there was a build up of dirt in the groves this had caused the one brush to short out two of the segments. Used a sharp scraper to remove the pip formed by the arc, cleaned out the groves and cleaned the faces of the commutator with rubbing compound. Then thoroughly cleaned every thing with contact cleaner which will help to stop arcing. The engine is back up and running.
While I have the tools out have decided to get another Mainline going this one was bought as a non runner and when striped was found to have screws and parts missing. It’s in quite a bad way internally so am working on getting it to run. It’s a 4-6-0 with very fancy valve gear and connecting rods and they are part of the problem.
When I get it going I’ll try it on the points it looks like front bogeys handle points better than just the driving wheels, what are your thoughts on this?

Cheers for now, Dave.

[teedoubleudee]

I missed your June update Dave. Really like what you are doing with the inclines, I did something similar to a layout a few years back.

[Journeyman]

Thanks TDD, eventually there will be a fiddle yard with some sort of loading cassette down there at the moment it just has an isolated section to hold trains. When I start scenery there will be retaining walls and a tunnel entrance at each end.
Do you have a link to what you did?

Dave.

[teedoubleudee]

.........Do you have a link to what you did?

Dave.

Sorry Dave, no. It was a very ambitious 00 effort, a folded dumbell design with with loads of hidden sidings, in an 8x6 garden shed. Another one I never finished. I tore it up, sold everything and built a small portable N gauge layout (the only layout I ever finished). I sold that before moving up to Norfolk seven years ago. After six months here I decided to build another in OO gauge. Again that was too ambitious for room size so that got ripped out just over a year ago (unfinished) and I'm now building a more realistic size one. I have high hopes of completing this one if I live long enough! 77 next week and counting.

[IanS]

.........Do you have a link to what you did?

Dave.

Sorry Dave, no. It was a very ambitious 00 effort, a folded dumbell design with with loads of hidden sidings, in an 8x6 garden shed. Another one I never finished. I tore it up, sold everything and built a small portable N gauge layout (the only layout I ever finished). I sold that before moving up to Norfolk seven years ago. After six months here I decided to build another in OO gauge. Again that was too ambitious for room size so that got ripped out just over a year ago (unfinished) and I'm now building a more realistic size one. I have high hopes of completing this one if I live long enough! 77 next week and counting.

You've forgotten one important rule of model railway building! It will never be complete. Even if you live to be 200yr old it won't be finished. It's not the destination that is important, but the journey.

[Walkingthedog]

I have completely finished my layout dozens of times.

[Journeyman]

Sorry Dave, no. It was a very ambitious 00 effort, a folded dumbell design with with loads of hidden sidings, in an 8x6 garden shed. Another one I never finished. I tore it up, sold everything and built a small portable N gauge layout (the only layout I ever finished). I sold that before moving up to Norfolk seven years ago. After six months here I decided to build another in OO gauge. Again that was too ambitious for room size so that got ripped out just over a year ago (unfinished) and I'm now building a more realistic size one. I have high hopes of completing this one if I live long enough! 77 next week and counting.

You've forgotten one important rule of model railway building! It will never be complete. Even if you live to be 200yr old it won't be finished. It's not the destination that is important, but the journey.

I have completely finished my layout dozens of times.

Some important lessons there from you three!

When I write up the log at the beginning of a trip the date and time and position is entered and then I state sailing towards (whatever destination.) You never know what is going to happen between departure and arrival so the best you can say is sailing towards! It doesn’t pay to tempt fate.

Dave.

[Journeyman]

So another update this time working on the points.
Bought some black plastic card and used that to pack out the points and keep the wheels under control as they transition the frogs on the curved points. This has worked well, especially with the 2-6-2 Prairie. The 0-6-0 tank still gave problems till I changed the coupling to a larger one that allowed more movement between the loco and the wagon.

Now the points are reliable I started to work on remotely operating them.
The springs to keep the point blades in place seem to be non existent so decided to make an over centre spring operating a bell crank. This way I only have to nudge the crank and it flicks over and the spring holds the points over.

Railway 155.jpg

Railway 156.jpg

The cranks are made from some steel packing strap, the holes were punched rather than drilled and the operating wires are made from 1mm Mig welding wire. The springs are made from off cuts of S/S Rigging wire. The only thing I bought to make the system was some Curtain wire to run the Mig wire through.

Railway 160 crop.jpg

So far so good five points working

Dave.

[Chops]

An ingenious repair. Glad that it works.

I gradually became aware, myself, of a disturbance I call "buffer bind." A relative new comer to OO, I had the mistaken notion that the hook and buffer arrangement would be relatively fool-proof. After much confusion, I was disabused of that notion, and realized that sometimes, particularly when couplings are between different manufacturers, that some hooks are a tad
shorter drawing the loops too close, and whence upon any given curve, contact each other, forcing one or both off the rails. I found this to be particularly true of Bachmann pieces, of which the hooks are just a tad shorter than many other brands.

Not being terribly handy at repairs or modifications, in some instances I resorted to the prototypical method of using a chain coupling and removing the offending couplers, and
in other instances I run like with like.

Nice save on the Lima.

[Journeyman]

Thanks Jeffrey, yes it was the short hooks on the Mainline couplings causing the problem, as you say the couplings just prevented enough movement to get round the curve.
Still a lot of work to do before I get to your level of storytelling

Dave