Model Railway Forum

Great work Steve. Where do you find the time?

Once again, thanks for the comments, they are appreciated.

I’ve been kicking around an idea for coal drops for a while , which will need them to be sunk below baseboard level. Obviously, I can’t cut a hole in the board until I know how big they will be, so today I started work on a set of drops loosely based on an old N gauge model that I used for measurements which I scaled up for OO.

This is how far I have got so far although some railings at the front and a coat of paint is still to come - then I can get the jigsaw out.

2021-05-15_03-19-51 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Things to do on a weekend Sunday afternoon when there’s nowt on TV...........cut another hole in the baseboard.

Actually I finished painting the coaldrops and worked out how’s they could best be fitted into the station area. Somewhere along the way, I fitted some extra points and opened up access to an area next to the main junction pointwork that will either be a goods yard or a small MPD.

All of which means that I’ll be back on the wiring very soon.

2021-05-16_06-31-34 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Looking good!

Looks spot on.

Progress has been slow so far this week. I’ve been hampered by a slight cough/sore throat plus feeling a bit off colour after my second jab. Had a Covid19 test just in case which has just come back negative so it’s back to work tonight.
The lack of energy has meant I could only manage the odd half hour here and there.

It also contributed to a couple ‘fubars’ when it came to labelling the wires in the control panel. I have updated the track plan and fitted the LEDs on the mimic board along with motorising the extra points leading to the coal drops.

20210520_123458 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

That means there are a few more wires in the control panel . I’ve added a voltage regulator for the LED feed which will allow me to reduce the brightness if needed. Still to sort out the power supply to the module and I still have to wire up the third D-sub that will connect the LEDs to the point switches.

20210520_122731 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

At the moment the Seep point motors are switching the frog polarity but I will be fitting frog juicers (eventually) and at that time the Seep switches will be used for the LEDs. The intention is that the wiring for all this will be in place and just require connecting up to make that change.

Incredibly neat wiring, impressive.

Something must have been wrong with all of my layouts, I never had anything like that, looks like the inside of an old telephone exchange, in fact I wired up many things just like that. Where does the switchboard connect Steve?

Lovely work.

Think you should have used waxed binding string instead of cable ties.

That is serious (and seriously neat) wiring. Very very impressive.

I agree, very neat wiring. If I showed you mine I would be expelled from the forum