Model Railway Forum

Twinwoods & Bedford - 06 - Sawing the Table

The two simulations (EEP video 4, TrainController video 5) showed us that this layout can have an interesting train traffic flow. This gave us the confidence to now start sawing the wooden plates for the table.

The challenge was to transfer the drawing from the PC to the boards to have the lines to saw along. We did this by first placing a grid of boards over the layout drawing. This enabled us to read out the x,y coordinates of strategic points per board. Two points are needed for a straight line, three for a curve. We used a bendable plastic strip to draw smooth curved lines on the board.

This is the link to video Twinwoods & Bedford - 06 - Sawing the Tbale

I admire what you are doing but still think it would be wise to lay track before you start cutting the board.

Hi 'W'. Yeah, every now and then we temporarily place some tracks at critical spots to check if we have enough table surface. Up to now all is well.

I enjoy watching your progress.

Twinwoods & Bedford - 07 - Mounting the Table

After having sawn the 9mm wooden plates in their respective shapes the tables can be mounted.

Along the wall the plates rest on a full length beam. The peninsula and the aisle side of the tables rest on legs, connected via beams to create a support frame. All legs have height adjustable feet.

In the meantime the lower and upper tables and the peninsula are mostly done. What’s left are the two ramps. These will be sawn out of 3mm board because they need to be flexible. The ramps are curved and need to be twisted some to mount them flat to the surface at both sides.

This is the link to video Twinwoods & Bedford - 07 - Mounting the Table

Twinwoods & Bedford - 09 - A Paint Job & Turnout Servo Mount

We experimented with several rail bed and ballast options. We don’t plan to ballast the tracks 100%, which we know looks best, but we’re not that much into scenery and 100% ballasting is going to be a whole lot of work. We think we found a nice compromise that’s a lot less work and which also doesn’t require a second layer of cork under the tracks to heighten it.

The only thing needed is to paint the cork in a dark brown / rusty color, to which later maybe some spots and streaks of darker almost black can be added to taste. So … that’s what has been done past week, the cork has been painted with a Palissander stain.

The first track pieces and turnouts have been placed too, accurate to the mm. The video shows how we do the turnout servo drives.

This is the link to video Twinwoods & Bedford - 09 - A Paint Job & Turnout Servo Mount

Twinwoods & Bedford - 10 - Turnout Servo Drive

This video shows the servo drive we use on the layout in more detail. The servo motor is an SG90 180°. It fits snugly in a 15mm aluminum U profile, in which two screw holes are drilled as well as a 1mm hole that serves as the pivot point for the pin that moves the turnout. The pin is an unfolded paper clip.

We use Arduino for DCC control, loaded with the MARDEC software that can be downloaded for free from www.arcomora.com. This software is a DCC servo- and accessory decoder and it’s also used to tune the required servo angles for the two turnout positions.

This is the link to video Twinwoods & Bedford - 10 - Turnout Servo Drive

Twinwoods & Bedford - 11 - Laying Flex Track

We use Peco HO 75 track, which consists solely of flex tracks. To lay the flex track we use a couple of helpers like:
- A carton, cut in a circle of the desired radius, to lay circles
- A wire connected to a center pin, to lay circles
- A flexible plastic strip, to mark non circular curves
- A 15mm aluminum U strip, to lay straight track
- Different lengths of hardwood, to lay shorter pieces of straight track
- Track spacing jigs, to lay multi track stretches with high accuracy constant spacing

This is the link to video Twinwoods & Bedford - 11 - Laying Flex Track

While Transport Fever 2 in fact is a logistics management game with the focus on setting up road- and rail transport between industries and towns, earning money and seeing the population and the economy grow and prosper, it can also very well be used to simulate a (model) railroad.

That’s thanks to the graphics, which are very nice. The user interface is OK too, creating a layout with automatic train and road traffic is not very hard to do.

The bonus is that it’s not just fun to do and results in something nice to watch, but to see in advance how a model railway layout is going to look once built can save hours of work and maybe material waste if changes are to be made. Once the building has started changes probably have far more impact.

This is the link to video Twinwoods & Bedford - 12 - Simulation in Transport Fever 2

Track laying, DCC wiring and sensor wiring are all finished. It’s time to test drive the layout with 11 trains.

The layout is computer controlled with Traincontroller 10. A separate series of videos on TC is available here.

The DCC Command Station is a Digikeijs DR5000, combined with a DR5033 booster.

The turnouts are switched with SG90 servo motors, connected to DCCNEXT decoders, that can be acquired at about €10,- via arcomora.. The software, called MARDEC, is free.

Train detection is performed with reed switches on the track and a small Neodymium magnet under the train. The reeds are connected to Arduino Loconet shields that can be acquired at about €6,- via arcomora.. The software, called ARLOCO, is free.

This is the link to video Twinwoods & Bedford - 13 - Test Driving 11 Trains

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