February Meeting

As usual, the meeting focused on Lighterman's Yard, continuing to prepare for the next outing - Chatham Exhibition in June.



After assembling the layout, the bolts holding it together were painted, with same a dot of paint of the same colour added nearby, thus indicating which bolts go where.

So far as possible, same colour paint was used for all interchangeable bolts, but with a rather
restricted palette of colours available there were a few inconsistencies.

Continuing the painting theme, locations of all the uncoupling magnets were identified and marked with blobs of white paint.

All uncouplers were checked (successfully), and further operator training took place, with most shunting moves completing as intended...

Alan's warehouse had acquired a lot more windows (and a slightly warped roof). Further amendments were proposed, to keep him busy for the next month or two





Discussions drifted away to Keith and Alan's plans for a Somerset and Dorset layout.

Further measurements were taken to ensure that Pete T's latest buildings and Richard's backscene will fit together when the two are both added to the layout.

 Alan's latest 2FS conversion, a standard 5. Valve gear had come adrift on the far side of the loco, and a tendency to jump over point checkrails suggested that back-to-back adjustments would probably be needed.



 With Pete Townsend's retirement and exodus to Somerset drawing ever-closer, Pete King was appointed to succeed him as Group Co-ordinator.

January Meeting

Most of the meeting was spent preparing for the next outing of Lighterman's Yard - Chatham in June.

As usual, Pete Townsend arrived with a few new buildings to add to the layout.







Richard had completed the first draft of the backscene, which was temporarily propped in place to see how well it fitted the rest of the layout. Keith had lowered the top of the viewing window.





A closer view of part of the the backscene. The intention in the final version is to have a little more colour, but fading and blurring in the distance. The mechanism for curving it around each end of the layout is still under discussion.

Pete Townsend had torn down one of the blocks of flats at the end of the layout, replacing it with a viaduct carrying a disused railway , together with an unspecified building. This change is intended to provide a better scenic break in front of the fiddle yard/traverser.

Unfortunately the two alternative bridges he provided were both too low, blocking access... Back to the drawing board!

A couple of the smaller buildings being built for the trackbed - a mess hut and a generic Southern concrete hut. The bicycle is apparently brand new, its bright yellow paint still clean...

David Smith is building a water tank and coaling stage, but was absent today (apparently driving 305mm:foot trains).

 
Next extension to the buildings will probably be a small dairy. One of the arches in the viaduct has been opened up, providing access for milk floats. Pipework will be added to transfer milk from tankers on the railway siding above.

One of Keith's locos bringing in a mixed freight train, to allow other operators to practice shunting (and to check the track for faults - none found). The backscene had been removed again, as few of the operators are tall enough to see over it!

Festive Season Meeting

It was announced that the long-running battle of the apostrophe had been resolved - at Warley, where the "pro" camp acquired a new nameboard for the layout including the apostrophe, whilst the attention of the "anti" camp was otherwise engaged. So the layout is officially "Lighterman's Yard" (until the "anti" camp find a suitable response).

 Apart from consumption of suitable festive refreshments, kindly provided by Pete Townsend, most of the meeting was spent discussing the backscene. Richard brought two mockups, combining photos of the layout with a silhouette-style backscene - one in colour and one in black and white. These met with universal approval, though it wasn't clear which of the skyscrapers will need to be removed for the 1960s.

There was much discussion of the right viewing angle, and the consequent adjustments needed (depth of viewing window, depth of backscene), but until heights of operators and spectators are standardised it will be difficult to satisfy all involved. Provisional suggestion is that the top of the viewing window needs to be lowered by 4.5 inches, and the backscene needs to be about 15 inches high.

A couple of pictures from Richard, showing the ongoing track maintenance during earlier meetings:

Exhibition Debrief

All the regular members turned up for the meeting, including two who had missed the Exhibition (with feeble excuses about holidays), as well as three visitors.

The main running boards were assembled for a troubleshooting session, tracing the cause of a dead section that had appeared towards the rear of the layout on the final afternoon of the Exhibition. Poor contact with part of a point frog was the diagnosis, and was fixed.

We were assured by David Smith that real railwaymen (i.e. drivers) never used the term turnout, always point - though lesser mortals like civil engineers sometimes got it wrong. So we will try to get it right in future.

The fixed area was successfully tested, with the Jinties that did the shunting for the Exhibition. Also Keith's converted Dapol Western diesel tested the track, suggesting a little more work might be needed, though on the loco rather than the track. One bogie used home converted 2FS tender wheels, and worked well, the other used the original Dapol wheels with adjusted back-to-backs, but it appeared the flanges were still a little too coarse.

The rest of the layout was tested, showing no further problems, then it was dismantled and put away to avoid distracting the group during the debriefing session.

I think the main conclusion was that there had been too little operator experience on the layout (the planned pre-Exhibition operating session having morphed into a bug-finding session). So more intensive operator training (aka "playing with trains") is planned before the next Exhibition.

Incompatibility of coupling heights was discussed - Alan Smith, having rather less vehicles, agreed to adjust his to match Keith's.

Invitations to Chatham Exhibition (June 2016) and Bournmoor and Farnham (2017, both 2FS-related) were accepted.

Pete Townsend brought along a newly-acquired Farish Merchant Navy, converted using Association wheels, Jinty conversion kit for the loco and frame bushes for the tender. Wheel-quartering seemed slightly off, otherwise it ran well on Alan Smith's test and demo track. As it hasn't yet been converted to DCC it couldn't have a run on Lightermans Yard as this month's implausible visitor.

Alan Smith brought along the latest iteration of the goods shed/warehouse, with suggested windows and brickwork, together with pictures of a selection of real-world prototypes for comparison.





Richard was conscripted to work on a backscene - having suggested digital printing on vinyl-like material. Keith volunteered to set up a list of "things to do" to try to ensure the most important improvements were finished and installed and tested in time for the next outing to Chatham in June 2016.

Peter Townsend distributed some model cars, expecting them back assembled, painted, glazed and weathered for installation on the layout. He also revealed that he had demolished one of the two recently built blocks of flats, replacing it with a viaduct to produce a better scenic break in front of the fiddle yard.

The Exhibition

Six of us arrived bright and early on Saturday morning to set up the layout - to find that the other two stands in the room hadn't left enough space. After some delicate negotiations, one of the stands was moved far enough to allow us to squeeze Lightermans Yard into place.

To the left can be seen a second-hand stall (almost exclusively OO), whilst the N gauge layout which normally shares the room with us is seen in its usual position on the right

Alan Smith and Keith provided rolling stock - a couple of Jinties for shunting, and a variety of locos to transfer wagons between layout and fiddle yard. The first day saw rather too much rolling stock in use - at times it was difficult to find a spare siding into which to shunt the latest arrivals.

Running was generally very good, apart from the occasional operator error (usually driving into wrongly set turnouts). There were a few serious electrical problems with the layout, but we became fairly proficient at tracking these down and either fixing them or finding workarounds.

Coupling and uncoupling wasn't as reliable as we would have wished - I think the two contributors of rolling stock used slightly different height standards, and operators often found it difficult to locate the uncouplers on the layout.


Comparison of slow-running of the two Jinties suggested the greater cost of CT decoder chip against Bachmann chip was justified.

The second DCC controller showed a frequent tendency to misbehave, but this usually seemed to be the after-effect of shorts on the layout, and it recovered eventually.

 Spectators were highly complimentary about the layout, particularly the buildings. Children were generally challenged to "Find the pigeons", and rarely succeeded. A small colony of 3-d printed pigeons has started to inhabit the area around one of the bridges, and is expected to spread further (particularly to the carpet).

One unhappy young spectator hurled his dummy at the layout, scoring a direct hit to derail one of the Jinties from a distance of about six feet. Perhaps a future English cricketer?

  

The first tree made its appearance on the layout.











Particular attention has been paid to grouping figures in such so that it seems natural for them to stay in the same place for ages: 

a couple staring into the jeweller's shop window

a sunbather,

a policeman chatting to somebody, 

and some window cleaners hard at work (though one does seem to be very slow emptying his bucket).








And a selection of vehicles loading and unloading...

 

There were a few expressions of interest from Exhibition Managers, so perhaps the layout will be appearing in public again sometime soon.

We were all exhausted at the end of the two days, but pleased with a successful performance as very little time had been spent operating before the Exhibition, and we were all "learning on the job".

Final Practice before the Exhibition.

First some new content on display.

Keith's new traverser, with five loco standings and two access roads on the right, and four roads for trains on the left. The right hand side is fixed, the left is moveable, with a lever-operated bolt system to ensure the moving part aligns correctly with the static part.

A view from the end, showing the unfinished area on the right. Most will be short roads under the virtual extension of the warehouse/goods shed in the background, whilst the right hand road is currently proposed for some form of runround loop for trains exiting and re-entering the layout.

A couple of new buildings from David Smith, water tower (complete with lid/roof to keep the water free from impurities) and a platform which will probably provide the water crane(s) and coaling facilities.

 Mock up by Alan Smith for the goods shed/warehouse. There's still some discussion about height of the entrance arches, position of the right side wall, number of windows, position of the lift shaft, before the final version is produced.

Also for Alan Smith, though not strictly for the layout - a small demonstration board showing the latest style of Easitrac turnout with (almost) no soldering.

More from the Association Shops to ease the entrance to 2FS - a Farish Jinty converted using the latest kit, and one of the battery powered controllers.

After a trip to the AGM at Bournmoor they will probably appear at next month's Exhibition to lure in new members.

My own modest contribution - a horse-drawn dray to deliver beer to the Courage pub, whose cellar door is currently open. A Langley whitemetal kit, with extra detailing.









But what about the promised practice session, you may ask.

It developed into an extended bug-finding and -fixing session.

Firstly, when the traverser board was connected an intermittent short was encountered. Re-testing confirmed Keith's earlier tests, that there was no fault in the traverser. But disconnecting the traverser removed the short, and reconnecting it restored the short. Eventually it was established that one of the turnouts was not correctly switching polarity of rails, and the traverser was connecting that rail to another rail of sometimes incompatible polarity, hence a short.

There was a similar fault at the other end of the layout - faulty polarity switching at a turnout causing intermittent shorts.

Two dead spots were located during extensive testing.

All were finally fixed, leaving about half an hour for running.

Pete King's multitasking abilities were tested by assigning him as signalman and driver of two trains (with a single controller), and he succeeded (most of the time).

Half a dozen vans were added, a couple of brake vans, some shunted ensued. Lightning reflexes caught those items propelled off the end of sidings before they hit the floor, confirming the requirement for a few more stop blocks.

The draft information sheets were discussed, and strong disclaimers were added that it's only a work-in-progress.

If you want to come and see for yourself - Wilmington Church (to be pedantic, the meeting room behind the Church) DA2 7EG, 10th and 11th October, 10am to 5pm. Entry £4, for charity.

August Meeting

Keith had prepared a new baseboard frame to support a traverser/fiddleyard for one end of the baseboard. Current plans are to devote half of it to a traverser, to hold traffic to/from the outside world, with the other half tentatively allocated to an extension of the yard sidings.

Alan had replaced the lighting system with LED strips, much lighter in weight as well as much cooler in temperature (the wiring for the previous system ran disturbingly hot!)

The trackbed spent much of the session inverted for repeated troubleshooting sessions, testing having revealed a dead section. After fixing that, the layout exhibited a permanent short circuit, for no apparent reason.

Time ran out before the last-identified fault was fixed, so the board was taken away for remedial treatment.

Various building mock-ups were discussed, and approved, and the finished versions are eagerly awaited.

 

This month's photo from Richard's archives:

Some handy jigs demonstrated by Keith last year, holding various pieces of 2mm work-in-progress