2mm Holywell Town.

adrian

Flying Squad
Time to resurrect a long dormant thread. Having finished* my JLTRT Midland 3F build I decided to return to a little 2mm modelling for a change in perspective.

*by finished I mean building the loco - it still has to go through the paint shop.:oops:

What modelling time I have had available I have been able to progress on my 2mmFS layout. However much of it has been concentrating on the electrical side and under baseboard side so there is little progress to show, and there have been a few little real world issues that get in the way.

With respect to those real world issues I hope that everyone will indulge me in a slight off topic and personal digression, and this is really a reflection on how much I value the friendship I have on this forum and feel comfortable discussing it on here where I would struggle in a different environment.

I've not really mentioned it in posts to this forum but like at least one other member I know of on the forum I volunteer as a Blood Bike rider. We are a group of enthusiastic bikers who provide a vital out of hours transport facility for hospitals around the country, moving blood/plasma/medicine/notes/samples/breast milk between hospitals. I've even been asked to take traction weights on a motorbike!! It's not something I do for any plaudits but in volunteering to transport these supplies it means one less journey that the hospital has to pay for a taxi, it's just the way I choose to support the NHS in the work they do.

Anyway to cut to the heart of my digression - last week I finished my Blood bike shift on Saturday and later on that evening I got an email that one of our riders, Russ Curwen was involved in a road traffic accident whilst on a call and sadly died from his injuries.
Volunteer blood transport biker killed

So my apologies for being slightly maudlin and absent for a while but it has been difficult to focus this week on anything else. However I have returned to my modelling as a little bit of comfort and spending a little bit of time relaxing and letting the world go by. So where ever you are there will be a blood bike group near you - please give them a little support. :thumbs:

So personal digression over - back to my recent modelling efforts. As posted else where I have been volunteered to display my 2mmFS efforts at the forthcoming supermeet at Chelford
Association Events

I think my efforts definitely falls into the "some under construction" banner although I'm not too sure how Andy Carlson's effort gets labelled as "early stages" and mine doesn't. Anyway if you are in the area come down and say hello - it'd be great to see people.

My effort has been focussed on getting all the electric up and running - despite all the effort there seems to be very little to show for it as most of it is going to be hidden under the baseboard or tucked away in a casing.

It's probably taken 3 or 4 iterations to make it fit but one of my goals was to use the MERG CBus system to make a neat little control box for the layout. There is one CBus module CANPAN geared specifically for control panels, allowing a mixture of switches and LEDs linked to one module. I thought I could squeeze this into one small aluminium instrument case. So this shows what I have managed to achieve. The switches and LEDs are mounted on the veroboard with connectors to the CANPAN modules, all to fit in to the aluminium case. The CBus connection to the layout is via a standard ethernet connector.

holywell electrical - 2.jpg

The switch and LED layout is to represent track diagram. This was cut out on my laser cutter and I used this as a drilling template on the aluminium casing. The fit was rather tight, the rear of the veroboard had to be filed down to clear the cables and a couple of components re-arranged to make the board low profile.

holywell electrical - 1.jpg

However after a few iterations I did manage to get it all to fit.

holywell electrical - 3.jpg

To give an idea of the size - although come along to Chelford to see it in the flesh!

holywell electrical - 4.jpg

So work has continued on fitting the turnout operating units, built up from a bit of evergreen plastic tubing and piano wire.

holywell electrical - 5.jpg

These have all been fitted and much of the wiring installed. A bit of a mess but I know what everything is for!!

holywell electrical - 7.jpg

The n-gauge track has been used as the track bus bars, the turnout units have been fitted and all the servo actuators and CBus units. Halfway down on the lefthand side is the ethernet connector for the control panel interface and the CBus unit next to it is the UCB interface.

Still plenty to do for Chelford but I have managed to get the first loco (railmotor) running on the layout yesterday and I turned on the CBus modules for the first time tonight. There were a few teething problems, most down to dodgy connections but everything seemed to work ok. All modules have been recognised so now I just need to go through all the events to link the switches in the control box to the servos and the switches on the servo actuators to the LEDs on the control panel.
 

Ian Smith

Western Thunderer
Adrian,
Really sorry to hear about your fellow Blood Biker, such a tragedy and such a worthwhile support for our NHS.

On a brighter note, it's nice to see and hear about progress on Holywell Town. I look forward to seeing it next weekend!

Ian
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
My neighbour 3 doors away is a blood biker, he's out in all weather's and times of day, y'all have my respect :thumbs:

Like the idea of track as a bus bar, though my first flippant reaction was that you may be modelling NSW from down under :))
 

cbrailways

Western Thunderer
Adrian, what a solution you have come up with for my layouts DCC bus. Although the layout is 0 gauge I will use N Gauge track as you have done (under the baseboards that is) :)
 

adrian

Flying Squad
what a solution you have come up with for my layouts DCC bus.
Thanks - although I can't claim any credit for the idea, I can't remember who it was that posted the idea originally but it was posted on WT a while ago and I thought it was useful.

could we see a photo of the railmotor?
Will do - like so many things it's work in progress. I've just managed to source a drawing to show the position of the roof details which shows me the rain strips are going to need adjusting. I'll take a couple of photos of the current state over the weekend.
 

Chris Veitch

Western Thunderer
My condolences on the tragic loss of your friend - a colleague of mine does the same work valuable here in the North East.

What a fascinating little project - the bizarre station layout seems to have been well publicised in the past but has somehow passed me by, but it obviously has great potential for some interesting operating and suits 2FS very well. It rather reminds me of the nearby Llangollen Canal at Trevor which terminates (sort of) in an equally awkward and unintended dead end on its never-finished way to Ellesmere Port.

Despite working in the IT industry all my life, I'm in awe of your control electronics and the way you've built and integrated it so neatly - but it certainly gives food for thought and left me trawling around merg.org.uk for quite a while.

The LNWR railmotor sounds interesting - I presume it's from the Worsley type M7 etch?

My own 2FS dabblings are circling around the North/Mid Wales/Cambrian area as I've always had a soft spot for it and spend a lot of time down there on my full-size NG duties, so I've felt compelled to order a copy of The Wrexham Mold and Connah's Quay Railway which I've been prevaricating over for a while - look what you've made me do now...
 

adrian

Flying Squad
The LNWR railmotor sounds interesting - I presume it's from the Worsley type M7 etch?
Thanks for the comments - it is appreciated. Yes the Railmotor is using the Worsley etches, although this is just basically, floor, sides and ends. Everything else has had to be scratchbuilt - I'll try and get some photos tomorrow.

I had a slight panic earlier in the week when I realised that I had nothing to support the layout for the Chelford meet. At home it just sits on a couple of large wall brackets, the sort they use to mount microwave ovens and the like on a wall. Obviously it's going to need it's own support for the meeting. I've seen quite a few people use the lightweight adjustable height trestles from Screwfix/Aldi so I thought I'd do the same and put that problem on the back burner to deal with later. However I started looking at getting some today and realised that they weren't really going to be suitable. At the lefthand side of the layout with the fall off in the track off stage there are a couple of levels to deal. Also the available trastles were far too wide. The layout is 18" wide in the middle but only 13" wide at each end. Where the trestles are about 24" wide.

So in usual fashion I spent the afternoon making up my own trestles from a bit of 2" x 1" timber and a bit of ply. So the intention is to sit the layout on the trestles and the fly out arm on the left hand side is to support the fiddleyard board. Another item I was making today but forgot to photograph.

holywell trestles - 1.jpg

holywell trestles - 2.jpg
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Sorry - just realised I forgot to take the photos of the railmotor. It will be out on Saturday so will try then to get a good photo.

I've been busy trying to get something presentable for Saturday so there were a couple of things I wanted to get done. One was sorting out the backscene. That was yesterday's job but couldn't get any decent space to get a good photo, again a Saturday job.

The other job was painting up the facia with the layout name. So in this wonderfully varied hobby that we have I spent the evening doing a little sign-writing. I've recently bought some oiled stencil card for experimenting on the laser cutter so I drew out the layout name and cut out a stencil.

holywell sign - 1.jpg

It does cut really nice and cleanly. The stencils were stuck to the facia. A while ago I bought a few bits of pieces for sign writing, one of which was some sign painter one shot paint. As it's name implies a very high pigmentation paint for lettering.

holywell sign - 3.jpg

I was going to start the job on Sunday but unfortunately when I opened the tin it very quickly became apparent that it was a very funny shade of white!!

holywell sign - 2.jpg

There was absolutely no way I was going to get any replacement before Saturday and the local model shop is shut on Monday. So eventually I managed to get a tin of humbrol white. So I used my lining pen to trace out the letters and then started filling in.

holywell sign - 4.jpg

Halfway there

holywell sign - 5.jpg

Finally finished - sort of. The photos are fairly flattering in that the letters look a good solid colour but it's a bit patchy so another coat will be required at some point. At least the layout is no longer anonymous. I'm still debating whether to put a white diamond on either end just to give it that LNWR feel.

holywell sign - 6.jpg
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
The funny shade of white would be good for Scottish Region signs, or is it French blue?

The sign looks good. It would have been quicker and easier using the sign writers white, if it had been white.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Finally got round to downloading some of the photos from Chelford. Although I seemed to have remembered everything for the layout unfortunately I forgot my tripod so the few photos I've got are just in the ok category.

I managed to get it halfway presentable and had plenty of interest so throughly enjoyed chatting with everyone. I tested it all on the Thursday evening and it all worked fine but once I got it to the show the top point was causing a short when set on the "main" line. :rant:A little more fettling is needed.

So one of the layout as presented.
holyell town - 1.jpg

and one of the railmotor.

railmotor - 1 (1).jpg

It sort of worked but the motor bogie needs a little work. It's not very well balanced so the inside wheel has a tendency to lift a little. It can just about climb the gradient but needs careful driving to avoid any wheelslip so hopefully it'll have a little better traction if I get it balanced.

I've also just acquired a drawing which shows the arrangement of the ventilators on the roof which will help. Although the firat thing it shows is that the rain-strips will have to be moved. I was working off the photos for their placement and got it wrong.
 

jonte

Western Thunderer
Glad it mostly went well, Adrian. Isn’t it always the way that something fails at the most inopportune moment!

I do like the way that the pelmet follows the contour of the baseboard and I agree that the backscene is most effective.

Looking forward to more.

Jonte
 

queensquare

Western Thunderer
I was doing missionary work at Expo EM so sadly missed the Chelford do which was a shame as would have like to have seen the great progress you are making.
The railcar is going to be a little beauty - full LNWR livery?

Jerry

Jerry
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
I've recently bought some oiled stencil card for experimenting on the laser cutter so I drew out the layout name and cut out a stencil.

Adrian,

How thick is the oiled stencil card? I think I can remember my father getting some of this card out of his work for some use at home (probably "borrowed" from the filling floor in the distillery where the whisky was put in casks. :) ). I've had a few thoughts about using this card if it's not too thick for my purposes.

Jim.
 
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