Blog entries that were drafts since 2015

Going over my blog entries, I had found three drafts from 2015, that I have decided to release as part of this entry. I am still working on creating a viable plan which keeps on proving difficult as I attempt to include heritage and main line stock operations. One idea from this a station that has both Mainline and Heritage facilities,  which will in a future post.

Anyhow as previously mentioned listed below are blog entries that I have had in draft since 2015.

April 4th 2015

I am still stuck on the design phase of my layout plan, as I have realised that it would be a good idea for the terminus station to be transformed into a through station when required. Which then links in with the station's history of it originally being a through station. I have also been trying to shrink the size of this facility. The biggest hurdle to this is supporting a full length HST of two power cars and seven coaches with an estimated length of 1.42 metres. As the station platforms, a head shunt  and stabling will need to fit a full length HST. The stabling is in parallel to the head shunt and can access the station platforms. If I do it this way I can have a single road full length HST servicing facility parallel to the station platforms. All of which leads to at least 3.50 metres for the length of board required to make it.

Terminus Station - Version 8.17 (Scrapped Idea) 5.8 metres long

Terminus Station - Version 10.00 (incomplete)

Version 10 of my plan is very much in the draft phase. The idea is platforms 1 and 2 are for short trains such as DMUs of three coaches or a steam locomotive with a rake of two coaches in a push-pull configuration. Platform 1 can support two three car DMUs due to the double crossover, which gives us platforms 1a and 1b. Platforms 3 and 4 are through platforms, and can support a steam locomotive (155 mm) and a rake of nine Mk1 coaches (136 mm * 9).

I will have a more accurate measurement once I receive my pre-order of the Dapol HST intercity swallow livery bookend set.

18th March 2015

This is the original terminus idea I had, unfortunately it takes up too much space. If I had the space this is the plan I would use.

Essentially the maintenance facilities with the HST/DMU stabling are to the left of the station. Whilst the coach stabling and HST/DMU servicing facility are parallel to the station platforms. Locomotive storage is parallel to platform one, where a station canopy has been erected to protect them from the elements. Although I am thinking this may be best for diesel locomotives and visiting steam locomotives. For the permanent steam locomotives a round house is in use.

Below is a list of tractive equipment I either have or plan to own and use on my layouts:

1. Steam Locomotives
• Princess Coronation Class:
• Duchess of Norfolk (BR Express Passenger Blue, Early Crest)
• City of Coventry (BR Crimson, Late Crest)
• Ivatt Class
• 2MT 2-6-0 (BR Black Lined Early Crest)
• 2MT 2-6-0(BR Green Late Crest) { wish listed }
• 2MT 2-6-2T (BR Black Early Crest)
• Class 3F 0-6-0 Jinty (BR Black Early Crest) { wish listed }
• Class A1 Tornado 4-6-2 (BR Brunswick Green Early Crest)
• Midland Class 4F (BR Black Early Crest)  { wish listed }
• Fairburn Tank 2-6-4T (BR Black Early Crest)  { wish listed }
• BR Standard Class 
• 3MT 2-6-2T (BR Black Late Crest)  { wish listed }
• 4MT 2-6-4T (BR Black Early Crest)  { wish listed }
• 4MT 2-6-0 (BR Black Late Crest) { wish listed }
• 5MT 4-6-0 (BR Black Early Emblem) { wish listed }
2. Diesel Locomotives
• Class 08 
• (BR Black Early Crest)
• (BR Blue Wasp Stripes) { wish listed }
• Class 20 (BR Blue Indicator Disc) { wish listed }
3. DMU/HST
• Class 43 HST (BR Intercity Swallow)
• Class 43 HST (BR Intercity 125 Blue & Grey) { wish listed }
• Class 101 - 3 car (BR Blue & Grey) { wish listed }
• 2 x Class 121 - 1 car (BR Blue) 
• Class 122 - 1 car (BR Blue)

Based on the above list, most of my motive power is steam, I may need to order a lot more coaches than I originally thought. Plus the steam facility will need to be the most important part due to the amount of steam motive power available. Luckily diesel support is not as massive as steam.

18th January 2015

I still plan to implement a DCC controller initially using the Arduino, but this is no longer urgent as I now have a SPROG 2 that I can use to control my locomotives with.

Having said that, here is a list of equipment I will use to test the dcc controller:

• BitSope Micro & Probe Adapter - Oscilloscope & Logic Analysis.
• DCC decoder tester - MERG DCC test rig
• DCC decoder
• Arduino with DCC monitor

My vision is to use a Raspberry-Pi as train layout controller, but in order to this it will require:

• running software like JMRI
• expansion board that generates the dcc signal that can provide 3 - 5 amps of power, and supports the railcom cutout signal.
• communications bus (openLCB or CMRI), allow the use of nodes to communicate ie railcom detectors.