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.:Info:. |
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.:Updates:. |
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Paul Bonnell has been
hard at work, constructing the Control panel for the
Garden Railway. This as you can see in the picture on
the left, will be situated in the shed. The panel will
include Isolated section Switches, for the Branch,
Wallsey Heath, Ferndale, and Taw Vale. It will also have
switches to turn on and off station lighting. A little
sneak preview as to what Wallsey Heath will look like
can be seen on the right hand side of the Control panel,
quite a few sidings are to be added, 4 in fact.
After my trouble I had with DCC in the
Garden, and lots of money down the drain! I have decided
to keep with DC in the Garden, and use DCC inside. (When
I buy a new system - Avoiding the Bachmann E-Z Command
system at all costs)
Built with exterior ply wood, and 2"
x 1" softwood frames, the panel measures at 4ft in
length by 16 inches. |
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28/05/06 - Pond Bridge Replaced |
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Not quite replaced,
its still under construction, the overall look of the
bridge will remain the same I hope. I have just sat the
bridge into position to see what it would look like. Its
basically made from Exterior Ply and metal angles, all
screwed together to form this result. I have added
Hornby fencing along the tops of the angle, at the
moment they are super glued on, until I find a suitable
way of securing them to cope with all weathers! The ply
wood has been creosoted to help protect it, I'm hoping
the metal angle will help prevent anything from bowing,
but as always time will tell.
Our cat seems to like walking along the
railway, as does next door neighbors cat, and every
other cat to be honest, so I will have to add some sort
of support in the middle - For this I will be using
curved decking timber, of course most people would say
this is not a good idea - 'Water and wood over time
don't mix' I can agree with that, but it will do for now
until I find a better solution. |
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This is what I call
railway modelling, After my horrid and rather expensive
encounter with DCC (Cheers Bachmann) I have decided
against DCC in the garden, and gone with the more
traditional method! But I must mention that I'm not the
one doing it! My friend (recently nicknamed 'The
Sparky') Paul Bonnell has taken on the challenge of
electrical engineer. lol So far what I can make out of
it, we have 3 main electrical boxes outside. One at Taw
Vale station, one at Ferndale, and another at Wallsey
Heath. Each road at each station will be having isolated
sections to isolate power to the train(s). Feed wire has
also been added from the shed, to include station
lighting, |
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we are also replacing the branchline trackbase to
concrete, it has given us the opportunity to install a
20mm pipe running from the Ferndale power box,
underneath the branchline trackbase to the Wallsey Heath
power box. This houses the cables for the station
lighting, and wires, for 4 isolated sections at
Ferndale. These wires go from the Wallsey Heath power
box to the shed, along with wires for Wallsey Heath's
isolated sections, and station lighting. In all no more
than 28 wires enter the 20mm pipe to the shed control
panel. Wires for Taw Vale station enter a power box
situated on the corner of the Shed itself, so they can
be installed directly from the control panel. 12 wires
are needed on this section, to handle the 6 isolated
sections of track. The reason for having the Isolated
sections on the garden railway is because the points are
continuously live, so looped sections of track cannot be
isolated via the points. I have made the points
permanently live so that we don't have to rely on the
Point blades to keep their electrical continuity |
| 27th
June 2006 'Platform 2 and 1/2' |
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This morning, I have
started work on the platforms at Taw Vale, these are
being built with concrete. So far just under half of the
platforms have been constructed. This method of platform
has been used on a friends garden railway, and has
worked very well, so - I though I would give it a go.
Its cheap, and durable for all weathers. The original
platforms had peco platform edging, and these cost quite
a bit when your building two scale length platforms,
having bought them once I didn't want to buy them again!
As you can see I have left the ends of the platforms,
these I will add last because they are slightly curved,
and need slopes. |
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And heres the branch,
All looks very posh and new! The new power box has been
hidden, and can just about be seen on the left of the
picture under the tree. I did a little test on the
branch gradient, and the bottom of it where it joins to
the level section, seemed to be a little fierce, so
after this shot was taken I reduced it a little with
some cement repair, fingers crossed it should be fine
now!
Pictured left is Taw Vale's very own
Sixty, 60 101 'Taw Vale' with a rake of seacows
approaching Wallsey junction. Sunday night, paul bonnell
and I, managed to get the trackbase finished on the
branch. So thats the whole layout finished in the way of
trackbases.
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