JR-Chiisai

[Martijn Meerts]

Picture time!

 

 

Used a Brother label printer to make some labels. Initially I wanted to put them in between the 2 rails as seen on this picture, but decided against it.

 

 

 

This is the yard fully labelled on the top. The reason I labelled the top is that it just makes it easier to quickly see what's what. Many of the track are just 1 long section, so those were obvious, but the right most track in this picture is divided into 8 blocks, and each block has 2 feedback sections, so in that case the labels definitely help.

 

 

 

Bottom of the middle section. I used the same label here to label the red and blue wires. I also made some custom lengths ethernet cables to connect the S88 occupancy detectors.

 

 

 

Started working on the main station for the shikansen and express line. The shinkansen line is just 2 tracks and 1 additional spur. For some visual difference, these tracks use concrete sleepers. The express line is basically a 4 track station, with a 5th track being a track specifically for freight. This track is slightly longer then the station tracks, which I partially did so that I have a track that can hold the entire Morning Daylight train 🙂

 

 

 

Everything I have built so far in place and connected as far as possible. I also did some setup in iTrain so I could test some of the automation. As already said, still plenty to do, but this Fleischmann BR E10 Rheingold with Minitrix 1962 Rheingold coaches has been doing a few loops around the "layout" fully automated. The reason I went with this train, it that it's the only one for which I have speed measurements set up in iTrain for some reason. I have also ran the GG1 at the same time as the E10, which works fine, but the GG1 runs a bit awkward due to not having speed measurements.

 

 

 

The foreman also arrived on site to check on progress and to make sure everything was being done correctly and to make sure no one was in danger during construction. I may or may not have bribed him with some nuts ...

 

 

 

[cteno4]

That sure is purty! Nice work martijn! Now that is a yard!

 

forman looks mighty fierce, would not mess with him at all. Good to know he can be bribed for peanuts…

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

No visual changes again, but I've been trying to set up multiple trains with some basic motor control, speed measurements and lengths. By now I've got about 7 trains that can run fully automated. There are some trains with issues though, for example, the Broadway Limited articulated coach sometimes derails on a rather tight curve. I could try to fix that, but in the end that train will never run on that curve once more of the layout is done.

 

I also have an old release of the Kato C57-180 with the cream and red SL Banetsu Monogatari coaches. The loco has a really weird speed curve which I can't adjust with the decoder it has. Also, it seems the traction tires have gone bad, since it's not really able to pull much of anything at all 😄

 

Getting the trains to run well is going to take a lot of time, and quite a few will need their decoders replaced (I have a lot of them with old Lenz decoders, and much of the stuff my father used to run is Selectrix), but it's nice to finally see some stuff run through the yard, fully automated.

 

Next steps now from a layout building perspective, is to connect the final 4 tracks from the helix to the station, and then get some wood to build another 2 section bases, 1 to finish of the station, and another that will initially serve as a temporary section for a couple of return loops.

 

 

(Also, IMON is apparently going to release an 8620 kit in H0j sometime in the coming months, so there's still this internal nagging voice going on about focussing more on the H0j stuff, even with there being actual progress on the N stuff o.O)

 

[Martijn Meerts]

There is movement going on 🙂

 

 

 

 

[JR 500系]

Oh WOW you have a helix storage yard as well!!! NEAT!! Are those DCC controlled by a software? 

[Martijn Meerts]

5 minutes ago, JR 500系 said:

Oh WOW you have a helix storage yard as well!!! NEAT!! Are those DCC controlled by a software? 

 

The helix has several blocks in it, so theoretically I guess it could sort of be a yard of sorts 😄 

 

And yes, everything is controlled by iTrain, although it's not all set up correctly yet. Some trains run a bit too far into certain blocks for example, and some blocks have very low speed limits set, which causes the flow of the trains to get messed up. Still plenty optimising to do there.

[MeTheSwede]

8 hours ago, Martijn Meerts said:

 

The helix has several blocks in it, so theoretically I guess it could sort of be a yard of sorts 😄

 

 

If you install a few curve turnouts in the helix, you could do shunting in that yard too. 🙃

[cteno4]

Ohh a spiral shunting yard, that could make for some interesting puzzles!

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Just go for quality curved turnouts, otherwise most of the puzzling you’ll be doing is finding out where all the derailed rolling stock went 🙂

[Martijn Meerts]

So, an update on this ...

 

Last weekend I was visiting a model train club in Germany, where they were running some fairly long trains. Seeing this made me realise that I just don't have the space to build a large station for long trains without making it look silly and forced. Several people have already warned me about this fact, but me being the stubborn idiot that I am, it took a while to finally come to the same conclusion.

 

So, for now at least the project will be on hold for a while. I will keep the yard and helix intact of course, but the 2 sections I made that were the start of the large station I will dismantle. The yard will be split up into its separate sections and put into storage. The helix is too big to put in storage, but luckily I made it in such a way that I can cover it up with some wooden sheets, so I can use it as a sort of workbench / test space for other things.

 

In the meantime, I'll be more focussing on the H0 project, as well as finally working on a bunch of various model kits I have lying around. Some of these are unnecessarily taking up quite a bit of space.

 

I may at some point pick 1 of the Kunihiko Ikeda designed layouts and build that, but only after I've managed to create enough space to be able to comfortably work on it.

 

 

[Yavaris Forge]

Maybe this is the way. Have an Ikeda-style layout at home (maybe including the helix at some point and a small yard for some diversity), and sometimes visits to this club you mentioned. Running trains together is always more fun imo.

[Martijn Meerts]

Been a while since I've had an update on this. Of course, most my model train time has been spent on the H0 stuff. At one point I considered not doing anything with the N layout anymore at all, but taking down the yard and helix didn't feel right either. I've been thinking about a multi-deck layout with the lower deck for the N layout, and the upper deck for the H0 layout.

 

Recently, I was at Intermodellbau in Dortmund, where they had a layout / diorama that was around 140cm above floor level, so for me that would be just below eye level. This height (give or take a few cm) really struck me as a really good option for the H0 layout. It's low enough to still get a good view over the layout, but also high enough to really be able to get sucked into small scenes in the layout.

 

With this in mind, I did some testing at home. I took the first section of the yard back out of storage and put it in place. Then I took a temporary frame and suspended that above the yard at about the height I would want it to be at, and then checked clearance between the N layout and the H0 layout if that would be at around 140 height. The N scale layout will be quite low, but I always designed that to be optimally viewable when sitting in a chair (this was because my father wasn't able to stand for long periods.)

 

So, anyway, I will continue on the N layout, while at the same time working on the H0 layout above it. I hope to be able to get some plywood cut soon to build the new frame for the N layout, which will also get some supports for the yard. That way I can slide out the entire section with part of the yard included. Currently the yard is on its own legs, and the main layout sections above it were of different lengths, which made things really awkward.

 

I will also get some smaller plywood sheets so I can experiment a bit with a frame for the H0 layout which I can then temporarily mount to the wall above the N layout.

 

A revised track plan for the N layout is already being worked on. Once I have something presentable, I'll post it here 🙂

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Improved the track plan a bit, and added some colours to indicate the various lines. This is obviously not final, since a large part of the layout is still missing completely 🙂

 

 

 

The plum / pink line is the shinkansen line. This is just a simple double track line staying on the same height throughout, and has no really interesting visuals. It's really just a line to show some shinkansen running. To the right, the line will enter a tunnel and probably go into a small hidden yard before looping back on itself. To the left, the line will go down the helix and into the main hidden yard.

 

The green line is the express line. Much like the shinkansen line, there's nothing really visually spectacular here, just a double track line going through some tunnels. Also, like the shinkansen line, the express line will go into a small hidden yard. However, it won't loop back on itself, but instead continue on a section of the layout at the bottom of this screenshot. To the left it will also enter the main hidden yard via the helix. The express line will have an incline, which means that at the left side it's about the same height as the shinkansen line, and it'll gradually go down towards the right.

 

The yellow line is an urban line. I haven't quite decided what to do with this exactly. The idea was to have a small station just before where the double track merges into a single track, but I might extend the double track a bit more, and have it merge around where the 180 degree curve is. I'll then also place the station there. The urban line is quite a bit lower than the other 2 lines, especially on the left side. And like the shinkansen and express lines, the urban line will also have access to the hidden yard on the left.

 

The blue line is an additional local line which I want to go through the mountains and have some switchbacks in it. Currently it goes below the yellow urban line, but I might switch that to going over the urban line. Depends a bit on where I want to go with the rest of that line. There's also a small service yard there, with 4 tracks in the current design, but might cut that down a bit. The totally misaligned grey rectangle here is some sort of loco shed most likely.

 

The dark grey area is an approximation of where taller mountains / hills will be, the lighter grey area is some lower hills. The long rectangle in the bottom right is a divider backdrop so I can visually split the scenery on both sides of the layout.

 

Also, on the bottom, just to the left of the middle, is a little bit of benchwork sticking out with no tracks yet. The idea here is to create a rather large mountain that starts on the N layout, and just keeps on going up so the H0 layout will make use of the same mountain. It doesn't really make sense, but I thought it might be a nice idea. I do need to check how I can keep things accessible in and around the mountain though, but that's rather far into the future. I also want to try and integrate some of the Sankei Ghibli kits I have into this mountain, mainly the Spirited Away bath house kit.

 

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Design work is still going on trying to figure out the rest of the layout. I'm having some issues visualising the space and clearances I have, so I'll need to actually do testing with physical track rather than software. Before doing that, I'll start building the top sections of the design.

 

I ran out of track, since I gave the track I still had to my brother who was wanting to also build a layout. He had a bunch of old stuff from the old layout we bought from a friend of my father, but it was in terrible shape, so he decided to tear it down and start over. Obviously I'm helping him a bit with that, so I gave him a bunch of flex track, turnouts and my ESU ECoS to borrow for now. When I gave that stuff to him, I wasn't expecting to get started on my own N layout again so soon 🙂

 

So, last week I ordered some track, as well as a Z21 DCC system. I was already looking at the Z21 to use for the H0 layout, since with the Z21 I can set each booster to output a different voltage. So, I can output more voltage for the JNR branch line, and standard N-scale voltage for the narrow gauge line. The narrow gauge stuff uses N-scale motors for the most part. Most other systems I know of don't really allow this. I also want to start using the Railcom enabled feedback modules for the H0 project, so I can be sure which train is located in which block, something I really want considering the cost and effort of the H0 brass kits. Don't want any crazyness going on there with trains not being in the expected block 🙂

 

For the N layout, I still need to get some lumber cut, haven't had the time for that yet. I have also managed to sell a few more trains, so my collection is slowly turning into JNR / steam only. With exceptions of course, there are some trains I just really like and will run regardless.

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Well, once again life has gotten in the way of things. I won't go into any detail, but there are some pretty severe health issues in the family.

 

With regards to the layout, there has been no progress at all since last, on any of the projects I've been working on. However, I fully plan to slowly pick things up again sometime soon. I'm not sure exactly yet what I'm going to start with, but I'm thinking I should finish building a bunch of the N scale brass kits that I've had for a long time.

 

(obviously, the H0 kits will also be continued on, but I think I need something 'easy' to get back into the flow again ...)

 

That being said, I did receive the new Kato D51 not long ago, as well as 2 sets of the Seki coal cars. The train runs rather well, unsurprisingly 🙂 

 

 

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Not much progress, but I didn't have a lot of time before I had to start packing to go to Leipzig.

 

Cleaned up the workbench a little bit, move the EF66 parts off to the side so I had space to check out the various N-scale kits I have. There were a few I had started on years ago, so decided to at least finish building those. Painting them will come at a later stage 🙂

 

 

 

First kit I picked up again was the World Kougei EF13. I had already built the frame, and even painted it black. The wheels on this one are a bit annoying, since you need to press fit them on the axle, through the frame, which means to get the wheels out again, you need a way to pull the wheel off the axle again. 

 

Anyway, laid out all the bits and pieces to check how far I progressed beyond the frame.

 

 

 

For the shell, I had soldered in the reinforcements, and added some roof details. The roof details aren't soldered on yet. When I started building this kit I didn't have a lot of experience yet, and I wasn't using any sort of flux, so soldering the brass was challenging. 

 

I quickly soldered up 1 of the 'noses' just to get back into the flow a bit again, and it worked well enough. The nose isn't actually soldered on yet, it's just a test fit for now.

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Well, Leipzig came and went. There were some nice layouts there, definitely helped with the motivation a bit again. Also spent some time at the Kato stand, where they had a H0 EF65 doing circles. I have to say, I'm very tempted to get one if/when they do a re-release 😄

 

Got a little more work done on EF13. After having worked on some of the H0 1067 kits, these N kits are really going together quite easily. Pretty sure if I could sit down for a day without interruptions, I could get a whole kit done.

 

 

I finished soldering 1 of the noses. Also soldered some of the roof detail, and then did a quick mockup with 1 of the bogies installed as well. It's starting to look a little bit like a locomotive. There are still a lot of details left to add, but those will likely be glued in place once all the soldering is done.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Last weekend, after some difficulty, I finally managed to get some plywood cut for the first redesigned section of the layout. Since I had a couple of days off, I went to work building the frame and legs.

 

 

 

Now, this frame is stupidly large, however, there's a reason for that. After I decided to have the H0 layout above the N layout, I wanted to lower the N layout a little bit. However, I still had the height of the helix to keep in mind. So for the first section, the left side that's connected to the helix will be the height shown in the picture (30cm), and will also serve as the outline of the scenery. Towards the right it'll go down, and the height at the front will eventually go down to about 8cm.

 

Also, I've redesigned the frame so that it is the same length as the first storage yard section, which means I can have the storage yard rest on the same legs as the visible section itself. This will allow me to easily pull out sections to work on them. Obviously there's now very limited space in between the yard and the top section, so any scenery I make will need to be removable in order to be able to reach the yard when needed. Having now assembled (mostly) this proof of concept for having the yard not sitting on its own legs, I can look into working on how to cut the plywood for the following 2 sections as well.

 

Speaking of scenery, I need to start thinking about that, since I will need to cut the front of the plywood, as well as the cross sections to the general contours of the scenery. Initially this part of the layout was going to be a section of a larger / modern city, but after the redesign I'm more thinking of a fairly dense village at the foot of a mountain. I have some general idea of what I want, and in the end I guess the main purpose of the cross sections is to just support the tracks, any scenery can be built up from there.

 

 

 

 

After lining up the height of the yard and the helix, I want to quickly run some stock over it. The ones most readily available were these Chinese cars, so just quickly grabbed those 🙂

 

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Got a little more work done, but as always, ran into a couple of issues...

 

 

 

Permanently added the legs and lined them up. Unfortunately at this point, my cordless drill decided it had had enough of drilling. A new one is already on its way.

 

 

 

Stuck on a bit of paper on the front of the section to experiment a bit with the contours of the scenery. I've since made a couple of changes, but this is probably close to what it'll end up being.

 

 

 

While transferring the track plan onto some plywood to cut out the sub road bed from, I noticed that the front left leg is in the way. I don't want to cut into the leg, since that would likely weaken it too much. So, instead I need to adjust the track plan a bit, which means I need to adjust the urban lines connection to the helix. This unfortunately also means I need to take off the top loop of the helix. For this I do need to cut some wiring, so I'll look into getting some connectors which I can use to re-attach the wiring, and also make it possible to always be able to remove bits of the helix. I'll probably get enough connectors to theoretically do this with the entire helix, just in case I need to at some point remove more loops.

 

I could likely fix it without removing the loops, but it would be far from optimal. Since the urban line connection to the helix is in a curve, I would really prefer to fix it well. Anyway, I removed the top of the helix, just need to remove the support beams now. That will be something for later though, since I first need to go to Greece for work.

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

I try to spend a little time most days working on various things. It does mean progress is slow, but at least there's progress.

 

I did decide to remove some of the helix in order to make a decent fix for the urban line's connection to the helix, rather than trying to force it. In the old situation it already wasn't a very smooth transition, so I'll make sure it's better this time around.

 

 

 

Removed the top and supports, as well as a lot of nuts and washers. I then labeled the wires going to the track on the top loop of the helix. This way I can easily solder in a connector when I reinstall the loop. I did find some nice connectors, but haven't ordered them yet. I'm looking at some additional things I need to order, such as feeder wire, bus wire, some 3M Scotchlok connectors to experiment with, maybe also some PTFix distribution blocks and wire management stuff.

 

 

 

Top loop removed, gaining just enough access to the 2 diverging tracks that need to be adjusted.

 

 

 

Printed out the new trackplan for the diverging tracks, and put it in place. It's actually very similar to what it was, but the straights are slightly shorter, which make the curves a bit smoother. They should also clear the leg on the 1st of the new sections. I still need to confirm this before I start putting down this track. As you can see, the transition between the 2 sections is in the middle of a curve, so I need to use some blank circuit board to solder the track onto.

 

 

 

Printed the first bit of the urban station. I forgot to print the sleepers again, so the width of the track shown here is actually 9mm. I'll either need to reprint, or just draw in some extra lines to indicate the full width of the track, which I need to mark the cork where the track will go. Which reminds me, I also need to order some more cork 🙂

 

For now, the goal is getting the 2 diverging tracks installed and connected. At that point I'll clean all the track in the helix and the first storage yard section, and likely run some trains up and down the helix. Before I can start on the trackwork for the first new section, I may need a need jigsaw first. The old one has been having some overheating problems, and it looks like the socket for the blade isn't straight anymore, so it creates some rather interesting cuts .. 

 

I'm also looking into which station / platforms to use for the urban station. I have a couple of cardstock stations which are half finished, but are probably too small for a 4 track station. I was looking at maybe getting one of the Tokyo Diorama Factory stations and platform.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Finally some progress again. As usual, work and RL was busy and energy / motivation draining. I also had to find some connectors for the helix so I didn't have to completely rewire it.

 

 

 

I made sure to solder the rails to a good piece of pc board this time, rather than small strips. I also used some 9mm gauge spacers to make sure the rail had the correct spacing. Next time I design a layout, I'll definitely make sure not to have a section border in the middle of a relatively sharp curve. It's a pain to get this fixed and lined up.

 

 

 

The connectors I used are basically just fairly large pc board connectors. The female header is glued underneath the helix sub road bed, the male part has the existing wires going down to the occupancy detectors. I've only added 3 connectors, since I only needed to remove the top loop of the helix, but I did order about 20 of them just in case I need to dismantle and rebuild the entire helix.

 

 

 

The helix all back together again, and the first of the to-be-scenic'ed sections just about lined up height wise.

 

 

 

Head board marked and ready to get some cutouts for the tracks. As you can see, it's a right mess up on the attic again, but things should be clearing up a bit in the coming weeks. Once I start building the 2nd and 3rd sections, there will be some additional space underneath the hidden yard. The test / speed measuring loop (at the top right) will also temporarily go on top of the helix for easy access.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Not much progress the past weeks, but I did manage to get a few things done...

 

Connected the Z21 digital command center, as well as the uCon S88 master. Than installed the bus wires connecting a couple of the S88 occupancy detectors on the first section of the yard. After a quick round of cleaning, I ran the first couple of trains through part of the yard as well as the helix. The rebuilt section of the helix seems to work fine, so now it's time to work on lining up the first new section.

 

I cut the holes in the head board connecting the helix and the first section. The express and shinkansen lines looked pretty spot on, but the local line will need a little adjusting to get it to fit. The good thing is, with the new jigsaw and vacuum cleaner, I can actually cut wood up on the attic without getting sawdust all over. The dust extraction works really well, and the only sawdust that doesn't get vacuumed up ends up on the floor directly below where I'm cutting. Definitely much easier and more comfortable than having to go to the garage or something to do some cutting. That said, I do have plans to add some insulation to the garage at some point, so I can use that as a small workshop. But that something for later.

 

I also looked at creating a little more space to walk around in, by making some section a bit smaller. I made some changes, drew up a plan to get some plywood cut to size, and luckily just before I actually went to get the wood, I remembered that I have a yard running underneath a part of the layout I was trying to make smaller. That would've been a rather costly mistake to have made 🙂  I revised the layout design again, making some more space in other parts, and re-drew the plans for getting the plywood cut. I wanted to get the wood cut last week, but unfortunately I wasn't able to arrange transport, so I have to wait a bit longer.

 

Finally, I've been working a little by on the World Kougei N-scale EF13 kit I've had for a long time. The frame and bogies are mostly done, and the shell just needs some detail bits attached. Most details I've been glueing on using epoxy rather than soldering them on. Many of them are just too small to comfortably solder on. Not sure whether epoxy is the best choice, since it does take a while to set, so it's slow going. I would've tried CA glue, but I didn't have any left that hadn't already expired. I'll need to order some more, as well as some accelerator for it.

 

I have some holidays coming up soon, hopefully I can at least get the wood for 2 additional sections before then, and then get a good part of those built.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

So, back from a quick trip to Hamburg, and decided that before I get more wood for the next sections, I'll experiment a little bit with weathering track and laying ballast.

 

A while ago I got some samples from Koemo ballast, which seems to be well regarded, and they have actual scale ballast. They also claim the ballast doesn't discolour much after gluing it down, but that wasn't quite the case.

 

 

On the right, the original colour. On the left, the same ballast after gluing and drying. Obviously the colour changed quite a bit.

 

 

 

 

Close up of the glued and non-glued ballast. I really quite liked the look of the ballast before it was glued down. However, doing a bit of research showed that this is very unrealistic for the steam era. Ballast during that era would turn dark rather quickly, so more towards the glued down version of the ballast.

 

 

 

I decided to continue with the darker ballast, and added a bit more contrast between ballast and sleepers, by painting the sleepers with JNR black. This makes the sleepers a bit too black for my taste, but the increased contrast does make things look more better already. I also added a bit of greenery to give it a bit more of a look of how it would be on the layout. To the right is a different mix of ballast, with much more brown in it. While this is more accurate for steam era, I don't really like the look of it.

 

 

 

Finally, I tried to bring it all together with some rust pigment, but I overdid it quite a bit. The pigment I used is really meant to be mixed with a binder and then painted on, but instead I dusted it on dry. It stuck to the ballast a bit too easily 🙂 

 

I do think I'm getting to a point where I like the look of things, at least for the urban and express lines. For the shinkansen line I'll need to try some other things, since that will get concrete track and much fresher ballast.

 

 

[cteno4]

Nice tests!
 

What were you using for the ballast glue?

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

For this section I used ballast glue, also from Koemo. It's just a glue based on PVA glue, with some additions. For example, you don't have to first soak the ballast with IPA or water with dishwasher detergent etc.

 

I also tried a 2nd section with special glue for loose stones/ballast by VMS Supplies. It was a bit easier to use, but also gave the same discolouration of the ballast, and even when fully tried it has a bit of a gloss to it, so that's pretty much a no-go.