Meeting, unusually, on the first Saturday of February, the brave stalwarts of the Forth and Clyde Area Group met at our usual haunt of at the Headquarters of the Edinburgh Society of Model Engineers at Almondale near Livingston. The Press Officer was unable to make an appearance due to other commitments and so a game of “not me” was played to find who would pen the piece on this meeting.
After lunch, James led a talk on layout wiring.
James showed, using the diagram enclosed with an Easitrac B6 turnout (now out of production) his view on how to wire these, with isolation gaps and bonding rails together. There was some discussion on the position of these gaps in Easitrac vs. other building options (the milled common crossing on Easitrac provides convenient gapping at the V whereas other methods require a little more thought).
His advice was that DC and DCC can be wired in roughly the same way – with the addition of isolation switches if required, in the DC world.
Keeping it simple and keeping notes was vital to help with fault finding – you might remember it at the time, but in the future? “If you write it down, you’ll never need to refer to it again” he commented with the inverse unsaid but alarmingly true!
He was a fierce opponent of chocolate block connectors as they can mangle wire that is put in and out repeatedly, however did acquiesce later that the use of bootlace ferrules (a set with a crimper is ~£18 on eBay) neatens this up. Others did discuss alternatives, including soldering the ends of wires before using choc-blocs but James outwardly cringed at this too… He also said he wasn’t a huge fan of the D-type connectors, as some of the manufacturing methods can leave these vulnerable to damage when attaching your own wires.
James had provided a scan of the Squires catalogue and the switches listed there, then over the next several slides, demystified the differences. The details of single and double pole, single and double throw and the various applications for these on a model railway was covered with schematic diagrams which showed potential applications.
All-in-all, from my point of view, a good introduction to layout wiring – for followers of my progress, I’m not quire at this stage of the building process, but it’s on the near horizon. I’ve often struggled here and unnecessarily overcomplicated things, but this provides a useful grounding.
We returned to individual projects after the talk.
Jim had brought
along his Caledonian Railways 65’ First and Brake Thirds – now
complete with lettering and CR crests, but awaiting roofs – these
are being 3D printed and are on their second or third iteration due
to an issue with the CAD. I’ve been following Jim’s build on
RMWeb
(https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/174408-cr-65ft-first-and-matching-brake-3rds/page/2/#comment-5072588)
as I have a passing interest in the Caley, but seeing the detail he’s
achieved in real life was incredible(!).
Jim was also
working on the buffer stops for the Group layout. After someone (who
might have been me…) bought the last of the CR Heavy stops from
Shop 1 – Jim decided to build his own from scratch using rail and
some home made jigs. Again, sorry Jim…
The jigs, as described on RMWeb (https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/65499-whats-on-your-2mm-work-bench/page/164/#comment-5079816) are made from layers of card. The results are shown in the picture alongside.
Jim and Simon spent some time marking the positions of the buffer stops to the layout – so that Simon doesn’t lay extra track which then needs taken back up.
NBR, LNER and GWR – and I was getting stick for visiting Flying Scotsman! Must be Chairman's privilege!
Staying with the Al’s, Alistair was working on his plan for a layout. He has a beautiful pencil drawn plan heavily inspired by Leith Citadel with a single platform, a run around loop and goods yard. His plan (which I neglected to get a photo of, but caught the great ma whilst imbibing sustenance and reading a S4 Society Journal (eh?)) shows what looks like a double track access to the station, but is, instead, a single track access with an outgoing industrial branch so that wagons can be shunted in the station then drawn back and into the sprawling industry of the city (modelled off-scene).
He is planning a traverser with access to under-scenery storage roads, and found James’ talk on layout wiring most useful!
Which segues nicely (almost like I planned it) to James. He had brought along DG couplings but by his own admission, hadn’t made much progress – although he and I did have a good chat about how to make and fit these necessary, but fiddly components. Again, I forgot to get photographs, but James had produced a jig, that doubled as a practise cassette for his shunting plank.
James is
converting old Peco/Farish/Dapol freight stock to 2FS and fitting DGs
for the shunting plank and found these all have different coupling
heights – not so much of an issue with the big hooks of N Gauge,
but problematic for 2FS – his jig allows him to sit a wagon in
place then use some feeler gauges to determine the amount of packing
that would be required for a level fitting.
Which leaves me. I took a couple of projects along and didn’t achieve much – except recharge my enthusiasm. For those who follow my own ramblings on RMWeb (https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/175339-martins-2mm-musings-and-maybe-a-layout/) – excuse the shameless plug – you may have seen I found my enthusiasm waning of late, I’d hit a couple of snags, put things down and just never quite got back to them.
There will be a chance to meet the motley Forth and Clyde crew at Glasgow Model Rail Exhibition on Friday 24th to Sunday 26th February when we will be manning the 2mm Scale Association Road Show.. Come and speak to us. We rarely, if ever, bite.
I’ll have to look forwards to April for my next meeting, however, for anyone else who wishes to attend, FCAG will meet again on Saturday March 11th at the Usual location. Work is set to continue on the Group Layout although no talk is currently scheduled, so bring a personal project!
*I actually did volunteer…
