Catenary Poles for Wassen's upper level

Ta daaaaaa....  

Looking more complete (the white bits in the scenery are glue that hasn't dried yet)

The upper level at Wassen is looking tidier with the backdrop in place, and now some overhead support masts have been added to insert some detail into the scene.

As I'd done for the lower/Wattinger/Reuss level bits that have been scenicked, I built the overhead support poles for the top level from brass. Posts being made from rod,  bases of thin shim and all soldered together.

The base means you have something to glue down and to scenic around, but the solder joint and brass makes the thing reasonably impervious to breakage from knocks (while cleaning the track and so forth). Plus you can bend the joint within reason to get the posts to be vertical once everything has set. I have yet to be tempted to append detailed arms off these as that might make track cleaning a nightmare, but we shall see if I change my mind over time. At least having the vertical poles gives an impression of the overhead and its all a bit more subtle than the chunky Marklin offerings.

As to building them...

Not being able to find H section brass in a small size during recent travels, I went with a C shape that I picked up in the Whistle Stop in Pasadena. I like the shaped channel rather than using a 'plain' square rod to add a little more intricacy to the setup, and as it is only visible from the front of the layout, it doesn't matter that it isn't an H shape . The C it is a little smaller in cross section than the H used on the lower level. I also made them a little shorter to enforce a look of forced perspective as you look into the layout.

The grey one in the pic above is a leftover from the lower level so you might note the subtle difference in size that looks quite good now that these are installed. The posts were nipped to length wth side cutters and filed square-ish:

Posts and bases were wiped with flux, tinned...

And attached together with some heat from Mr Soldering Iron (it is hard to remember to take these pics while building, and with only two hands at my disposal):

The assemblies were painted with a grey primer that works well enough as a final colour for me.

The brass bases of these were contact-glued on to existing tiny plastic squares on the layout which were installed some time ago. This way, ballast could be laid around the squares before the poles went up, yet leaving a small patch of flat level surface to glue the poles to later. 

meanwhile, under the South Hill.

Now that some progress has been made on the northern hill of the layout, it's time to turn some attention to the southern end.

So a start was made with some backdrops - the same foamboard that has been for the whole layout.

An L-angle spine in the corner...

And some backdrop...

...and there it stops. 

It would have been nice to continue scenicking the hill, but, there's been something missing under it which needed to be sorted out. 

You see, the inner of the two storage tracks up at the upper-level 'station' was never completed because I ran out of track. The track was purchased about a year ago, but never installed, so now seems like as good a time as any. 

N scale cork underlay added to give the required height (as I'm using flex here as part of my messy mishmash of MicroTrains points, Rokuhan curves and Peco and Microtrains flex).

Track added!

It must be about time to see if this still runs. 

Obere Entschigtal Galerie Portal

Right up the top left of Wassen, just uphill from the command post, lies the Obere Entschigtal Galerie. It looks like a tunnel, but a fair chunk of it is really a man-made tunnel to protect the tracks from avalanches so I believe they call such a structure a galerie rather than a tunnel. It's great being such a non-expert in these matters.

Before starting, I painted the tracks on the upper level. I may have implied that the rails were painted about 18 months ago, but that was just the lower level that was being scenicked at the time. And not all the lower level at that...

It's a royal pain in the buttocks because the rails are skinny, it takes a long time, and on this layout you have four rails to do rather than two.

As I noted in the previously-posted post (which was actually written after this one), I wonder if I should have painted the rails a much darker brown, almost black even. This might have made them seem less chunky.

The portal itself was cut from slate roofing styrene - as Wattinger had been earlier - and washed with some brown, light grey, and black. It don't look too good in this cruel picture (but looks a little better the next day after everything had dried):

A tail piece was installed 'inside' the portal to represent the lining and painted to match, fading to black.

 A few clearance tests encouraged me to raise it on stilts a little to provide room for pantographs.

Ballast and be damned

Some people hate ballasting, some people never do it, but I reckon it's one quick thing that begins to transform a toy train into a model.

In Z scale, the work seems no different to any other scale, and I wrote a more detailed post on ballasting here (on N scale track) a few years ago:
http://motoriseddandruff.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/getting-stoned-ballasting-101.html

For Wassen's lower level, I was pretty finicky about getting the stones all laid out nicely before glueing, used isopropyl alcohol to pre-wet the ballast, and use plastic pipettes to apply this and the diluted PVA glue.

I used a JTT ballast that has a slight green/blue tinge to it - mainly because it was available from a local purveyor, and it was reasonably priced.

I've done a 'fair' job and have tidied up a few bits since these pictures.

Might have to weather the tracks when everything has dried, but in the meantime this feels like a milestone in terms of scenery on the lower level.

Catenary...

I don't intend to model catenary wires in Z but may might (under duress) make some etched brass wire-holders in time (although that will make track cleaning difficult).

I definitely want the masts as a minimum though, and will need them to be in place before the track is ballasted.

Using a method used previously, I soldered these up using some H-shaped brass attached to a small foot that can be glued to the layout and then scenicked over to hold them down.

Some Plastruct could be used for this but the brass has the benefit of being subtly bendable (if its vertical angle needs to be corrected) but stiff enough to resist accidental bumping which might break plastic ones.

As can be seen, these were welded up on a bit of firewood, and then painted with some light grey before being attached.

This is actually an "alternative fact" (phrase of the week), as most of them were foolishly not painted after being added to the layout...

Getting the runaround

There's not much to see in the below video clip that you haven't seen before, although for once: proof that a complete loop of the layout by fully traversing the uphill and downhill mains is possible.

There is one short 30cm section of the 'inner' uphill siding that still requires track, but all sections are wired up except for the strange siding at the back of the yard that you must back into. It's all provided for on the control panel, but needs 10 minutes and some wire to hook up.

Gettin it together

Five strips of Peco Z flex track arrived in the post a few days ago. They've sat neglected in the corner of the trainroom since, while periodic rituals involving pondering were performed.

I know I should complete the wiring and build a control panel, but today I accidentally glued a section of foamboard trackbed in place, so figured I might as well go to town while the ball was rolling. This is why I scored 55% in School Certificate English.

An hour or so later I'd managed to lay the double mainline up to the 'summit' and connect up one of the passing loops at its hidden station. The apex of the third level of track is where the uphill mainline loops around to become the down main while also providing (minimal) storage so that an uphill train which has just summitted doesn't have to immediately go back downhill again.

looking 'south' towards a non-existent Goschenen which would be a few miles beyond my summit sidings

Looking 'north' from the summit storage sidings and Wattinger

There's still plenty of feed-wiring and track soldering to be done before a train can finally loop around continuously up and down, round and round, ad-nauseam under its own power, and I do need to see if I can eek out the storage siding trackage at the summit from the few remaining centimetres of track and few fishplates I have left, but it does seem like a milestone has been reached

Half of the untested summit trackage foolishly glued in place

Finishing the yard

As promised, the yard tracks have been connected and the glue holding them to the baseboard is setting as I type.

After the slight rationalisation, there are now three 'out' tracks, two at the front that hold a 'standard' sized train and one - where the hopper train is sitting here - that is about a foot longer. All double ended passing loops.

In the distance at left is the 'inbound' mainline with a single ended siding behind it that a 'long' train can back into. The turnout for this is placed in the far distance such that a train running past on the in/down mainline comes in trailing around the curved leg of the switch, whereas backing in to the siding occurs though the straight leg.

Here is a video of the first train to run over the whole line since the yard was debugged.

Sorry about the thumb over the lens....!

Rather than using an 0-5-0, I ran the train 'uphill on the downhill track' to the top level with the intention of manually flipping the locos to the correct end of the train to run downhill for the video. Alas, near the top it ran over a pin I had left stuck in the middle of the track and my heart skipped a beat as the two locos headed to the concrete floor. You can just make out the train of orange hoppers and look at the lovely hard floor that they landed on... 

Somewhat surprisingly given the explosion of parts when they landed, the locos survived with both chassis running immediately afterwards as if nothing had happened. Both required the light boards be reinstalled at each end, the body placed back on the chassis, and one required a buffer and four side windows to be reattached. Incredible really.

In the ER

Now that the track seems to work pretty well (other than idiot-induced accidents) the next major step will be to finish wiring up the electrical blocks that will be used to store trains in the yard sidings.

Weekus Horribilis

Its been a frustrating week here in New Zedland.

Following on from the last post, I think I might have been a bit optimistic in some of my approaches in the storage yard lately without testing them thoroughly before committing. Z scale can be finicky and while I had no problems on the main line, I can't have this yard being a point of frustration, because that quickly takes the fun out of things.

So I did replace that point which banished the electrical gremlins, but then found that trains were struggling while exiting it reliably because immediately after the point there was a join to Peco flex which has a slightly larger rail profile. And all on a curve. And on a hill - a hill that was steeper than I realised, so trains were struggling out of the yard, putting even more stress on couplers and tiny wheels as they attempted to negotiate the obstacles.

As such, I have today rationalised the yard storage tracks somewhat. Made more difficult by me having soldered a lot of the track together... I also somewhat wisely added a new section of "baseboard' to ensure the left third of the yard - from the Muhle tunnel portal on to where the locos are here - descends to the flat in a far more gradual and smooth manner.

In the process, I have lost a siding (FYI pushing Z scale stuff around curves through points doesn't work as well as it worked running downhill on the mainline) and have regrettably lost some siding length as well, but now all the points are easy to get to,  have reasonable transitions and most importantly, it all seems to work well now. I have one more siding to finish connecting and then the soldering iron will be out in action again (sigh).

Yardstick

With the layout back in one piece, its probably as good a time as any to tackle the yard.

After a bit of fiddling and experimentation, I'm going to end up with storage for at least 4-6 trains down there, depending on how you count things, plus between 1-3 up top. Plus one each way on the mains if things get really hectic.

Also, every track is well over the length of my 'test train' of 12 hoppers and two locos, with three of the storage tracks being about 50% longer - far more than the current loco fleet can haul.  Not bad for a layout of less square area than a door!

The schematic for the downstairs yard looks something like this:

As can be seen, two of the sidings are single-ended - so trains will back in or out.

Now for some baby steps... As I'm using straight DC power at this stage, I'll need to electrically isolate the sidings and only have them energised when I want them active - or else all 10 trains will move at once. I don't have any isolating rail joiners, but luckily a passing Jokertrekker let me borrow his Dremel and a cut-off wheel. My old 110 volt one having been donated to a model railway club when I left the US.

Cuts were made across rails mid-section thus (the plastic 'ballast' keeps everything together):

And then track was soldered at the rail joiners into sections:

And then everything started to come into place quite quickly:

She's lookin' good, Vern.

Hopefully workable at least, and probably with a little room for expansion. I'm a little short of track at the moment - as the intended clandestine meetup with my dealer of such items didn't work out a few weeks ago - so I'll be one loop short for a while.

In the meantime I have the track nearest the edge to connect up and some soldering of power feeds and the like to keep me busy.

Pre-Holiday Progress

I'll be traveling and thus away from my Z scale Mini-Me Wassen for most of July, but here's the latest progress. 

The first semi-permanent steps have been made down into the hidden yard and a temporary test section - which will be the third level traveling over the upper Meienreuss bridge and then past The Command Post - can be seen at the end of this vid.

Even though this train is a little slow out of the yard as I fiddle with controller and phone-camera without enough fingers and eyes, this 2:20 video somewhat surprisingly shows how much running time there is on a layout only 180cm long.

Testing 1,2,3...

Success!

Post this, the double track has been more properly attached and now extends right up to the top level. And the train still makes it.

Great Flextrack Battles: Peco vs Microtrains

I bought some MicroTrains Z flex track several years ago for a project that never got off the ground and never opened the box. I remember being surprised when it arrived as the lengths were quite short (12.5 inches, about 30cm) so I figured it might be a bit useless for its intended use.

So I bought some Peco for Wassen. If you've used their N scale stuff before this will be familiar in operation even though it comes in two-foot sections so is a little shorter than the N lengths.

MicroTrains (L) and Peco (R)

Looking at the track now that I've used them both, I guess the MT looks finer and more prototypical with its sleepers. The Peco looks like N track with the rails closer together. I'm not really expecting Z track to look too perfect when viewed up close.

Chunkadelic

Peco

I used the Peco first, working my way up from the base level to Wattinger curve, and across the middle Meienreuss viaduct. I like that the track is long so you don't need many joins which often put funny kinks in flex. The long lengths also flow nicely - you can pin the ends and let the track find a nice smooth curve.

It has trackpin holes cast into the sleepers, but they don't go right through from the bottom to the top. I guess this is to avoid unsightly holes in your sleepers. The downside is that you have to remember to punch these through with a pin or small drill from below before you start placing it down.

You need to buy rail joiners.

MicroTrains

The wee foot-long sections of MT track were deployed in the right hand spiral after the supply of Peco was exhausted.

Despite my concerns about these shorties, I was pleasantly surprised how good they were in this application. While the Peco sleepers don't grip the track tightly (so its springy, flexible and flows well),  the MT in contrast needs to be forced into shape with more effort, but it stays in shape once bent. This makes it quite good for tight curves as its not constantly trying to unwind itself back into a straight. I bent each piece into a fairly tight curve, chopped off excess rail length, soldered them up and then eased out the curve to the required radius.

The track has trackpin holes and comes with just enough rail joiners as long as you don't cut the track or lose any.


In Summary

Horses for courses - I prefer the MT in curves and like its look overall, but I do like the Peco is less tight applications for its length and springiness. The rails and rail joiners from both manufacturers seem to mate up ok.

Strangely, the MT sectional track has a gray plastic fake-ballast base, so using MT flex with it requires shimming. Same goes for using either with Rokuhan. I haven't used any Marklin track yet.

Peco - 24 inches long, lists at 110 USD for a box of 12. Seems to be available for about $13 NZD a section. Ironhorse hobbies had some in stock.

Microtrains - 12.5 inches long, 10 bits in a pack lists 55$ USD

Peco for smooth swirls, Microtrains for tight curls

Freestanding

I'm not sure whether Kevin McCloud of 'Grand Designs' would approve, but one of the things I've put in place at the 'right hand side' hidden spiral (the Leggistein Kehrtunnel with an extra loop included), is a form of cantilevered 'benchwork' supporting the track. This allows better access to the lower level yard than if I'd supported it on stilts in the traditional manner.

The first of these started out as a foamboard offcut that happened to have a nice curve in the underside, which has been replicated in the other arms.

As can be seen, the tracklaying department is slowly moving uphill after having taken some vacation last week.

And in other news, I seem to be able to get my train up this hill finally! Woohoo!

Bugger

So... I've soldered up some flex and pinned down a single level helix on the right side. This would gain me another 5cm of height between the middle and top levels of track if a train could climb it, which is seeming a bit unlikely given the tight radius. I tried to minimise the clearance needed between levels (for a loco with its pantograph up to pass under the upper level of track’s foamboard base) by using flex rather than sectional rack with its plastic ‘ballast’ base.

Judges , the envelope please…

Well, that pretty much proves that its not possible in this iteration.

I might be able to increase the ‘run’ of track - either by increasing radius or widening the circle into an oval without impeding the Meienreuss gorge - but I’m not sure how many cm of extra run that will give me.

I might also be able to reduce the vertical climb that I have built into my setup: 

• By some miscalculation, I have 5mm of air above the panto that can be dispensed with immediately
• I might be able to thin the track baseboard on the small segment that is directly over the lower track by replacing the foamboard with plasticard reinforced from above
• The raised panto height is a bit high on the locos, and (I intended to fix this anyway) 

So if I can reduce the height by 12-15mm, and increase the run by 10cm, that might make enough of a difference to the grade such that can be surmounted

Reality used to be a friend of mine

The Sunshine pump: Salespeople will often become so caught up in a deal that they become blinkered to reality when everyone else in the room can see that it just aint gonna happen.

I've had a few days away from the layout but have laid more track following my first gradient experiments a few weeks ago. I like how the flextrack has been looking and thought I'd try running a  train today to see how it looked with something actually on it.

Somewhat surprisingly, despite the electrical effort clearly being expended, I couldn't lift my train out of the yard. Sure I was using some temporary track down in the yard, and some different wagons, but I was perturbed by the sight of two locos slipping to a standstill with a relatively short train.

Fearing the wagons were heavier and less free running, I put on the 'control train' from the last experiment - the 12 hopper cars. Same result.

It's possible that I cheated a little with the grades on the gentle curve leading up to Wattinger - as its not much of a curve I might have allowed it to get a little steeper, but the measurements didn't seem any steeper than the curved sections. It's also possible that the Peco Streamline track isn't as sticky as the Rokuhan curves - maybe the railhead profile or metal is different.

Whatever the reason, there's no point in having a layout that trains won't run on, so some time was spent today on a grade flattening exercise both on the lower level and on the middle level big Meienreuss bridge.

Sigh. Better now than later, and reasonably easily adjusted with the foamboard. Today cost me a few cm in grade separation between levels, so as you might note from the attachments, the semi-banished right hand hidden spiral between the middle and top levels is back under investigation...

Together

I've faced a dilemma on the layout for the past week as to whether the two ends of the layout should be joined together (which would enable the track to advance over the middle sections) or to keep them apart (so I can move it in a car if needed) 

After much umming and ahhhing about how to proceed, I decided to 'not-decide', kicking that can down the road by pinning the layout halves together and proceeding with the track laying. If I need to, I can unplug at any time, and if not, I can just glue and reinforce the joins.

Pins and braces

So with that sorted its time to get moving again. Track has now been laid down the Reuss river from Wattinger to the tunnel guarding the lower staging area. Next will be the middle level where the big bridge will be, and as you can see, I’m still revisiting the decision to exclude the hidden spiral at the near end which would give another 4cm or so of vertical clearance between the middle and upper levels of track.

Baby I love your curve reinforcers

Mmmm. Flowing curves in flex track always look good, and these are some of the finest I’ve ever pinned down. Here stuck down with Pattex, my most excellent Hollandaise wood glue from The Netherlands, while being pinned in place with various implements. 

Something I despise with a passion on a layout is when twin tracks aren’t laid parallel in curves.

Sometimes this happens because people who aren’t as fussy as I don’t think to do it; and if they are, because of accidentally kinked joins between flex sections or accidentally cutting a section the wrong length. Fixes for the latter: whoops, try again with another piece; and for the former - solder sections together before bending, or plan and cut track as appropriate to move joints out of the tightest areas.

In addition to the aesthetics, much time has been spent over the last days continuing to build out the ‘baseboards’ with longitudinal bracing underneath (faked up in green here as this pic was taken just before it went on) and more support in the ‘grid’ up top.

Nethersides

The layout is in two halves at the moment so they could fit into a car if needed (and they’re easier to flip around during this construction phase), but they will have to come together in the near future.

Wire Welding

If there’s one thing that heads the bottom of my list of modelling capabilities, it’s sticking two bits of metal together with solder. I’ve always been pretty bad at this skill, no matter how much I read and practice, I just don’t seem to be able to put the theory into action in a consistent and tidy way.

However, tonight I cast aside any fears and sprung reluctantly into action with the welding iron as I need to get some track feeders in place before building can continue. Up til now I’ve built most of the middle and upper levels as removable pieces as it would be too hard getting an iron into track hiding underneath higher levels later on.

My electrical intention, as mentioned earlier, is to weld tracks into strings about a metre long, and then have a feeder connecting each string to a main power bus. The feeders, in addition to the fishplates between strings should provide a reliable power conduit but the gaps between strings will allow for some rail expansion and contraction as the seasons change. I’m not going DCC on this layout (well not at this stage anyway) so things are complicated by having to marshall the electricity into blocks, and further by having a twisting layout where the inside track becomes the outside track and back again in a short distance, confusing my head as which colour wire to attach to which rail.

As for on-off-switchable blocks, I figure I’ll have one for the uphill track, one for the down, one for each storage track (the Micro Trains switches don’t provide any form of electrical isolation), and perhaps one for the big arrival track on the lower level. Each track will have a three position switch so it can be fed from either of two controllers or be isolated when trains are being stabled. 

If trains run at the same speed up and down one might be able to get away with having one transformer set on 50% of power and merely sit there flipping block switches and points to make the trains stop and start...

Don’t look now, I told you this would be ugly. The big red/black bus wire is for the uphill tracks a bus wire for the downhill track is yet to be purchased! All joins have some visible access from either within the hidden sections or from under the layout.

One of the more exciting innovations, derived several ciders into this session, is the DB-patent-pending Bunny Hopper™ - one feed provided between two strings that powers both. Next time I’ll do this in a cider-less state... 

Flexing

The intention for Wassen was to use flextrack as much as possible for the visible bits, and sectional track for the (primarily hidden) tight curves used to get track between levels.

In any scale I’ll pick Peco Streamline flextrack, as I love its length, the way it bends, the forgiveness of the plastic sleepers, and 'Streamline' just seems to be the best name ever for flex. Kudos to the Peco Marketing department (who is probably also the founder and lavatory cleaner). I managed to pick up a box of Z for a good price although I also have some short 220mm lengths of Micro Trains flex. For sectional pieces I’m using Rokuhan, and so far I’ve been impressed with them. To add more confusion into the mix, I have 8 untested Micro Trains switches from a previous life. 

No worries, they’re all 6.5mm wide right? Alas they’re not all the same height. Any minor differences in rail profiles/heights can be sorted out pretty quickly with the judicious application of a file to the offending rail head, but to further complicate things, the sectional track and points have moulded ballast roadbeds of varying heights depending on the manufacturer. Not wanting to place 3mm shims under the flex track unless I have to, even though 3mm foamboard probably exists somewhere, I’ve decided to tackle my first piece of flex by simply raising the foam board base by 3mm where the flex will be. This gives me the same consistent dark surface that will be easy to pin my track to and cover with ballast/scenery.

Level pegging

The flextrack is temporarily pinned in place below and the various bends have been seasoned to taste after viewing it from various angles. Knowing where the track will finally go allows the black foamboard to be narrowed where the Wattinger curve bridge will go. I’m trying to do any foamboard hacking before the track is fixed down to minimise chances of buckling the track or upsetting soldered rail joints or feeders.