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Oak Garden - somewhere to run the trains!


scoobyra
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55 minutes ago, ThomasI said:

It looks fantastic.
And the curves just look better with super elevation.
Especially when you can have such large radii as we do in our gardens.

I’m lucky enough to have similar on my indoor railway too.

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Finally, I’ve made it to the station area. 

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I just need to anchor down the rails and then I can cut through them so that the lift out section is independent again. The track on the left leading out of the station towards the fir tree is quiet close to the edge so I’ll be adding a short wall to stop anything taking the plunge!

I’ve also had to correct a schoolboy error behind the fir tree because I didn’t leave enough space between the two tracks - I’d forgotten I’d made the curve sharper here so the MK3 coaches were touching each other, and that means the 800s would have no chance! I’ve respaced it now and all is fine. 
 

Next up is a temporary bridge to get over the steps to the lawn! 

 

Edited by scoobyra
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4 hours ago, scoobyra said:

...I’d have done it today if it wasn’t for the rain!

You might want to copy that so you can paste it in in future - saves a lot of typing!

You'll find the rail joiners will be conductive for some time but it's probably best to make a start on the soldering while the rails are still nice and clean.  How have you decided to go about adding power feeds? I've noticed a few track feeds in previous photos, are you running bus wires round beneath the track base? If so, are you bonding across fishplates or adding each individual feed from the power bus?

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3 hours ago, mick said:

You might want to copy that so you can paste it in in future - saves a lot of typing!

You'll find the rail joiners will be conductive for some time but it's probably best to make a start on the soldering while the rails are still nice and clean.  How have you decided to go about adding power feeds? I've noticed a few track feeds in previous photos, are you running bus wires round beneath the track base? If so, are you bonding across fishplates or adding each individual feed from the power bus?

Hahaha....good point....along with “today it was too windy”


There’s a power bus with track feeds roughly every 12’ and then (when I get around to it) flexible jumpers across every rail join. 

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Hi scoobyra, 

Quote

There’s a power bus with track feeds roughly every 12’ and then (when I get around to it) flexible jumpers across every rail join. 

 

Great idea, you don't have to go every 12 inches, II solder feeder wire to   every length of track even the smaller  lengths near the track joiners I solder my feeder wires, what gauge wire do you use, I  15 strand  wire smaller wire for the feeders , I have no issues .

Tony from down under, my new layout will be rewiring and using the same wire on all blocks, sadly only using DC hopefully Christmas change to DCC.

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19 hours ago, aussietmrail said:

Hi scoobyra, 

Great idea, you don't have to go every 12 inches, II solder feeder wire to   every length of track even the smaller  lengths near the track joiners I solder my feeder wires, what gauge wire do you use, I  15 strand  wire smaller wire for the feeders , I have no issues .

Tony from down under, my new layout will be rewiring and using the same wire on all blocks, sadly only using DC hopefully Christmas change to DCC.

That’s every 12 feet, not every 12 inches 😃 I’ve used 0.75 indoor flex - the equivalent of 24/02 for the bus, and the power feeds, and there’s also a separate accessory bus that also uses 24/02. On Oak Road, my exhibition layout, every piece of track has dropped wires because I don’t use rail joiners. it’s also helps to have a DCC system that puts out a decent current. I’m using a DIgikeijs DR5000, but there’s other alternatives such as the Z21 that Mick uses, and these put out between 3-4amps (regardless of what the spec says). 
 

Mike

Edited by scoobyra
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A break in the weather saw more progress today - Lavender Junction East, and Lavender Junction West we’re installed....

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.....and I also got the frame of the River ‘Steps’ bridge in place for a trial run before I make the mountings for it....

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I thought I’d have some trains running this evening but a ‘schoolboy’ error whereby bonding the stock rails to the switch rails of the electro frog points caused shorts all over the place! I’m not sure what I was thinking of when I did that - fine on the newer style points when using frog switches but ridiculously stupid on the early versions. I really don’t want to rely on the switch rails outside so I’ll be running a slitting disc through them to isolate the frogs and turning them in to insulfrog points. I can’t really grumble, they were given to me for free so beggars can’t be choosers, as they say!! Fingers crossed, I’ll have trains doing a full circuit at some point this week. 

Edited by scoobyra
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  • 2 weeks later...

That ballast looks good.  The size looks right, and hiding the ends of the sleepers looks most realistic.  I like the colour, and the variegated effect.  Just wondering how it's fixed - and how weatherproof it will be.

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12 minutes ago, Andrew said:

That ballast looks good.  The size looks right, and hiding the ends of the sleepers looks most realistic.  I like the colour, and the variegated effect.  Just wondering how it's fixed - and how weatherproof it will be.

It’s fixed with SBR and so far, it’s stayed put.....only another 84’ to do 

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21 hours ago, scoobyra said:

It’s fixed with SBR and so far, it’s stayed put.....only another 84’ to do 

Did you use neat SBR, or the traditional diluted PVA with a drop of washing up liquid method? It looks very realistic.

Can we have a little more detail of your method please?

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The ballast looks perfect.

I also glue mine outdoors with a mixture of waterproof wood glue, water and a drop of detergent.
So far it has held up well, but after the first winter you can see all the places where not enough glue has flowed.

IMG_20200419_150534.jpg

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On 17/07/2020 at 12:17, Riddles said:

Did you use neat SBR, or the traditional diluted PVA with a drop of washing up liquid method? It looks very realistic.

Can we have a little more detail of your method please?

I used the SBR neat Dave, dribbled on with a plastic syringe. This was after the ballast was pre-wetted, using a water /washing up liquid solution, sprayed on by plant sprayer.

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On 14/07/2020 at 21:56, scoobyra said:

Ballast!
 

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Probably a bit overkill in the garden, but I did say I wanted to take my indoor railway outside! 

 

Excellent work Mike - it looks stunningly realistic. I imagine the test will be the winter months so it will be interesting to see how it stands up to temperatures falling below freezing. Fingers crossed that SBR is something we can safely recommend in the future.

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