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The final component was the length of track across the dashboard' date=' incorporating space for a small station. That had to have a hinged support leg so that I could get it in, but at least it didn't need to be removable - or so I thought, till three days later it had to come out again, so that I could salvage a horn relay from the fuse panel mounted below the glovebox.[/quote']

Cars on driveways talk. They talk about things they have broken recently so the others can join in and they discuss which bits you've recently made really hard to get at so that one of the others can make you go and get it!

I've no idea how they do it, but they do!

That explains the overheating which cost me a new engine back in March. The previous evening I parked with 23 other Mazdas on a club weekend. The guy next to me was removing his thermostat as his engine was overheating. 150 miles later and I'm sitting on the hard shoulder waiting for the AA. The Mazdas must have spent the night chattering in Japanese.

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Roddy, yup, they do that. They give each other ideas. The other reason I needed the horn relay was that I'd disturbed a gremlin. He'd lived happily in the rear lamps of the red Dolomite for years, disabling the odd indicator or brake light bulb from time to time, so like a fool I fixed the problem. Piqued, he upped sticks to the horn relay. Since I fixed that, he's randomly turned on the headlamps (once) and unhooked the power feed to some of the gauges (twice), but I think that was just exploration, before he finds somewhere permanent to live. I'm not sure where he is at the moment, but I did lose both inner lamps on the white one recently...

Robert, thanks for the kind words. There are a more videos below, after a couple of loose ends from post 139. Firstly, I hadn't got a picture of the removable bridge, removed. Now I have:

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I just got sent a link...

Most of the time, railway modellers take the real world and scale it down (ok, we can't really count the weekend railway in this, but most of the time!). Turns out google have clearly been watching this forum and scaling models up.

On this forum we have various versions of WagonCam (here is our own Weekender KelloggCam)

8939255608_d461a0d096_c.jpg893 ... d096_c.jpghttps://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.510691,9.870173,3a,75y,227.84h,61.18t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sGjRujvX-1_YqiLReIZbjCw!2e0!3e5''>https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.510691,9.870173,3a,75y,227.84h,61.18t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sGjRujvX-1_YqiLReIZbjCw!2e0!3e5'>https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@46.510691,9.870173,3a,75y,227.84h,61.18t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sGjRujvX-1_YqiLReIZbjCw!2e0!3e5

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With two-coach trains now possible, the platform needed to be extended - albeit seen here with just a single autocoach and the 14xx, photographed through the windows:

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Time then for a second attempt - bending the rules slightly further.

Although Stuart had suggested a line through a front quarterlight, the big Triumph estates have opening rear quarterlights too - and with a spot of WD40 and a little light persuasion, functionality was restored to Grumpy's. With the removable bridge out of the way (like Arnie, it'll be back) and the cross-dashboard line and quarterlight curve removed, a new 1-legged removable section was made that entered the car through the rear quarterlight instead:

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and then extended to provide support for the last part of the line:

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Hi Steve, I wondered what you had planned in the car with a terminus station, any plans for a small village near the station ,keep the good work up and pics coming.

I finely sorted out the duel tender drive tenders on my Flying Scot , passed in flying colours on Saturday at my train club, pics on my post and gallery.

like you video clips, will have to do the same when my first train will be running when ever, slow going doing the building all my self, with downloading video clips do you have to go trough you tube to load video clips on the forum.

Tony.

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Griff, I'm not too sure about your spelling of 'awesome'. I think it should be I-N-S-A-N-E.

Tony, I think there are various ways of loading video clips. Mick's written a marvellous and comprehensive guide to these sorts of things, which I suggest you have a look at, in the 'Getting to grips with the forum' section.

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On then with the saga of Stuart's Spur, version 2. Construction was described in post 146, so now it's time for some videos, to see if the camera can see the dashboard any more clearly this time.

First, we're back with the 14xx, which starts from a temporary station on level C, just about where it says 'NO STEP' in the first picure of post 136. Shame is, you can't actually see the station on the video. Which sets a bit of a theme for Stuart's Spur 2 (SS2), unfortunately. Could've started this clip closer to the new bit, but I like running the video camera through the tree, and that's at the other end of the circuit.

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Actually, I've just realised that around 02:29 in the video, you do get a glimpse of the temporary station in the distance. Which is more than can be said for the dashboard - or the instrument panel, at least.

So let's try giving Kelloggcam an unobscured view from the front of the train.

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Not really any better, is it? How about pointing the camera off, skew to the train:

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A different perspective, but not an entirely successful one. You can see the dashboard, eventually, but almost nothing of anything else. There are quite a few good clunks and scrapes indicating the camera was slightly outside the loading gauge, though.

Conclusion, SS2 doesn't achieve the objective either. The track's not pointing the right way, the curve into the station is wrong, and what little chance there is to see the dashboard is largely obscured by the trackbed structure anyway. So it's back to the drawing board again - but before it gets dismantled, a quick look at SS2 in the other direction - and another trip through the tree:

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That's that for SS2 then. Time to see if the lessons of the first two attempts can be learnt, and incorporated in a more successful 'SS3.'

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The saga of Stuart's Spur continues. Third time lucky perhaps?

I'll sum up the design process for SS3. The objective, basically, is to be able to drive a train in through a quarterlight and past the dashboard in such a way than an on-board camera gets a good view of what's going on. SS1 took what seemed the right route, but the camera couldn't see the dashboard because it was too close. SS2 pointed directly at the dashboard, but only when it was too close to see most of it.

Any line that enters the car through the front quarterlight will automatically be too close to the dashboard already; it can then run along too close, or turn away. A line that turns away is a line that faces the dashboard once the train reverses, but there isn't space for the necessary curve without clearing out the spare seats stored inside the car. So SS3 needs to enter Grumpy through the rear quarterlight like SS2; but it then needs to take a different course, one that offers a better view of the dashboard, ideally on a curve, so that the camera pans across it. But if I just put more of a curve in SS2, we run out of space before we can fit in a station.

So what about an S-curve, culminating in a station where it was for SS1? That might just do it...

A quick survey found the steering wheel to be in the way - but Triumph 2000 steering wheels are adjustable, and the adjuster's still free, so dropping it to its lowest setting solved that problem. I took the horrible fake-fur cover off the rim at the same time. It had been on there so long its foam liner had bonded with the bakelite wheel, so it doesn't actually look any better without it.

The survey also revealed that there wasn't quite enough distance to fit in a bendy-enough S-curve at the Weekend Railway's normal minimum radius of 23". But it was close, and the rest of the Spur is built to somewhat reduced standards of clearance and gradient, so perhaps a 21" curve radius would be acceptable too.

What are rules made for, if not for bending (too tightly)?

There was still the matter of how to support the S-curve. It would start from the existing removable curve through the quarterlight, and although the track would no longer run along it, SS2's beam along the spare doors would remain and serve as a supporting member.

So a new base for the halt was made, and propped in place in front of the glovebox, more or less where it was for SS1. With the existing line coming in the rear quarterlight, that established the two ends for the S-curve; so now it was just a case of optimising that curve, which would entail making a trackbed at the appropriate radius, and then jiggling it around inside the car until the ends both lined up. (After I'd rearranged the heap of bits where the driver's seat used to be, to make room. Discovered some useful bits of overdrive I'd forgotten about...)

I could've got a slightly larger radius (by half an inch) if I'd gone straight from a circular curve one way to a circular curve the other, with no transition, but that would look horrible - just like a train set made of 'set' track sections.

So instead I made two separate part-circular curved trackbeds out of OSB (it's OK, don't panic, it'll be fine out of the rain inside the car!), and joined them together, tangential to each other, to give a bit of space for a slightly more realistic transition curve. This would be a lot easier to explain if I'd remembered to take photos while I was doing it, of course. But anyway, then it was time for the jiggling about inside. I left both part-circular sections much longer than they needed to be, because those spare ends provided suitable opportunities to support the track across a space containing very few fixed points. In the end the 'spare' end of the first curve rests on the driver's door just by the lock button, and the spare end of the other bit is secured to the beam on the spare doors:

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You'll see that the far end of the second curve actually rests against the steering wheel, and with the single leg under the station, that's enough to support the whole lot, such is the strength of that wonder-material, OSB...

Here's the halt, seen through the driver's window:

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Trains normally run with the rear door closed of course; and as with SS2, when trains aren't running the quarterlight curve can easily be removed and stashed inside, so that the quarterlight can be closed to keep rain out:

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Hi WeekenderSteve, awesome track work weaving through the car a lot of work there and the pics are so clear too, what brand of camera are you using, the video clips also but its the second bottom video clip of interest, the big blue box is that your transformer, what's the AMPs of it, must be big, I have two 6amp trannies that will be controlling my layout, plan to have four throttles using rotary switches, probably never use them good to have, looking at having one to switch to DCC but do the wiring in such a way the DCC take over the DC on that block.

Keep the good work up and pics flowing love those pics and your construction of the track decking, awesome.

Tony.

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Here are the videos then. First, an unobstructed view of the Spur:

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The hesitation on the S-curve - in both directions - results from a clash of tension-lock couplings which put a lateral load on the flanges, momentarily increasing drag. It hasn't happened anywhere else - but then, no-where else are there curves so tight.

That seemed pretty successful, so it was time to try an autotrain, propelled by the new loco, which is of course a class 4575 'small prairie.' An example of which, coincidentally, hauled me up and down the Dean Forest Railway only a few days ago. Here's the video - watch for the reflection of the autocoach in the instrument glasses. The trip was so successful the train celebrated by doing a full lap of the main layout!

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You can see that by this time all the re-levelling of the main layout was done: it's a much smoother ride than in earlier videos this year, though there are still one or two areas that could benefit from a little more attention - mainly on the tight OSB curves, inevitably.

The power supply makes another brief appearance in this video; it's illustrated and described back in post 53.

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Those are nice videos, Steve, well demonstrating the tight clearances you've managed to thread the spur through. And I'm pleased to see you've got your priorities right (after all, we wouldn't want the car to suffer!):

when trains aren't running the quarterlight curve can easily be removed and stashed inside, so that the quarterlight can be closed to keep rain out

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OMG :o What on earth's going on here?

I only popped in to catch up with the latest posts and it looks like you've built a whole new layout in your car. I've seen miniature railways built in boxfiles before but this takes the concept to a whole new dimension! I'll have to pop back later to view the videos and see the whole story.

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I seem to be having one of those slow internet service days that make life miserable. But I am always pleased when you post more progress on this layout. :)

Waiting for the little red line on the you tube video to crawl across the frame. Grrrr.... :cry:

Argh, just waited about 5 minutes to upload this and it failed...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Andrew, you're quite right, poor Old Mrs Grumpy has suffered quite enough indignities already (and now people even use her initials as an expletive!). It defies all logic, but her interior (boot space excepted of course) stays remarkably dry. I suppose she's sheltered, the roof is still intact, and she's well-ventillated. And well-drained!

Griff, hope you got the videos to upload in the end. I don't think there's anything I can do that would help with that. I suppose (even) lower resolution videos would upload quicker, but then they wouldn't be worth watching.

And Mick, in the words of the song, you ain't seen n-n-nothin' yet! I've got rather behind with logging progress, so I need to try to catch up now the weather's deteriorating.

Post 154 just about wrapped it up for the Stuart's Spur variations: a line had been run through a front quarterlight (and a rear one), a line had been run across in front of the dashboard, and all of that could be seen from an on-board video camera - but not all with the same track layout. The individual objectives could be attained, but not all at the same time.

So, what next? The spur inside the car had reached a dead end - literally and metaphorically. It couldn't go any further inside, and it was too low to bring it back outside. And in any case, some rather inconvenient liberties had been taken with the gradients and curvature.

On the other hand, I rather liked the first part of the spur, the part that squeezed through the boot space. Although clearances are extremely tight, it's not quite so offensively aligned. So the question was, what else could it lead to? After the squeeze the line could be continued straight on across the door of the Shed, but it's inconvenient enough having one drawbridge across that door, never mind two; so the existing curve could stay. That ends at the joint with the various removable bridges. Clearly the short curved one used for SS2 & SS3 was no further use, but what about the long straight one used for SS1? With a bit of packing under the further leg its gradient could be made more reasonable; that would bring the line a point that was looking down the 'canyon' between OMG and the brown 1500 alongside. From there, there's little option but to continue straight ahead for a distance; but what then?

The only course I could see that wouldn't obstruct the rest of the garden was to curve left, roughly parallel with the front of Grumpy. The line could then bear right back along the trees, or continue to curve left to return up the passenger side of Grumpy. At this point an idea started to take shape, because there's a 'channel' alongside the car there, between the bodywork and an old sheet of corrugated steel. It can be seen in this picture, taken while the original version of Stuart's Spur still existed:

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And here it is from the other end. The new section also has two legs down to ground level, fitted through suitable gaps. Grumpy's front wing was removed many years ago to use on another car:

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The timber's chocked and shaped to fit neatly into the channel, and located by a notch that engages where the car's front wing stands proud of the adjacent door.

I was working on the assumption that the two straights would be joined by a 180-degree bridge across Grumpy's bows; howsoever supported. Here's the ply trackbed for that bridge:

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Hi Steve nice work on the latest extension of your layout outside, like the idea of a curve suspension bridge be a big engineering feat, Roddy is the bridge you are talking about the Gateshead

Millennium bridge the Japanese have curved road bridge of the same design so can be done.

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That bridge of question actually swings to let the boats through, there is a video link half way down the page.

I am planning a bridge on the second stage of the layout, a long way off , got to get past finishing off the Tehachapi loop tunnel module, did some work on it yesterday, pics on my page, might get some more done today.

While I was watching one of the video's I noticed the number plate on one of the cars, what's the idea of the letters being so large, in the UK our number plates in Australia are under half that size.

Keep the good work pics and video flowing Steve.

Tony

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