The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

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Trevor Thompson
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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Tue Sep 06, 2022 9:49 pm

Phil.P wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 10:20 am Will you paint the chairs (UV protection) or just leave them, and see what happens?

Phil.P
I will leave them unpainted - ABS is very durable.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Tue Sep 06, 2022 9:51 pm

philipy wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 10:24 am
Trevor Thompson wrote: Mon Sep 05, 2022 8:42 pm

I am also thinking about cranks, rodding, and a ground frame to operate those points. Perhaps cranks and guides for the rodding could be printed? Dare I even print the ground frame?
I printed cranks and bases in PLA ( using brass screws as pivots) and they have been fine outside for 3 years so far.
P1010001.JPG.
In this picture the operating servo is hidden under a printed hollow pile of sleepers, also in PLA.
That is interesting! I am going to follow your lead. Not with a point motor but a manual crank lever. As an aside how do the electronics you are using cope outside!

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by philipy » Wed Sep 07, 2022 7:39 pm

Trevor Thompson wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 9:51 pm
That is interesting! I am going to follow your lead. Not with a point motor but a manual crank lever. As an aside how do the electronics you are using cope outside!
If it's any use, I've just put the stl's in the print files section.

As far as I know the electronics are fine, although they haven't been used this year for various reasons and the Lead Acid battery power supply is sitting in my work room!
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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:25 pm

philipy wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 7:39 pm

If it's any use, I've just put the stl's in the print files section.

Thanks - I'v downloaded the file.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Thu Dec 08, 2022 1:51 pm

The development of couplings.

My interest in the Ffestiniog Railway, and a desire to follow that prototype where feasible led me to start off using hooks and eyes on my slate and goods wagons. My first coaches ( Birmingham 4 wheelers) all had working screw couplings. When I then built the curly roofed brake van and coach 15 I made what seemed to be a reasonable attempt at the early "Norwegian" type couplings which were used on those coaches originally:
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Norwegian or chopper type couplings unhooked. I used a hook on each coupling rather than the single hook used on the prototype.
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The couplings coupled up. They needed a bit of play in them. If the couplings were tight to each other they caused derailments, particularly at changes of gradient.

All of these were fiddly to connect and disconnect of course, particularly the screw couplings.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:13 pm

The Development of couplings.

When I started 3 D printing I had the brilliant idea that it would be faster to make my coach couplings by printing them. So I printed chopper couplings and fitted them to locomotives and coaches.

I don't use them anymore - but I have some left over:
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They worked fine, fast and effort less to make, and they worked. The printed hooks look weak, but they proved strong enough. I have a drawer full of them so it didn't matter if one broke occasionally. The idea of using magnets led me on to modify the chopper couplings to use magnets instead of the hooks:
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You can see that these coaches are coupled together by magnets mounted in the faces of the chopper couplings. There are magnetic versions of hook and loop couplings sitting underneath the choppers but ignore them for now. I found that rare earth magnets 6mm in diameter and 3mm thick had sufficient strength to hold long trains together on my 1 in 60 gradients. They are easy to disconnect - you just slide one sideways against the other and move the vehicles apart a centimetre or so. If you don't move them they recouple.

Of course using one magnet in each coupling means everything has to be placed on the track the right way around. Put something on the wrong way and the couplings repel instead of attract. That doesn't really matter on an end to end line. As in the prototype locomotives always face up the gradient, and when there is no way of turning anything around (except that hand) then everything will couple correctly however it is shunted.

Following the prototype leads to needing a magnetic version of hook and loop couplings. Getting a resin printer led to a solution for that:
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A resin printed holder for the same magnets used in the chopper couplings. I have a smaller version for use on light wagons - but the 6mm x 3mm magnet is what I use most of the time.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Thu Dec 08, 2022 2:40 pm

As I am modelling the Ffestiniog Railway I want to be able to make trains up with goods wagons in front of coaches and empty slate wagons behind the brake van. Fitting selected vehicles with both types of couplings allows that:
IMG_2611.JPG
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The magnetic hook will couple to the magnet on the chopper but it tends to lift the end of the wagon off the track - so I add magnetic hooks underneath the choppers.
The magnetic hook tends to sit upside down attracted to the magnet in the chopper - but I can live with that. It just means coaxing the magnet around with a finger.

Locomotives. Mostly are fitted with the double coupling, but some intended of industrial service are only fitted with the magnetic hooks:
IMG_2612.JPG
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I also fit the double couplings to live steam locos. The heat from the firebox doesn't seem to heat the front buffer beam up enough to cause a problem for the plastic.

So my railway is almost entirely fitted with magnetic couplings. The magnetic hooks are a bit obvious, but I will live with that in return for the ease of coupling and uncoupling. When you can print them as you need them it is very cost effective.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Sat Dec 10, 2022 12:42 pm

I suspect that this is the last progress report until the spring - if the current frosty weather is anything to go by. It has certainly stopped any concrete work - and just when I was poised to broach that hedge!

The coal drops at Tan-y-bwlch are now complete, and have coal in them:
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I have completed ballasting the track at Tan-y-Grisiau. I wasn't sure wether the ballast had set or frozen to begin with - but it looks like it has set. So I went out yesterday to clear the ballast from the points - difficult to get the point blades to move once it is really hard. It sets like concrete :lol:

I am experimenting with printed point levers. It just seems like a 3 lever ground frame would be appropriate at the top end of Tan-y-Grisiau, where there are 3 points close together. So far it seems to work. When you create a curve in "sketchup" it actually makes a series of straight lines in an approximation of a curve. That allowed me to make a curved frame which interferes with lugs on the lever - and makes the movement of the lever "notchy" (obviously cant spell that!). The end result is that when you move the lever it finds lots of positions where it wants to stop, ( as well as the two notches I deliberately made in it) which compensates for differences in throw. So that sort of works:
IMG_2622.JPG
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You can see the frame sections and the levers in the above photo. It is also clear that I have been having difficulty getting the crank bases to bond to the concrete - and have made the bases wider at the bottom as a result. I made a section of "boarding" for the ground frame to sit on. You can see that and two of the points are connected up to their levers in this photo:
IMG_2636.JPG
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The third point is a bit further away from the ground frame and my 1mm stainless wire didn't like the compression loading even with lots of guides supporting it. So that needs further work - I am going to try a length of 3mm rod to see if that works. The guides and wire that didn't work are in the background of the upper photo. I think that will have to wait for warmer weather.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Sat Dec 10, 2022 12:53 pm

Finally I have printed buffer stops, the type which are made from sleepers on end filled with ballast:
IMG_2624 2.JPG
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I will put the stl files in the printing files section shortly.

and in situ:
IMG_2637.JPG
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The hedge between the two parts the garden has been "coppiced". As a result I can now get at the hedge bank to cut a tunnel through into the other section of garden, ready for the summer when I can extend the railway towards its final destination. So the third buffer stop is a temporary one marking the end of the running line.

I suppose I ought to comment on the deep ballasting. Which is a victorian practice - and something I am experimenting with. Just have to make sure to allow 1.5mm minimum for flange clearance.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Peter Butler » Sat Dec 10, 2022 1:18 pm

Trevor, perhaps a bicycle cable (Bowden cable) could be fitted to operate the point further from your lever? I have successfully used them, one about 3m. long, which works perfectly. The outer cable can be covered in ballast with a short wire visible at the end if required.
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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Sat Dec 10, 2022 4:39 pm

Peter Butler wrote: Sat Dec 10, 2022 1:18 pm Trevor, perhaps a bicycle cable (Bowden cable) could be fitted to operate the point further from your lever? I have successfully used them, one about 3m. long, which works perfectly. The outer cable can be covered in ballast with a short wire visible at the end if required.
Thanks for the reminder Peter - I should have remembered that. I like the idea of burying it in the ballast.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by SimonWood » Sun Dec 11, 2022 10:06 am

Love the ground frame.

Also interesting to see the hedge 'naked' as it were, makes it so much easier to see what the route of the railway beyond this point is going to be, compared to when it is fully foliaged... Of course once the line is cut and then the leaves return in spring it will become a useful and attractive 'scenic break' again!

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Old Man Aaron » Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:49 am

Coming on well as always.

Love the "Victorian-Era" ballast. I keep a pair of deep-flanged "pizza cutter" toy train wheelsets to swap out on one of my plastic open wagons. I push the wagon to and fro, to clear the flangeway area, after applying dry ballast mixes over the top of sleepers, prior to gluing it all down. If the pizza-cutters run without crunching over ballast, the proper 16mm wheels will, too.

As for anchoring down your crank bases, I think mechanical reinforcement is needed. You could drill holes through the bases, (or include in the prints) and use the stainless wire to "pin" the bases down, driving perhaps 2" lengths into the ballast with a hammer and/or pliers. Just a thought.
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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Fri Dec 16, 2022 10:27 am

Old Man Aaron wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:49 am Coming on well as always.

Love the "Victorian-Era" ballast. I keep a pair of deep-flanged "pizza cutter" toy train wheelsets to swap out on one of my plastic open wagons. I push the wagon to and fro, to clear the flangeway area, after applying dry ballast mixes over the top of sleepers, prior to gluing it all down. If the pizza-cutters run without crunching over ballast, the proper 16mm wheels will, too.

As for anchoring down your crank bases, I think mechanical reinforcement is needed. You could drill holes through the bases, (or include in the prints) and use the stainless wire to "pin" the bases down, driving perhaps 2" lengths into the ballast with a hammer and/or pliers. Just a thought.
A wagon with deep flanges is a good idea. I will have to try that.

I think that mechanical fixings might be needed - but I will wait for the weather to warm up enough to ballast the bases - and see if that combined with the glue does the trick.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by philipy » Fri Dec 16, 2022 11:11 am

My printed cranks are screwed down, using small brass screws. It only really takes one small screw to stop it lifting and the surrounding ballast and adhesive keep it in place. Mine are on a timber base, so its easy, but it should be fairly simple to drill and plug your concrete base.
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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:19 pm

The 2023 extension has been started!

I have even laid some concrete:
IMG_2730.JPG
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I am digging out the cutting and have broken through the old hedge bank. You can just make out two wooden pegs in the cutting which indicate the level of the top of the track bed. Not much more to remove before shuttering for the next length of trackbed. This is what it looks like from the other side:
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Not quite got down to the proper depth yet in the tunnel, but it isn't far out. The wooden frame in the gap will form the shuttering for the base of the tunnel - so the gap needs to be a bit wider. I think some form of path near the tunnel to allow easy access from one side to the other when controlling a loco might be a good idea. That involves either another cutting or steps over the bank. Perhaps a combination of the two.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by ge_rik » Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:31 am

With the evidence of roots and stones removed from the trench, it looks like that cut and cover tunnel has been hard work.
Looking forward to seeing the head of steel (or brass / nickel silver) following the head of concrete.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Sat Feb 04, 2023 9:54 am

ge_rik wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:31 am With the evidence of roots and stones removed from the trench, it looks like that cut and cover tunnel has been hard work.
Looking forward to seeing the head of steel (or brass / nickel silver) following the head of concrete.

Rik
Yep - there were loads of large roots in the way - had to use the chain saw to remove them!

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Trevor Thompson » Mon Feb 06, 2023 3:31 pm

Yesterday I completed digging out the tunnel, and fitted all of the shuttering. Today I poured the concrete:
IMG_2732.JPG
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and a close up of the tunnel floor:
IMG_2733.JPG
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Bit cold at the moment so I used some antifreeze / accelerator in the concrete. We are due a frost tonight. I hope to be building the tunnel itself tomorrow.

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Re: The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

Post by Andrew » Mon Feb 06, 2023 3:56 pm

Impressive work!

The railway will be very useful carrying produce from that distant veg patch! Some bespoke 3D printed spud and leek carriers may be required...

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