NEWS March07
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New Station
We always had a sort of halt at the house end but it was just a line of block pavers sat on the grass and wasn't obvious. This end of the line also suffered from steep gradients. When we built the line we came down both side of the garden and never bothered with gradients. We lifted the track 25mm higher than the existing path. This at the time seemed a huge amount.
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Left. The broken out rail from the crossing. The rail at the bottom is steel which we put in last year to replace the worn out aluminium. As we didn't replace the inner rail we just cut through the stud ties. |
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Work on the line was a family exercise. Even Jasper wanted to join in. The first job was to take a level survey of the exisitng track. It worked out that the line dropped over 90mm in 10m (right side of the garden). Not a lot but on a 3.2m radius it did slow down smaller locos. The difference between the two sides of the garden was 50mm. We ramped this out at 2.5mm per m. Well that was the plan. |
| On the start of the adjusted tack was the
task of adjusting and lifting the block pavers that line
the track bed. these were put in orginally straight on to
the soil and have moved over the years. This time we cleared the ballast back and bedded the bricks on to a sand cement bed. The timber with the level on was used to set the second side level with the first. The red spots in the flowers are pegs which were set to the final rail level. They were space at 1m centres around the work area. |
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The new platform was set out from the existing track. We left the original block pavers in as they helped support the curved formwork. We made the curved edge of formwork by fixing three strips of hard board together. |
| With the platform cast attention was turned to the york paving, crossings and lifting the track. | |
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Left - Drena ( the one on the left)
working with a breaker lifting up the second crossing. Below - The track back in place and the new crossing cast in concrete. The timber and clamps at each side were used to suspend the track while we cast the concrete. We took the oportunity to work in the good weather. One week later and we would have been in the snow. |
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Above left - Having problems getting ballast we
brought the track bed up using concrete. Actually pound
for pound (not accounting for labour) concrete is cheaper
than ballast. Left -The first train across the new crossing. We used a rapid concrete on the crossing so the line was back in use 4 hours after we mixed the concrete. |
| Below - As mentioned back in January we were playing around with treadle switches. We came across a design flaw, mainly that the use of long and short trains together can create problems. Basically if a train stops on a treadle and then starts up again it will reset the signal to green even if a following train has passed the signal. | |
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| Going back to our original signalling we are reverting to track circuiting. We have experienced one problem in the past with a section locking out if it rains. To combat this we will be putting the rail on to PNP plastic chairs. We have also made new insulated connectors which perform much better than out previous paxolin board ones and manunfactured a printed circuit board for each circuit. The capacitor smooths out the fluctuations and holds the relay for around 1 second. With a larger capacitor the relay can have a lag of up to 7 seconds. Enough time to ensure the train has cleared the section. On our tunnel the delay is 3.5 seconds but most will be set for around 1 second.. | |
| Signal Box | |
| March also saw delivery of the the windows, two doors and roof trusses for the sinal box. We also took delivery of the parts to build a 10 lever lever frame for the box. |
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| With the change in the building regulations it is now
illegal to use old twin and earth with red and black
wires for domestic wiring. No problem as we used my dads
old wire on the signals (all low voltage).These wires
were put in for the treadle switches and three signals
but will now be used for the track circuits. The eventual plan is to have most of the railway controlled by automatic two aspect signals with the remaining being controlled by the signal box and lever frame. |
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List of jobs to complete before May 12th.
Concrtete to the second crossing
Install an additional 12 signals and associated circuits
Motorise the bottom set of points
Signal box construction
Lever Frame
Well its a long shot. The signal box is the largest labour demand so we will probably have the signals and point control in but controlled from a temporary panel.
January 07
Signal Box
Some people already say we have gone over the top on our railway. Well they might be right but if something is worth doing then its worth doing right.
As you may be aware we have been having a stock clearance sale.
Rather than just sell it and pocket the cash we have decided to put the money to a special project.
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Left - Ickenham Club
signal box. It is something like this which we are hoping to build. |
So over the coming weeks keep an eye out for a few personal clearence items which will help pay for the construction.
