what would be a good model loco shed ? have been looking at various makes , the same with turntables. I am looking to model a late fifties shed scene but would like more info on whats being produced in oo thats usable & realistic.
Dave.
sheds & turntables
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daveinstoke
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Colombo
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Dave,
I had a look at this some time ago. See "Photos of Colombo's Layout" under this heading. There are some excellent indexing turntables made for Continental layouts that can be adapted, but frankly they are very expensive and just too big, even though they are built for HO. The Hornby turntable is cheap and cheerful and can be adapted if you are willing to compromise. I have built my own scale 65 foot indexing unit using the turntable and friction drive from a record player, bits of the Dapol kit, parts from Maplins and a lot of scratch building. See the string entitled "Photos of Colombo's Layout", on this site, under Model Railways. The belt drive shown did not work smoothly enough so I now use a friction wheel on the inside edge of the cast metal record turntable.
Just like locomotive construction, before you start building, you should really decide what make of turntable to model ( Cowan Sheldon or Ransome and Rapier), the largest size of loco you want to turn, will it be electrically driven, pushed round or wound by hand, or driven by loco vacuum, will it be a balancing TT or a Mundt type? Will it be a pit type or not?
I have picked up this link to SEFinecast from another site. They have a basic turntable kit that you have to motorise and index yourself.
http://www.sefinecast.co.uk/Turntables/Turntables.htm
The three road NER engine shed is at present occupying most of my modelling time at present, but I shall not be publishing anything for a while yet. The NER coaling stage is built.
Colombo
I had a look at this some time ago. See "Photos of Colombo's Layout" under this heading. There are some excellent indexing turntables made for Continental layouts that can be adapted, but frankly they are very expensive and just too big, even though they are built for HO. The Hornby turntable is cheap and cheerful and can be adapted if you are willing to compromise. I have built my own scale 65 foot indexing unit using the turntable and friction drive from a record player, bits of the Dapol kit, parts from Maplins and a lot of scratch building. See the string entitled "Photos of Colombo's Layout", on this site, under Model Railways. The belt drive shown did not work smoothly enough so I now use a friction wheel on the inside edge of the cast metal record turntable.
Just like locomotive construction, before you start building, you should really decide what make of turntable to model ( Cowan Sheldon or Ransome and Rapier), the largest size of loco you want to turn, will it be electrically driven, pushed round or wound by hand, or driven by loco vacuum, will it be a balancing TT or a Mundt type? Will it be a pit type or not?
I have picked up this link to SEFinecast from another site. They have a basic turntable kit that you have to motorise and index yourself.
http://www.sefinecast.co.uk/Turntables/Turntables.htm
The three road NER engine shed is at present occupying most of my modelling time at present, but I shall not be publishing anything for a while yet. The NER coaling stage is built.
Colombo
Dave.
If you are looking for commercially available shed buildings, you could look at:
http://www.scalescenes.com/
They sell downloadable card kits that you print yourself - they have 2 engine sheds and the kits are very modular. You can download a waiting shelter for free so that you can try out their technique, prior to buying.
Well worth a look.
Andy
If you are looking for commercially available shed buildings, you could look at:
http://www.scalescenes.com/
They sell downloadable card kits that you print yourself - they have 2 engine sheds and the kits are very modular. You can download a waiting shelter for free so that you can try out their technique, prior to buying.
Well worth a look.
Andy
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daveinstoke
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Dave,
If you are considering scratch building one then don't make my mistake. I individually laid computer chads to represent the brick work into the pit for a 60 ft diameter turntable. Five years later and with my sanity just about intact it got finished.... well nearly. I still have to paint the bridge.
all the best
Morgan
P.S. Sorry about the Black 5. It should be a B1 for this forum.
If you are considering scratch building one then don't make my mistake. I individually laid computer chads to represent the brick work into the pit for a 60 ft diameter turntable. Five years later and with my sanity just about intact it got finished.... well nearly. I still have to paint the bridge.
all the best
Morgan
P.S. Sorry about the Black 5. It should be a B1 for this forum.
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Colombo
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That is a really beautiful job, the computer chads really look great. You also have painted each one individually and then weathered them. Did you find a colour photo of a turntable pit, or is it based on one still in use somewhere?
I decided to represent a concrete base to my pit with just a flat ply base as I cannot see it when I am sitting down at the control panel. It was more important to get the indexation right.
Colombo
I decided to represent a concrete base to my pit with just a flat ply base as I cannot see it when I am sitting down at the control panel. It was more important to get the indexation right.
Colombo
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daveinstoke
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Colombo,
I coloured the brickwork in pencil crayons that I bought from an Art supplies shop. (IIRC it was 4 different colours from the Berol "Karisma Color" range). The technique was a mixture of picking out individual bricks and shading in areas randomly. Before doing this I applied a creamy grey wash with enamel paint to get the mortar colour into the gaps between bricks. Weathering was done with various mixtures of grey and brown humbrol paint drybrushed over the top. A number of iterations were required to get the required density of dirt.
The colour reference was based of various photos I've seen in magazines and books etc... plus visits to places like Didcot and Barrow Hill.
There is no indexation on my turntable the drive is through a very low geared Escap motor that is controlled by a Pentroller. Rotation is so slow that lining up the tracks by eye is easy. However you do have to pay attention so that the loco does not do a full 360. A 180 turn of a loco takes about 60 seconds. I got the motor from an Engineering Surplus Supplies place called JA Crew.
http://www.jacrew.net/
Morgan
I coloured the brickwork in pencil crayons that I bought from an Art supplies shop. (IIRC it was 4 different colours from the Berol "Karisma Color" range). The technique was a mixture of picking out individual bricks and shading in areas randomly. Before doing this I applied a creamy grey wash with enamel paint to get the mortar colour into the gaps between bricks. Weathering was done with various mixtures of grey and brown humbrol paint drybrushed over the top. A number of iterations were required to get the required density of dirt.
The colour reference was based of various photos I've seen in magazines and books etc... plus visits to places like Didcot and Barrow Hill.
There is no indexation on my turntable the drive is through a very low geared Escap motor that is controlled by a Pentroller. Rotation is so slow that lining up the tracks by eye is easy. However you do have to pay attention so that the loco does not do a full 360. A 180 turn of a loco takes about 60 seconds. I got the motor from an Engineering Surplus Supplies place called JA Crew.
http://www.jacrew.net/
Morgan
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Colombo
- LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Dave,
I found the following web site which describes a TT mechanism built for the club in Saskatoon.
http://members.shaw.ca/sask.rail/model- ... table.html
I decided to try something along those lines and collected some bits and pieces together.
A 12 volt geared motor (from my local electronics shop) drove a pulley which was fixed onto the axle of a Sturmey Archer bicycle front wheel hub. I guess any make would do. This gives a smooth and rigid drive with very little friction as there are ball bearings at each end. The holes for the bicycle spokes are just big enough for some tiny No.2x3/16" self-tapping screws that I bought from Squires. These were used to fix the hub into the 3mm ply wooden frame.
A 10" record was sacrificed to make an indexing disk, and notches on the perimeter engage with a lever operated microswitch which has a wheel on the end of the lever. The turntable stops turning when the wheel drops into a notch. A post office relay, activated by a push button, lifts the arm of the microswitch out of the notch and this energises the TT motor. The deck then indexes round to the next notch. A centre off DPDT switch reverses the direction of travel of the deck.
Well all did not go as well as I had hoped it would and I had to scrap the pulley wheels and drive belt idea. The problem was that the belt, which came from a defunct video recorder, had a certain degree of elasticity and this allowed the turntable to slow down or even stop when the turntable bridge met any resistance at all. The drive pulley continued to turn, the elasticity in the belt allowed the tension to increase until the resistance was overcome and then the bridge just flicked round to the next point of resistance. Moral: smooth video drive belts are for high-speed duties. You need a toothed belt or an inelastic vee belt. Maplins do supply a toothed belt system, which may well be ideal, but it is also pricey, so I had a rethink.
The US reference quoted previously mentions a friction drive and at first I did not cotton on. Then I decided that my old portable HMV record player probably had a friction drive so I dug it out and stripped it down, having first ensured that 20 odd years in storage had taken its toll. (I.E. that it did not work and could safely be sacrificed). There is a rubber friction wheel driving inside the rim of the record turntable and so these two components were carefully extracted and adapted to fit under the bicycle hub.
After a few attempts at getting everything concentric, the first proper test was a revelation. So much smooth power is transmitted to the turntable bridge that it is quite difficult to stop it turning at its steady 1 r.p.m. or so. All resistance is overcome without any difficulty.
Normally you may choose to use the circular track in the pit to conduct electricity to the track on the deck, but in the past I have found the pick up of electricity to be unreliable. So I decided to use the wheel hub for one supply and another route for the return. If you had a hollow shaft for the turntable axle, you could conduct power up the centre of the shaft via a wiper pick up, but my wheel hub axle is solid. Time for another rethink.
In fact the turntable deck was eventually based on the one that used to be at the top of York(North) yard. This was a Ransome and Rapier non-balancing Mundt type table and was electrically driven, with power being collected by a pair of slip rings on top of a gallows arrangement in the centre of the deck. This is quite unusual, but not unique as Barrow Hill’s is similar. The turntable in the NRM also has slip rings for the supply of power but these are mounted under the deck (I asked).
The deck was fabricated out of copperclad, brass strip and a Dapol turntable kit, using just the lower halves of the girders and the plastic circle of rail.
The polarity of the rails on the turntable deck is reversed by a reflective IR sensor detecting a white label on the indexing disk, which energises a 2PST relay. Alternatively you could use a manual switch but there is a danger of short circuiting if you forget to throw it.
I found the following web site which describes a TT mechanism built for the club in Saskatoon.
http://members.shaw.ca/sask.rail/model- ... table.html
I decided to try something along those lines and collected some bits and pieces together.
A 12 volt geared motor (from my local electronics shop) drove a pulley which was fixed onto the axle of a Sturmey Archer bicycle front wheel hub. I guess any make would do. This gives a smooth and rigid drive with very little friction as there are ball bearings at each end. The holes for the bicycle spokes are just big enough for some tiny No.2x3/16" self-tapping screws that I bought from Squires. These were used to fix the hub into the 3mm ply wooden frame.
A 10" record was sacrificed to make an indexing disk, and notches on the perimeter engage with a lever operated microswitch which has a wheel on the end of the lever. The turntable stops turning when the wheel drops into a notch. A post office relay, activated by a push button, lifts the arm of the microswitch out of the notch and this energises the TT motor. The deck then indexes round to the next notch. A centre off DPDT switch reverses the direction of travel of the deck.
Well all did not go as well as I had hoped it would and I had to scrap the pulley wheels and drive belt idea. The problem was that the belt, which came from a defunct video recorder, had a certain degree of elasticity and this allowed the turntable to slow down or even stop when the turntable bridge met any resistance at all. The drive pulley continued to turn, the elasticity in the belt allowed the tension to increase until the resistance was overcome and then the bridge just flicked round to the next point of resistance. Moral: smooth video drive belts are for high-speed duties. You need a toothed belt or an inelastic vee belt. Maplins do supply a toothed belt system, which may well be ideal, but it is also pricey, so I had a rethink.
The US reference quoted previously mentions a friction drive and at first I did not cotton on. Then I decided that my old portable HMV record player probably had a friction drive so I dug it out and stripped it down, having first ensured that 20 odd years in storage had taken its toll. (I.E. that it did not work and could safely be sacrificed). There is a rubber friction wheel driving inside the rim of the record turntable and so these two components were carefully extracted and adapted to fit under the bicycle hub.
After a few attempts at getting everything concentric, the first proper test was a revelation. So much smooth power is transmitted to the turntable bridge that it is quite difficult to stop it turning at its steady 1 r.p.m. or so. All resistance is overcome without any difficulty.
Normally you may choose to use the circular track in the pit to conduct electricity to the track on the deck, but in the past I have found the pick up of electricity to be unreliable. So I decided to use the wheel hub for one supply and another route for the return. If you had a hollow shaft for the turntable axle, you could conduct power up the centre of the shaft via a wiper pick up, but my wheel hub axle is solid. Time for another rethink.
In fact the turntable deck was eventually based on the one that used to be at the top of York(North) yard. This was a Ransome and Rapier non-balancing Mundt type table and was electrically driven, with power being collected by a pair of slip rings on top of a gallows arrangement in the centre of the deck. This is quite unusual, but not unique as Barrow Hill’s is similar. The turntable in the NRM also has slip rings for the supply of power but these are mounted under the deck (I asked).
The deck was fabricated out of copperclad, brass strip and a Dapol turntable kit, using just the lower halves of the girders and the plastic circle of rail.
The polarity of the rails on the turntable deck is reversed by a reflective IR sensor detecting a white label on the indexing disk, which energises a 2PST relay. Alternatively you could use a manual switch but there is a danger of short circuiting if you forget to throw it.
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daveinstoke
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Colombo
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Dave,
My first turntable was driven by a Triang XO4 type motor through a worm and then with one of those reduction gearboxes sold for model makers, where you can select your own ratio. The power supply came from the train controller. There was no indexing, I judged it by eye. The trouble was that it was desperately noisy. The baseboard acted as an sounding board.
That is why I have stayed clear of gears this time. I have to say that the present arrangement is almost silent in operation.
I have heard of the Triang TT mechanism being adapted however.
Colombo
My first turntable was driven by a Triang XO4 type motor through a worm and then with one of those reduction gearboxes sold for model makers, where you can select your own ratio. The power supply came from the train controller. There was no indexing, I judged it by eye. The trouble was that it was desperately noisy. The baseboard acted as an sounding board.
That is why I have stayed clear of gears this time. I have to say that the present arrangement is almost silent in operation.
I have heard of the Triang TT mechanism being adapted however.
Colombo
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daveinstoke
- LNER Thompson L1 2-6-4T
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Colombo
- LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Dave,
There are turntables in place in quite a few main line and preservation sites. Try looking at Google Images on Railway Turntable. Locations in the UK include The NRM, Scarborough, Tyseley, Didcot, Wansford, Swanage, Carnforth, Keighley, Bridgnorth, Pickering........
If you want detailed photos and drawings, I do have a book to recommend: British Railways Engine Sheds, No. 3 London Midland Matters, by Hawkins, Hooper and Reeve, published by Irwell Press 1989. There is also No. 1 An LNER Inheritance, but I have not found a copy of that yet, so I don't know what is in it.
Griffiths and Hooper wrote a series of three books on GNR Engine Sheds and they are quite detailed as well.
Colombo
There are turntables in place in quite a few main line and preservation sites. Try looking at Google Images on Railway Turntable. Locations in the UK include The NRM, Scarborough, Tyseley, Didcot, Wansford, Swanage, Carnforth, Keighley, Bridgnorth, Pickering........
If you want detailed photos and drawings, I do have a book to recommend: British Railways Engine Sheds, No. 3 London Midland Matters, by Hawkins, Hooper and Reeve, published by Irwell Press 1989. There is also No. 1 An LNER Inheritance, but I have not found a copy of that yet, so I don't know what is in it.
Griffiths and Hooper wrote a series of three books on GNR Engine Sheds and they are quite detailed as well.
Colombo