Meeting 23rd July 2011

At today's meeting Allen and Andy finished installing the mark 2 turnout motors.  We also replaced the control arms on the first batch with the new improved strengthened versions.  Allen is now selling the turnout system as a kit - check it out at the Minimum Gauge Models stand at your next Narrow Gauge exhibition.

	Peter had finished the improvements to the turntable to sort out the warping of the deck.
	The turntable is aligned by a single bull-dog clip which bridges the angled aluminium strips

Several months ago Ken built a really lovely three-way point for the timber-yard sidings, but the complexity of it has meant that it is rather fragile - it is difficult to strengthen, so reluctantly we have decided to replace it with teo separate turnouts.

We discovered a small problem with our uncoupling magnets. We have used pairs of small "rare-earth" magnets, with their tops level with the sleepers, to operate the KD couplings. They work fine with the bogie stock, but when we tried to reverse some standard Bachmann V-skips over the magnets they proved too strong and tipped the skips.



The problem seems to be that the V-skips have a very short wheelbase, but a long overhang to the coupling pin. The magnets make the wagon pivot on the front axle.

So, sorting out the magnets is our next priority.

And then Andy started planning another extension to the layout.....

Developments in January - June 2011

The first half of 2011 saw the completion of the fiddle-yard and our first chance to set-up the entire layout.  Testing and tweaking of track-work and wiring has occupied most of our time.  Once we were happy with this we built integral legs for the layout and retired the Dexion supports.

Just as we thought all was settled, Allen turned up with his "mark-2" servo system for the turnout controls.  This is a very-professional looking system, with an excellent etch, so we embarked on another set of changes. 

Developments during 2010.

Our first exhibition at Mickleover allowed us to identify areas for improvement on the layout, including:

• Improving the track layout in the timber yard; this included building a three-way turnout to give us three sidings and adding a head-shunt for the yard loco.
• Centralising the turnout controls. Our first version had manually operated "wire-in-tube" turnout controls. Although these worked very well the operators had to move from board to board to set routes and reaching some of the more distant controls was difficult.
• Change the fiddle-yard from cassette-based to a large turntable.

Ken designed and constructed the three-way turnout.  We lifted the original track-work in the timber-yard and re-laid it as three sidings, plus head-shunt.

Since our turnouts are land-made we needed a method for locking them in route.  Allen devised a servo-operated system and produced etched parts to operate them.  He also produced our central control board, by re-cycling  an unwanted industrial control box  and adding an exquisite etched panel. We also took the opportunity to completely revise the wiring of the boards, simplifying them in the process.

Finally a new fiddle-yard was built  incorporating a 5' long, 5 track turntable.  We have a lot of odd-ball locos, so the central track is split into 6 sections, so that we can store a selection of locos on it.

We returned to the Mickleover exhibition in January 2011 (although the fiddle-yard was not quite ready) which gave us the chance to really test out the new track.

Mickleover exhibition 2010

Our friends from the Trent Valley group of the 7mm NGA invited us to show Anderton at their member's day in January 2010 at Mickleover.  As you can see the layout was in a very basic state at the time.

You can see here the Dexion framework in which the boards sat.

The mark 1 fiddle-yard was tried out for the first time.  It used cassettes, but we found their size made them unwieldy and made plans to change to a turntable version.

Thanks to the Trent Valley group for giving us a chance to take Anderton out for the first time and for their encouragement. Their exhibition is a really friendly event, with lots of chances to talk "narrow gauge" with like-minded colleagues.

Henmore Vale makes its annual outing and there are other selected layouts and demonstrations.  And the bacon sandwiches are brilliant as well!

At the close of the show they invited us to bring Anderton back the following year.  It sounded great, until we realised that, since we meet just once a month, we only had "12 days" before the next exhibition.

In the beginning ........

In 2008 Andy posted an invitation for interested people to form an area group in "Narrow News", the publication of the 7mm NGA.  A small group traveled from as far afield as Kidderminster and Stafford to the first meeting in "The Roebuck" pub in Wolverhampton and those present agreed to form the West Midlands group.

The group met (and continues to meet) about once a month.  The initial meetings traveled around between member's houses before settling at Pete's house in Stafford, where there is a room just long enough for the layout to be assembled in its entirety.  Andy produced the first draft of the plans for Anderton, which were discussed and agreed.  Phil of "PLM Cast-A-Ways" kindly supplied 5 sheets of thick plywood, which formed the  tops for  the baseboards.

Initially the baseboards did not have their own legs. At Ken's suggestion they were supported in a frame made of Dexion.  This was particularly useful when track-laying and wiring; a board could be lifted and clamped on its edge across the Dexion so that we could work on both sides without disturbing the other boards.  Once the track-work was completed integral legs were added to the boards and the Dexion retired.

Click here to see a video of the first run over the layout.

The track-work was hand-made by Ken, with the wiring under Andy's supervision (he is still the only one who understands the cross-over wiring!). The loco turn-table was engineered by Allen, out of brass and Meccano, with Andy adding the planking to the table itself.  


The first fiddle-yard was constructed using cassettes, but these proved too unwieldy, so Peter built  a 5' long turn-table for the fiddle yard.  Allen re-cycled an old CNC control box into a really smart control panel.


The Trent Valley group of 7mm NGA have encouraged us by inviting us to their 2010 and 2011 exhibitions. Thanks guys!

So, that's where we are in July 2011.  Track-work and wiring are pretty much finished, next stage is ballasting and scenery. But with just 12 meetings a year progress is not quick.