First Floor

The first floor walls went in last night.  The wall coverings were made up on PowerPoint with Scalescene doors added.  Concrete walling is also from Scalescene.

The lighting has been connected up internally.  Some of the wires will be covered by the flooring - let's hope we have no electrical issues!

Apologies for the poor quality photos (taken on my phone).  I'll add some better photos soon.

Winter Project

With the cold weather now upon us, the loft once again becomes an uncomfortable place to work.  So, this winter's project is to be the station building at Hannerton which can be built 'off-site'.  The base was prepared some weeks ago, but I've started to build on it now.  In the photos below the base is offered up to check for clearances against the trains.

The station building is to be based loosely on Birmingham New Street, some photos of which are shown below.  Hannerton station building will be significantly smaller than New Street, but hopefully I can portray the style and feel of New Street.  Time will tell.....

A Bit More Paving

Hannerton New Street Progress

Support pillars now in place under Hannerton Station Building

Stairways constructed from some scrap steps and cardboard -  they still need painting  and cladding in tiles

 

Busy scene at Hannerton

More pavements in the town

It's been a long time......

With a number of things happening over the summer, time to spend on the railway has been way down the priority list - in fact, it had dropped off the bottom!  However, yesterday evening I did manage to spend a couple of hours doing some bits and pieces.

Work was concentrated around Hannerton Station.  First job was to paint some whitemetal lamp posts that I've had for months and months.  A quick spray of Halford's car primer, followed by picking the lamps out in gloss white and they were ready for planting.

Lamp posts in grey primer

Lamp covers picked out in gloss white

Lamps planted in Hannerton Station platforms

I've also added some population to the platforms

The base of the station building temporarily supported on wooden piers

 I've also started the lamp posts for the road.  I ordered a pack of 20 off e-bay (again - many months ago).  They are pretty crude off-white mouldings, but with a bit of cleaning up and a coat of gloss blue paint, they look ok.

Street lamps in primer

First 2 lamp posts in position

The roads around Hannerton have also had a coat of grey paint

The pillars that will support the station building now have they  'Birmingham New Street' style tiles

More Walls

Arches

Work continues with the retaining wall at the rear of the station.  These arches will form the rear support of the station building that will span the tracks and platform.

More Walls

I've now finished paving the slabbed area and built the parapet walls.

Paving the Way

After a dry spell (in modelling, not the weather!) I did some work last night on the pavements in Hannerton town centre.  Thanks to a bit of careful forethought I've managed to use the piece of card that forms the basis of the pavement to also form the capping stones on the top of the walls.

The cardboard base for the pavement cut out and loosely placed as a trial.

All the papers are from Scalescenes, here the capping stone has been added to the edge of the cardboard and most of the paving slabs have been fitted. 

One of the upper walls loosely fitted in place.

Favourite Photos

I've added a new page with some of my favourite photos - it can be found here.

More Retaining Walls

'Building work' has commenced on the retaining wall along the back Hannerton New Street Station.  It still needs the wall built at the top to prevent pedestrians from falling to their death.

Platforms 1 & 2

I've finished building platforms 1 & 2 at Essington New Street.

First Signals Installated

Having completed the signal control circuitry I can now start installing the signals.  I bought the signals several months ago from eBay.  They were cheep and therefore (unsurprisingly) there is scope for improvement!

1. The ladder is a very crude moulding - the plan is to replace these with Ratio signal ladders from the scrap box.
2. I'll add some detailing (one day!) such as signal numbers on the posts.
3. Electrically, the red and green LEDs vary hugely is their brightness.  After experimentation on the bench, I've ended up using a much higher resistor on the green LED to reduce its brightness down to something similar to the red (red LED uses 330Ω and the green LED uses 62k).

I've made up a connecting plate from a small piece of stripboard for each signal.  The stripboard contains the LEDs and gives me somewhere to solder the signal wires to.

Stripboard connecting plate containing the resistors prior to fitting under the baseboard

The first connecting plate in position with the signal wires soldered to it

The first signal wired up - stop!

The first signal wired up - go!

Below is a video of the signals in operation.

Signal Circuitry Complete!

Having completed the wiring of the control circuitry for the signals I finally had chance to plug the board into the control panel and test it.  It didn't work!  It took we quite a while to track the fault down, which turned out not to be a 'fault' as such - more of a design flaw!  However, once I understood the problem it was quickly overcome with the addition of 4 resistors.

The video below is intended to show the signalling in operation - it's not the greatest quality, and the green and red LEDs on the control panel are difficult to differentiate between - but hopefully you'll get the idea.

The sequence in the video is as follows:

1. The first train to depart is the HST from platform 2 in an eastbound direction (right to left)
2. The points are set for the departure road by pressing the relevant push button
3. The 'Eastbound Departure' button is pressed and the relevant signal changes to green
4. The train departs
5. As the train enters the tunnel it triggers the track circuit which automatically sets the signal back to red
6. The whole process is then repeated for a westbound departure from platform 3

Signal Control Completed

I've finished the control board for the signals - just need to test it now!

Signalling Success

I've finished the electronics for the 4 signals at the east end of the station.  To my surprise there were only 2 mistakes (after I realised I'd plugged one of the connectors in backwards!).  Current consumption is up and my 12V 500mA PSU can't cope any more (the IR LEDs take a big chunk each, plus numerous red and green LEDs at 10mA each) so a 2.5A PSU is on order.

At this stage it is only the mimic signals on the control panel that work.  Fitting the actual signals should now be a relatively easy task of running the control wires back to the control panel (the wiring in the control panel is already complete).

The signals work exactly as in planned:

1. The correct route is selected (i.e. set the points)
2. Press the 'Eastbound Departure' button
3. The signal for the selected route changes from red to green
4. As the train departs and activates the track circuit in the tunnel, the signal automatically changes back to red

I've now removed the control panel and taken it back to work where I'll build up the circuit for the west end of the station.  I'm also pondering having an automatic signal outside the tunnel on the eastbound approach.  This will, probably, be automatic.

The control board in place in the control panel at Hannerton New Street

The top right section is for the west bound departures - the sockets are fitted, but no wiring yet.

The colours on the photo aren't great - but you can just make out the mimic signal  in platform  3 is 'pulled off'