7mm Heybridge Basin

[Richard Gawler]

Well that was the plan


View attachment 188069
A few weeks ago I bought a second hand traverser (minus track), this already assembled from a kit by Grainge and Hodder. I was so pleased with it I ordered three new baseboard modules from the same firm to go with it.

I somehow imagined these were on a four- or six-week lead-time but they arrived last Tuesday. Knowing how modern timber goes banana-shaped within days of bringing it into the house I proceeded to ignore the wagon kit and assemble the three new baseboard modules.

One of these modules is the basis for Heybridge Basin, this will be a very simple diorama but I have started a thread for it so the posts stay together and don’t get lost between the trains here.

View attachment 188070
Heybridge Basin is part of a larger scheme with the traverser and the other two baseboard modules.

The intention is to build a fairly adaptable and reconfigurable fiddle yard which I can re-use later when I build a more sophisticated layout. Also, the 1200 mm module easily fits in the back of a Mk2 Yaris with the rear seat folded and plenty of passenger legroom. So if Heybridge Basin turns out to be any good, I can take it to shows.

My thoughts turn to a compact fiddle yard built onto Module (B). This gives it a better role than as a packing piece for crating up.

The neighbours came round with their seven-year old (good) and their two-year old (not so good!) and doubt the traverser can survive a show environment. Too many little fingers to push and pull on it, and far more appealing than the trains.


The bulbous extension on the back of the diorama takes the layout away from the back wall and there is space for a two-road sector place to swing into the void in front of the wall. Almost any superannuated tablet can display a PDF.

Pencil sharpener = short length of track
Pencil = curved edge of sector plate
Small hole = 18th at Basin Links; or for holding a tree

If the tablet didn't work out I could have a display board here to explain what the layout is trying to show.

Hmmm.

 

[76043]

I had thought of using my old 7" android tablet as a display, I know I can plug in my PowerPoint clicker to advance the slides, even more simple than my current Raspberry Pi setup.
Tony

 

[simond]

An Arduino could presumably be persuaded to behave sufficiently like a mouse to provide the “page advance” based on inputs from sector plate or similar?

 

[Richard Gawler]

An Arduino could presumably be persuaded to behave sufficiently like a mouse to provide the “page advance” based on inputs from sector plate or similar?

I would be happier with a manual push button to provide the "page advance". Less prone to false triggers, and more flexible if the sector plate doesn't move between two pages.

I suppose, the biggest decision is hardware: TV with Pi; tablet with clicker; or Arduino with 20x4 LCD. The tablet allows editing without additional hardware or going into an IDE and a compiler . . . this ought to swing the balance but there is always the inner nerd to contend with.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I have powered up the iPad in my last photo, and whilst the tablet is aesthetically rather pretty, I don't know how to use it. I have never used a Pi either.

I have a small TV which could display a slideshow, but somehow this looks clumsy beside such a small layout. Conversely the 20x4 LCD is going to look lost. I think this fits better into an interactive role like a control system.

So at the moment I fancy looking for an old Android tablet. This is a familiar OS where I can find my way around. I could build the tablet into a physical display board with a map of the whole railway. This would work for visitors who want information at a glance, as well as for those who want to read about the proceedings.

. .

PS I have just deleted a post with a video showing rope shunting because the sequencing of posts here was getting incoherent . . . thanks to everyone who took the time to watch it. The video remains on YouTube, I can send a link but it just doesn't fit here at the moment.

 

[Richard Gawler]

From time to time I read about people who have built an entire layout in a week . . . I've spent over a week on the surfacing for the goods yard.


The ground surface is from two to four layers of loose material, these laid onto neat Latex Plus a day or more apart and the final layer very lightly sanded. I have (eventually) managed a height variation of about 2 mm and I think this looks right for hoggin, roughly levelled and compacted to make a surface for horses and their waggons.


The hoggin is chinchilla dust mixed with fine brown and grey ballast and a little white sand. The multiple layers have obliterated the paint underneath. The surface is sufficiently tidy, I can add some weeds one day but I can choose where to put them and I don't have to add them now to hide mistakes.

I am finding ground work far more involving in 7 mm scale. A piece of flat card which would have looked perfectly adequate in H0 looks lifeless in the larger scale.

This now leaves me to do the water, the sky and the ballast to try to pull everything together.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

mistakes

??? we don't make mistakes we create opportunities in disguise.....

 

[simond]

A school pal of mine remarked that “experience is the name we give to our mistakes”, to which he added, as his brother and sister were some 10 or 15 years older than him, he was “one of my parents’ experiences”.

 

[Rob Pulham]

A school pal of mine remarked that “experience is the name we give to our mistakes”, to which he added, as his brother and sister were some 10 or 15 years older than him, he was “one of my parents’ experiences”.

When I was old enough to understand what he was talking about, my dad used to teasing refer to me as "Dutchy" because apparently I came about due to the failure of a Dutch Cap.

 

[Osgood]

How does that work then?

 

[Pencarrow]

A school pal of mine remarked that “experience is the name we give to our mistakes”, to which he added, as his brother and sister were some 10 or 15 years older than him, he was “one of my parents’ experiences”.

As I was explaining to a younger colleague at work the other day, you very little from a project that goes well. "Challenging" projects, the ones that make you think, solve problems and calm arguments, are where you gain so much more experience. The main thing is to learn from the challenges and avoid them next time around.

The challenge these days is to get clients and teams to act on this experience and not repeat the mistakes made before or elsewhere. I'm coming to the conclusion that experience is almost a dirty word these days as it challenges the perfect ideas and concepts laid down by those who have learnt from a book/course/YouTube.

 

[Osgood]

A school pal of mine remarked that “experience is the name we give to our mistakes”, to which he added, as his brother and sister were some 10 or 15 years older than him, he was “one of my parents’ experiences”.

As I was explaining to a younger colleague at work the other day, you very little from a project that goes well. "Challenging" projects, the ones that make you think, solve problems and calm arguments, are where you gain so much more experience. The main thing is to learn from the challenges and avoid them next time around.

The challenge these days is to get clients and teams to act on this experience and not repeat the mistakes made before or elsewhere. I'm coming to the conclusion that experience is almost a dirty word these days as it challenges the perfect ideas and concepts laid down by those who have learnt from a book/course/YouTube.

When folk asked which one of us two urchins was the elder (2 years apart), I would explain that my brother was the prototype and I was the production model.
(Mind you he got most of the intelligence, I just got a few more horsepower.....)

 

[Richard Gawler]

My partner is the youngest of eight, spread out over 20 years. This meant, as a child she never really worked out the difference between a brother and brother in law; and was younger than a few of her nieces. She always claims, her brother was a mistake; but she (born 6 years later) was a disaster

 

[Richard Gawler]

??? we don't make mistakes we create opportunities in disguise.....

I make two sorts of mistakes - making the wrong thing, and making the right thing the wrong way.

For the Heybridge Railway, I built a wagon kit for a prototype the railway doesn't need and this wagon I sold. For Heybridge Basin, I have put a gentle curve on the passenger platform because I think this looks better, but a real railway would surely build it straight in the space available. These sorts of "project validation" problem are the hardest for me to spot. I think they are more likely on a model of a might-have-been rather than a model of an actual railway, but as I've never fancied copying an exact prototype I just need to pay more attention. I suspect I don't learn a great deal from these until it's too late.

Making the right thing the wrong way is more of a "project verification" problem. Supposing I have reached the stage where I do put pegs into vulnerable joints and I do choose the right formulations of glue and solder, then these are typically more like practical impossibilities (like not leaving room to reach a screw under a loco), or building a wagon on a twist, or fixing down a model building far too soon and making something to keep getting in the way. I learn much more from these.

I write about these when they come along and I think they might catch out other people.

There are also stupifying mistakes like making a mirror image of what is wanted, and mild carelessness breaking tiny drill bits and so on which happen to everyone. I usually keep quiet about these, except perhaps when they stop the job!

I agree with Einstein, that failure is success in progress. My failures usually bring about some sort of rework (unless it's too late!) and I guess the key thing is to see opportunities to do it better next time.

I don't have any fresh modelling to show or discuss so I wrote this

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

For Heybridge Basin, I have put a gentle curve on the passenger platform because I think this looks better, but a real railway would surely build it straight in the space available.

Not necessarily, prototypes for light railway termini do (or probably more correctly - did) exist. Brill (Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad/Met/LT) was built on a slight curve despite the space available. Evidenced by photographs and the OS maps - this is from NLS OS 25 inch 1892-1914 series with the curved platform annotated in red.




We all make mistakes, errors and/or incorrect choices - especially in the early stages of a journey. In most cases it's how we overcome or adapt them to our advantage. My recent build of the Connoisseur industrial loco starter kit into a pseudo Dutch-German fun 'neverwozzer' is a case in point. Apart from it being a 'back to school' exercise to build a chassis with non-binding coupling rods - as soon as I had finished the body I realised if I had thought about it a bit more I should have lowered the boiler and made the tanks smaller to make it look more like a K.Bay.Sts.B D VI. Which is all too late now it's been painted. Stable doors and horses, etc..

 

[simond]

I recall some sound advice from David LO Smith, a very talented model engineer, who left us far too young.

I was grumbling about making mistakes when making parts.

“Simon, As I said elsewhere (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/101674-reworking-locos-from-finescalebrasssan-cheng-models/?p=1972045):

" I think the trick is to persuade yourself that the first attempt is a 'proof of concept' exercise ... and there is always the chance that the first attempt is spot on "

which you achieved; well done!”

 

[Rob R]

A little closer to Heybridge with a curved platform is Corringham.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Corringham looks like a busy place. I'm glad I've settled on one-coach trains for the Heybridge Railway.

There is a larger scan of this postcard at
Corringham railway station - Wikipedia
and it is dated 1906.

Lots of period detail here. There is a box on a pole looking just like a GSM antenna (near the lamp standard) but I'm sure it is something completely different.

 

[simond]

There is a box on a pole looking just like a GSM antenna (near the lamp standard) but I'm sure it is something completely different.

that’s what they want you to think

 

[Richard Gawler]

In terms of tech, it's really simple, a Raspberry Pi model W drives the screen, a wireless PowerPoint pen type clicker advances the screens manually. The slides are a PDF.

Advancing the slides tells the layout operator what to do too, so the PDF drives the operator.

I have bought myself an ancient (Android 4) tablet and a budget presentation clicker. The clicker works fine with my Win10 PC, but not with the tablet. No great surprises there.

The tablet is too old to work with the Google Play Store, but I have managed to install "APK Pure" and this may lead me to useful applications for it. If I find a way to scroll the screen remotely, a sheet of Perspex across the screen would stop unwanted user interactions.

My gut feeling is, the Pi tied onto the back of a TV or perhaps a small CCTV monitor is a better way to go. I may just stumble upon some useful display hardware e.g. charity shop and then I can take things on from there.