Soldering On

Up until now I've been testing the locos on the layout with a couple of pieces of speaker wire, attached at one end to my venerable H & M controller and held onto the rails at the other with my fingers. Apart from the dexterity required to stop the two pieces of wire touching, I also had to dodge speeding locos. Time to Do It Properly.

Express Models sell DCC kits comprising of wire with a gauge suitable for the power bus; thinner gauge to link from the bus to the rails; crimps and spade connectors. The kits contain more than I needed so I picked the bits I wanted separately and sent an order. A few days ago it arrived and I spent a wet Saturday wiring up the layout.

Goody bags

Accepted practice wiring for DCC train operation is to run a power bus - basically two cables with a reasonably meaty cross section, one for positive, the other negative - underneath the baseboard. To this are attached a number of thinner wires, the other ends of which are soldered to the track. I decided to run my power bus as a loop, the ends joined to a terminal block. It doesn't have to be a loop; a long length of cable running to each end of the baseboard will work too. My power bus wires are held up by threading them through plastic loops originally bought for home cinema wiring (I knew they'd come in handy one day).

I drilled through the baseboard next to the track for the dropper wires in several places, chosen to eliminate dead spots no matter how the points are set. Prior to soldering the dropper wires to the track I used a small rat-tail file to clean the side of the rails at the point they were to be soldered. This cleaned off the crud and helped ensure a better joint. Some solder was then applied to the sides of the rails; the ends of the dropper wires were tinned and then soldered to the rails.

Once I had soldered the dropper wires I realised, from the cramped and awkward space that exists under the baseboard, that the spade connectors wouldn't crimp onto the wires but needed to be soldered too. I'd have to hold the wire with one hand, the connector with the other and manipulate the soldering iron with my third. Bugger. Eventually I figured by tinning the connector and holding it against the wire with a pair of pliers I could heat them both with the soldering iron and obtain a good joint. The crimps were then fastened to the bus wires by squeezing them closed with a pair of pliers and the spade connectors were then attached to the crimps.

Knit one, purl one

All that remained to do was link a couple of wires from the bus to the H & M controller and turn the knob. I was rewarded by the shunter moving smoothly along the track much better than before, solely due to having more power feeds which reduced the power losses through the track joints.

There was only one glitch which was caused by the electrofrog point, or rather how I had installed it. To stop short circuits you need to use insulated rail joints, which I'd done. What I hadn't done was to put them on the correct rails, so as soon as I switched the point to another route it created a short circuit. I moved the errant joiner so that both insulated joiners were adjacent to one another on the rails coming from the frog and the problem was solved.

As cabled the layout works OK if there's only one DC loco on the layout. All tracks are live so if another loco was placed anywhere else on the layout it would also move, and in the same direction. The next step is to purchase a DCC controller and loco, which I plan to do at the forthcoming International N Gauge Show.

Tying Up Loose Ends

The points I ordered from Hattons arrived the other day. They were well packed; smothered in bubble wrap and somewhat lost in a large box. Along with the points I needed I also ordered an electrofrog point as an experiment. I've never used one of these before as the wiring for them is a bit trickier then the insulfrog variety.

Track in a box

The point came nestled in a slinky plastic wrapper and I was impressed by how good it looked. It's much more realistic than the insulfrog points which now look rather ugly. Damn. It seems I will have to replace them. The electrofrog point came with an instruction leaflet that outlined how to wire up a layout to avoid short circuits. This is the added complication with this type of point, but it looks so much better it's going to be worth the head-scratching with the wiring.


Joined Up Thinking

The result of the points arrival is that the main running tracks are now complete, with only a couple of sidings left to do. There's a bit more construction to do for the high-level branch line station that I'm going to defer until I'm happy with the running quality of the main tracks and have wired them up.

I'll digress slightly at this point to explain how the track has been connected. All the plain track is Peco Streamline; this enables smooth curves of varying radii and reduces the number of joints which improves electrical conductivity. Inevitably the track has to be cut to length and I'll explain the way I do this.

Before any piece of track is fixed I place it into position to check the length and mark where it needs to be cut by nipping the rails with wire clippers. The advantage with N gauge track is that the rails are a similar thickness to mains electrical cable which means they can be cut with standard wire clippers. This can be exciting when the length of rail to be cut is quite short as the waste piece can shoot across the room. I've not yet been hit by a ricochet but there must be many pieces of sharp metal in the carpet waiting for unwary bare feet.

Cut here

Once cut to length I turn over the piece of track and trim the sleepers. This will also reveal the disadvantage with the wire clipper method: the small lumps of metal on the underside of the rails caused by the clippers squeezing the track when it's cut. You may just be able to see them on the picture above. These have to be filed flat or the track joiners will not slide onto the rails. At the same time I will use the same flat file to file the ends of the rails. A rat-tail file is used to clean the sides of the rails to improve electrical conductivity between the rails and the track joiners.

File under flat

Once filing is complete I will then use a craft knife to trim away the sleeper chairs from the end sleeper. This makes the fitting of the track joiners much easier. Once the track has been fixed down I occasionally need to slip a sleeper between the two pieces of track if the gap between the sleepers is too wide.


We're Going Round In Circles

Once the main running tracks were finished I was able to test them by running a selection of locomotives round them, rather than pushing a coach. Generally I was pleased with the results but there were a couple of areas of concern. One is a joint on a curve the outer track that seems to cause a problem for a couple of locos; the other is the transition between the flat and the incline that's adjacent to a point.

The latter area didn't surprise me and I will need to insert a shim under the track to ease the transition. Only the Graham Farish Class 47 has real problems here and that's because it has the longest wheelbase. My main concern was that the gradients would prove too much for the locos but that hasn't been the case, although I still need to test them with wagons and carriages. If they don't cope I am resigned to removing the high level trackwork.

Completion of the running tracks has given me the excuse to unpack some of the locos that have been stored in the attic for years. What struck me most was how basic some of the models appear in comparison to those in production now. The exception to this was the Roco class BR144 electric with levels of detail that still stand up to today's models.

Roco Class BR144

I have a weakness for old electric locos, especially those from Germany and Switzerland. It was this fondness that made it a tough choice of whether to model this or British Railways. However, somewhat disappointingly, the Class 144 ran very poorly so will need some maintenance.

Of the other locos I tried the best running was a Minitrix Class 27, but then this model has always held that position.

Minitrix Class 27

Whilst the body is fairly convincing the chassis belongs to a different loco altogether, possibly some German type that Minitrix pressed into service for the Class 27. This class of locos was mainly used in Scotland and was probably as unlikely to have visited the area I'm modelling as the German electric.

At the opposite end of the quality scale is the Lima Class 31. The Lima N gauge range was cheap and cheerful and I bought a couple of coaches to go along with this loco. The Class 31's bodywork gives the impression of being overscale but, unlike the Class 27, the chassis is more convincing.

Lima Class 31

This class of loco is fairly typical of the ones that will have been used in the area I'm modelling so it's likely to be pressed into service. The Graham Farish Class 47 was the least happy with the trackwork and didn't run too smoothly either. Mind you after 25 years of inactivity I'd be a bit stiff too.

Graham Farish Class 47

This is a good looking model and at the time it was in production was one of the best locos in the Graham Farish range. It holds up quite well against the current version of this model and will probably be worth trying to convert it to DCC as this too will fit into the time and area I'm wanting to reproduce.

I will run the layout as DC initially as all my current locos are this type. All future models I buy will be DCC and I will gradually replace all the DC models (converting those that are worth keeping). I intend to visit the International N Gauge Show in September where I hope to pick up a DCC controller and the first of my DCC locos.