Expo EM in Bracknell is relatively local for us so subsequent meetings often consist of members showing off their various purchases on our test track and this year was no exception. A particularly impressive find came from Clive H in the shape of an entire Ian Kirk Quint-Art set. There was some suggestion that it might be suitable for our Parkstone layout which is currently under construction.
Over the last few meetings, members have brought in a selection of interesting engines to run on our test track. These have included a Hornby Castle repaired by Mike E, a Bachmann Ivatt Class 4MT and a Heljan Class 26.
GWR fans (of which we have several) were most impressed by a Rapido Y4 Banana Van brought in by Clive R. The underframe detail is superb, but there was concern about how best to adapt it for EM. The brake gear has been inset to align with the OO wheels and considerable surgery might be needed to move it back out to 18.2 mm.
On the layout front, Chris H continues to push forward with the scenic extension to Chitterne (as well as many other projects!). He has constructed plain card mock-ups of the relevant buildings and sketched out the road layout on the extension board. Some time was spent discussing the arrangement of the buildings and how to seamlessly join the extension to the rest of the layout. We also need to figure out how to extend and improve the backscene.
Conversion of Navigation Road from end-to-end to round-and-round configuration has been debated in detail with particular input from our baseboard supremo, Jeff. We have some existing unused boards to form the fiddle yard but new or modified boards will be needed for the curved sections. A basic design has been discussed with the key conclusion that the new configuration won’t be available for exhibitions until next year.
Richard S has been trying to repair two of the groups ancient “Pentroller” DC controllers. These are quite complex circuits with back EMF regulation and a separate “brake” control. Without a circuit diagram, Richard had to trace out the circuits and discovered that the two controllers were actually different inside!!
Richard has now built a computer simulation and understands how they work but hasn’t yet figured out exactly what is wrong. We are keeping our fingers crossed as we currently only have one working controller for our multi-gauge test track.
This report – written by Richard Simpson – appears in issue 240 of the EM Gauge Society newsletter.