4mm Ruabon Junction

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Ruabon is not that far from Shrewsbury which was often visited by Princess Coronations when on running in duties after visiting Crewe Works. Their run was, I think, Crewe to Whitchurch to Shrewsbury, return via Wellington . No, a return via Chester would do it! And always immaculate too! Of course, my choice would be 5A's own 46235 which Hornby covered a few years ago.

Keep posting, Larry, my mojo is slowly coming back!
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
If I want to run a new Hornby Large Prairie then all the Insulfrog points will have to be removed. This lightweight model requires glass-sheet perfect track. The plastic body is not weighted but there is room in the side tanks for lead sheet or multiples of sheet.

EDIT: 7.8.20: I found that something on the board was not properly attached, hence the sparking. I discarded the board and wired the loco straight from the pick-ups and it's performance is startling to say the least. All it needs now is a new set of rear drivers to cure the limp.
WEB Large Prairie 2.jpg
 
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Phil O

Western Thunderer
Larry,

If you go DCC with the layout, you could fit the 72 with a stay alive chip, which would keep it going through the point work. Can't give any further info, as I am strictly DC.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
PhilH came round today to loan me his portable compressor (following Covid-19 rules of course). He also brought a tin of scrap lead. I shaped two solid blocks to wedge and glue onto the Hornby Large Prairie chassis. The much-needed additional weight has made a really big difference to the running qualities and I now feel confident about giving it DCC + sound. Thanks Philip....

WEB Large Prairie weight.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Track has now been weathered. Rail sides were painted with Precision 'Rusty Rails' colour. I then mixed a diluted lighter shade with more yellow in cellulose and sprayed the ballast and sleepers...
WEB Track colour 1.jpg
It looks a lot different from a couple of days ago, but with Insulfrog double and single slips replaced by simple electrofrog turnouts, the layout is a lot more reliable....
WEB Track colour 2.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
The platforms were glued down today, then a start was made on the ready to plonk footbridge. I found a very similar prototype at Tavistock South. The model was too tall and so the staircases were sunk into holes in the platform and the support legs shortened. Then it received a coat of white primer followed by cream. Parts will be picked out in brown tomorrow...
WEB footbridge 1.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
Painting the detail on the footbridge was done today. The rivets are right at the edge of the strapping and make painting straight edges very difficult... Should have filed 'em or'f.....

WEB Footbridge 2.jpg

The soot mark looks over egged but I copied the bridge at Ruabon. It was constrained by the strapping. Locos of Up trains tended to stand right beneath the bridge...
WEB Footbridge 3.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Compare the brick plinth supporting the footbridge with the one in the previous post. Sadly, I accidentally demolished my umpteenth RTP cattle dock this afternoon ~ They don't last at the front of my layouts! So seeing as I had to build a new horse landing, I decided the temporary accessibility could be used to rebuild the footbridge plinth and platform slope to be more like the real Ruabon....
WEB Footbridge 4.jpg

With new new cobbled surface came a complete repaint & weathering, as I was never satisfied with the previous grey cobblestones...
WEB Footbridge 5.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Thank you. Platform paving was Slaters embossed Plastikard 4mm while the edging slabs were 7mm. The granite setts were Wills SSMP204 plastic sheet.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Hornby Large Prairie was a heap of crap from the very beginning and caused me to replace all the Insulfrog slips with Electrofrog turnouts. Today, I hung some coaches behind it today it would barely pull them. Ominous smell prompted a body removal. The circuit board was smoking. It has not been touched and remains DC. Now it's a non-runner.

Anyone else had a bad 'un?
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
Hornby Large Prairie was a heap of crap from the very beginning and caused me to replace all the Insulfrog slips with Electrofrog turnouts. Today, I hung some coaches behind it today it would barely pull them. Ominous smell prompted a body removal. The circuit board was smoking. It has not been touched and remains DC. Now it's a non-runner.
Anyone else had a bad 'un?

Are you able to isolate the motor and test this to see if it still works? If so I would rip out the electronics and rewire directly to the pickups. If this works then a DCC decoder can be hardwired at later date. If it's only the weight you've added then the loco should really go back to the vendor/manufacturer.

I tend to remove the circuit boards including gimmicks such as glowing fireboxes from most, if not all, of my HO and O scale locomotives. I've found circuit boards take up too much and create dead space. I either make my own circuit boards or re-route wiring to fit around the internal stuff (motors, drive shafts, gearboxes, etc) so I can plan for the installation of DCC (sound/non-sound) decoders, speakers and lights at a later date.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Normally I would simply have directly wired the motor to the pickups and discarded the circuit board, but I omitted to mention the loco runs with a swanking motion as if one of the driving wheels is oval or non concentric. I didn't get chance to discover which wheel was the culprit.

The track layout has seen more minor changes to improve operation, but there is no point in posting pictures.
 
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paulc

Western Thunderer
Hi Larry , i was sorry to see the slips go , so if the Prarie is persona non grata does this mean the slips are back ?
Cheers Paul
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Hi Paul,

Slips look good and can play a valuable part in operation if locos don't stall. I would dearly like to use one in particular. Recent changes to trackwork have come up with something that works operationally and no locos are ever likely to stall.

There was a goods loop, but I would never have used it as such. It is now more use as a run-round loop adjacent to the bay platform.....
WEB Ruabon Track 17.jpg

The run-round in the Down goods yard was a waste and was removed. This allowed the coal staithes to serve a track further away from the edge of the baseboard and increase the width of the yard near the shed. The two outer sidings on the left are for marshalling Up goods trains....
WEB Ruabon track 17B.jpg

Also done some grassing using assorted static grasses....
WEB Ruabon track 19A.jpg
 
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