Ground Throws.

Or point levers if you're unfamiliar with US model railroading.......

One advantage of using the Peco Setrack points is that,  having dead frogs, they don't need polarity switching so you can, if you wish, change the points by pushing the tiebars across.

This is great in the context of their intended train set use but in my experience, doing this repeatedly can eventually lead to failure of the tiebar as it's all too easy to push down slightly on the end of it, bending it downwards.

Also in layout use it's not ideal as when pulling the tiebar towards you, getting hold of it can be awkward, leading to possible damage.

So......some sort of remote means of changing the points is A Good Thing.

There are several ways of doing this: bicycle spokes under the baseboard, wire-in-tube, solenoid point motors, servos are all fairly common.

However,  I decided to use Caboose Industries Ground Throws.
These are made in Freeport, Illinois in the USA and are available in the UK from specialist importers of American model railroading supplies.

They're moulded in Delrin, which is a very strong, "slippery" plastic and consist of a lever which operates via a kind of cam to change the direction of throw by 90 degrees.

They come with clever adaptors which plug in to the operating bar to enable them to be used with most makes of points,  including Peco.

Installation is very simple, you position the point lever vertically, position the point tiebar mid-travel (a couple of bits of thin plastic or wood between the stock and switch rails helps hold it in place), pop the hole in the end of the ground throw's operating rod over the pin on the end of the tiebar and mark the positions of the ground throw mounting holes on the baseboard.
Check that the ground throw isn't mounted too high or low with respect to the tiebar (to high and it'll become disengaged in operation and/or catch up on passing bits of rolling stock,  too low and it bends both operating rod and tiebar which will probably lead to premature failure). Shims are provided with the ground throws but you may need to use wood or styrene sheet to get the correct height.

I used tiny screws supplied for mounting Kadee/Microtrains couplers to fix the ground throws in place although small nails would do if used with care.

The video shows the ground throws in use......

Playing trains.

Before I commit myself irrevocably to the location of the track by painting and ballasting it, I've been shunting wagons around.....up to now, completely randomly.

Yesterday I decided that it was time to try doing the Inglenook Sidings game properly.

First I listed the eight different wagons that are currently on the layout, assigning each a number from 1 to 8.

Then I needed some way of randomly selecting a five wagon train to make up from the randomly placed stock on the layout.....traditionally people have used dice, a multi-sided spinner, cards or tiddly winks but as I had a smart phone in my hand, I found a free random number generator app, which can be customised to generate a number between the values of your choice, in this case 1 to 8.

To make up a list of wagons I can now use the number generator; OK so sometimes I get repeats of numbers already drawn so I just hit the button again....just as I would with dice or a spinner.

A quick shunting session ensued, the only issue being that I have made the sidings slightly longer than the three wagon lengths they should be, and the "main line" the whole length of the baseboard where for the game only five wagons are allowed.

If I want to stick to the Inglenook rules I will either have to physically prevent myself from putting more than the permitted number of wagons on each track, remember not to do so......or just cheat!

When the layout is more developed I might sort out some way of adding a temporary buffer stop to each track...I don't want to shorten the tracks permanently as I may sometimes want to "just shunt"  without playing the game.

All good fun......perhaps I should get out more!

Simon.

Dead Frogs In A Swedish Box

There, is that an obscure enough title?

Actually, if you're into 009 railway modelling or building micro layouts in general, then it probably isn't that obscure at all.

Hopefully this will be an account of the construction of a small 009 shunting layout based on Alan Wright's classic "Inglenook Sidings" scheme.

The project has come about partly as a result of Peco releasing (and my local model shop stocking) some 9" radius Insulfrog points in their Setrack range of plug-and-play 009 track, and partly because I had a growing number of 009 wagons that were too big for my other 009 layout.

Insulfrog is Peco's brand name for those of their points which have insulated or "dead" frogs made of plastic as opposed to Electrofrog, which have metal frogs which require polarity switching and thus are less suited to casual "train set" operation.

The Swedish Box is an IKEA APA box, which is a flat packed toy box about 25" x 12" x 9" on the inside, which makes them ideal for building a very small model railway in.

I had previously bought a couple of these with the intention of building layouts in them;two years later I have finally got round to starting one!

I suppose a photo would be a good idea......this should show the basics of the layout; the APA box with a piece of 1/2" ply cut to fit snugly inside it, with a cut out in the front for a small water feature.
Various items of rolling stock are scattered around as are the two Peco points.....