TVT - First Turnout and Infrastructure

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tom_tom_go
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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by tom_tom_go » Thu Oct 04, 2018 4:57 pm

Well hello Grant :mrgreen:

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by Peter Butler » Thu Oct 04, 2018 5:53 pm

I have been watching this thread with great interest but the engineering skill level is way beyond my abilities. Well done Graeme and welcome back Grant.
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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by Soar Valley Light » Thu Oct 04, 2018 7:53 pm

Hi Graeme,

This is proper permanent way engineering, scale is irrelevant with work of this calibre. The same techniques would work just as well in 12" to the foot scale. I have no doubt that all this careful work will repay itself in spades with reliable running. Well done and thanks for the inspiration! :D

Hi Grant,

Nice to see you posting again. :thumbup:

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by tom_tom_go » Thu Oct 04, 2018 7:59 pm

I wish Peco would do what Graeme has done and model the extended sleepers for point levers.

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by FWLR » Fri Oct 05, 2018 12:41 pm

GTB wrote: Thu Oct 04, 2018 1:53 pm
FWLR wrote: Thu Oct 04, 2018 8:42 am One thing though, I have counted 5. Did you already have one made before mate.
If you read the first post in the thread, the Y turnout was built first as a test, to determine if the methods I used in HO could be scaled up to Fn3 scale. It was successful, so the others were built as a batch some months later.

Graeme
I did read the post Graeme…I realised after I posted that you did say you built a test first….. :roll: :roll:

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by Mitch stack » Sat Oct 06, 2018 12:45 am

Marvelous Work Graeme., Looks absolutely fantastic especially the point levers! I hope you have been looking at progress on my little Tramway.


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Re: TVT - More Infrastructure (was First Turnout Completed)

Post by GTB » Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:28 pm

Due to the local topography, my house is cut into the ground and the back part of the block is raised about 1m above the path around the house, with steps for access. This is where most of the TVT mainline will be located, so a removable bridge over the steps is needed to allow access to the area inside the track.

I decided on a Pratt Truss type, based on one in an article in Garden Rail Issue 212. The VR built very few of this type of bridge, preferring to use either timber trestles, or decked plate girder bridges for long spans and there was nothing like it on the VR NG lines. I like them though and they were common in NSW, so it is assumed the Works Engineer worked on the NSWGR, before joining the TVT......

The area I live is a declared subterranean termite area (they don't build mounds around here, the nests are completely underground), so metal construction is a good idea in any case. The bridge was constructed from extruded aluminium angle from the local Mitre 10, bolted together with stainless steel M3 bolts and nuts, so it should outlast me. Strength is more than adequate for the job, but it weighs only 5kg, which is less than the Garratt and the large tender locos., so removing it for access is easy.

Some marketing 'genius' has recently changed the length of the longer aluminium extrusions in the local hardware stores from 2m to 3m and it was a tight squeeze to get them into the car. The width of the steps dictated that the bridge needed to be 1.6m long, so too long to build out of the more easily handled 1m lengths.

The first photo shows the base assembled. The track is designed to locate between two 20mm x 1.5mm angles and a piece of AMS sleeper strip can be seen checking that it will indeed fit. The lower chord of the truss is made from 25mm x 3mm angle, as are the cross members. The walkways along the side of the track are 32mm x 3mm flat. A VR bridge would be decked and ballasted, but I decided against doing that.

Bridge-1.jpg
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The next photo shows one of the side trusses being erected, with some parts bolted in place and others still clamped as work progresses. The top chord and vertical braces are 20mm x 1.5mm angle. The braces were drilled and the ends tapered, then clamped in place with toolmakers clamps to be used to drill the holes in the top and bottom chord angles. Much easier to keep everything square that way.

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The third photo shows the bridge with both side trusses installed, the 20mm x 1.5mm top cross braces in place and the 12mm x 1.5mm angle braces in the truss being installed. The bridge became noticeably much stiffer once the angled braces were installed in the trusses and there was no visible deflection when the bridge was supported only at the ends and I pressed down hard. It won't notice the weight of the Garratt, or the local brushtail possum and cat populations if it comes to that.

Bridge-3.jpg
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The next photo shows the side trusses complete, but the 12mm x 1.5mm angle braces on the top and bottom still need to be added. While the bridge was now rigid vertically, the horizontal and torsional strength was still low.

Bridge-4.jpg
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The next photo shows the bridge fully assembled, with the Hunslet loco sitting on a short piece of track to provide an idea of the scale of the bridge. This is by far the largest model I've built since changing scale and it barely fits on the workbench. With the angle braces in place on the top and bottom, the bridge was now as strong torsionally as it was under vertical and horizontal loads.

Bridge-5.jpg
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The sun was out today and the next photo shows the bridge outside in late afternoon sunshine spanning the steps up to the back of the block. It is sitting on bricks to bring it up to about the same height above the path that it will occupy when the track is installed. Interestingly it looks a lot smaller in place than it does inside on the workbench. The only job left now is to paint it, which can wait until it is installed.

Bridge-6.jpg
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The last photo shows the tools used for this project. This is here to show you don't need much in the way of workshop equipment for this sort of project. The only machine tool used was the bench drill when drilling some of the boltholes, everything else was fabricated with hand tools. The skills needed weren't much different to woodworking.

There was no space left on the workbench once the bridge assembly started, so all the tools had to sit on the small side bench I normally use for metal work. Cutting parts to length and shaping the ends was done with the piercing saw and cleaned up with files. While aluminium extrusions can be cut with a woodworking bandsaw, the parts were all too long to fit my little 6" bandsaw. The same with drilling holes, small parts were drilled with the bench drill, but the long parts were too large and unwieldy for that, so the finished small parts were clamped in place and used as templates to drill the long parts using the battery drill.

Bridge-7.jpg
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Regards,
Graeme

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by philipy » Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:16 pm

Very impressive Sir!
Looking forward to seeing the bridge in situ, how long do you reckon we might have to wait?
Philip

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by Clockwork » Sun Oct 14, 2018 10:41 pm

Really nice work Graeme a brilliant looking turnout and a nicely modelled girder bridge :thumbleft:
Kevin :thumbleft:

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by LNR » Sun Oct 14, 2018 11:57 pm

You've been busy again. Running by Christmas then!!!
Grant.

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by FWLR » Mon Oct 15, 2018 7:27 am

Nice job there Graeme. :thumbright:

Is that were it’s going to be placed…

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by ge_rik » Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:02 am

Great looking bridge, Graeme. Good to see the workshop that produced it too. Gives we non-engineers hope and reassurance.

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by GTB » Mon Oct 15, 2018 1:26 pm

ge_rik wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:02 am Gives we non-engineers hope and reassurance.
There was a sign on a wall of the engineering office near my lab. 'Last week I couldn't spell injunear, now I are one.'

Actually, I studied science and spent my working life in a laboratory. I'm more a self-taught tradesman than an engineer, so yes there is hope for non-engineers. 8)

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Graeme

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by GTB » Mon Oct 15, 2018 1:31 pm

FWLR wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 7:27 am Is that were it’s going to be placed…
Probably. It may end up mounted higher off the ground when construction starts........

Graeme

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Re: TVT - First Turnout Completed

Post by ge_rik » Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:19 pm

GTB wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 1:26 pm There was a sign on a wall of the engineering office near my lab. 'Last week I couldn't spell injunear, now I are one.'
Regards,
Graeme
Wow.... that's spooky! I was in London at the weekend and popped into Foyles Bookshop. I found a Christmas present there for my brother who used to be a mechanical engineer (initially working on large diesel engines for Davy Paxman). The strapline on the back of the book is very similar ......
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Re: TVT - First Turnout and Infrastructure

Post by Mitch stack » Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:53 pm

Great work on the Truss Bridge Graeme. Hope to see your line up and running in the future.

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Re: TVT - First Turnout and Infrastructure

Post by GTB » Fri Oct 26, 2018 12:49 pm

One more step on the road to a running track.........

AMS (Accucraft) 45mm ng track isn't currently available in assembled form here in Oz. I was able to get an unused box of assembled track from a friend of Grant, but phase 1 of the track needs more than 60', so I also had to lay in a supply of rail and sleeper strips and assemble the rest myself. AMS code 250 rail comes in 5' lengths and the sleeper strips are 12" long with 11 sleepers.

Some experimentation showed that threading the sleepers on the rail took a fair bit of force and a lot of time, so I ended up building a simple wooden jig that would hold the sleepers square and at the right spacing, while the rail was pushed through the moulded spikes and sleeper plates.

The first photo shows the jig in use. It is simply two pieces of wood with cleats nailed on at sleeper spacing. The longer piece is gripped in the bench vice, then the rails are slid into a sleeper strip and that assembly clamped in place. The shorter piece slides on a couple of bits of wood clamped to the bench. It is loaded with a strip of sleepers and pushed into place so the sleepers slide over the rail. Then repeat until all five sleeper strips are in place.

Track-1.jpg
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It might have been a bit easier if the rail was lubricated, but I didn't have any of the soap solution used when fitting tyres to wheel rims and a petroleum based lube could well attack the plastic rail fixings over time.

The second photo shows the result of two afternoons work with the assembly jig stacked on the workbench. There are 15 lengths of track in the pile, so about half the track needed for the mainline loop, if my maths is right. The rest is in a box under the bench, so the next step is putting posts in the ground.........

Track-2.jpg
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Regards,
Graeme
Last edited by GTB on Sat Oct 27, 2018 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: TVT - First Turnout and Infrastructure

Post by philipy » Fri Oct 26, 2018 2:28 pm

Most impressive Graeme.

What sort of timescale do you have in the back of your mind?
Philip

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Re: TVT - First Turnout and Infrastructure

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Oct 26, 2018 3:49 pm

That track looks huge to the Peco SM32 stuff I use!

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Re: TVT - First Turnout and Infrastructure

Post by BorisSpencer » Fri Oct 26, 2018 4:01 pm

tom_tom_go wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 3:49 pm That track looks huge to the Peco SM32 stuff I use!
But what I'd give for 5ft lengths!

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