Garden Railway Forum

A Delorean? Sounds intriguing....

Rik

Love to know more on the signal. Good to hear from you again.

Delorean:

Originally purchased from Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Welly-Future-D ... 000Z45PEC/
Ground away some of the bodywork underneath with a dremel and fitted a couple of Piko wheel sets.
Diecast metal bodied model so its heavy enough to stay on the rails.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFiiOONQ5MA[/video]

Pneumatic Signals:

I built these as a bit of a test just to see if it would work... and it does!

Train Controller (the computer software) detects the occupancy of a train on the bridge and sets the signal to danger accordingly.
They are moved by a point actuator (air powered point motor) so the mechanics of it all is pretty similar to Semaphores on indoor layouts in the smaller scales.
Originally i was going to hide the actuator at the base and run a wire up (more like the real thing) but i didn't have any suitable wire to hand.
I'll give these a few months and see if they last then look at building some more realistic ones and maybe add mini solar battery LED which gets blocked out red/green like the real thing.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGOsc6PcwL4[/video]

FWLR wrote: ↑Sat Apr 11, 2020 7:01 am Love to know more on the signal. Good to hear from you again.

Close up of the actuator and construction.

Level Crossing Lights:

Using 2 x 1m lengths of waterproof LED strips from - https://hartingtonheath.com/product/i-l ... -dc-14w-m/

I have previously used the cheaper sticky back strips around the outside of my house and it gave up after aprox 6 months so went for some of this. Ideal choice for under the ballast in red, its been down nearly a year now and works fine still.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA62SyXWkTE[/video]

Looks like the after effects of the Delorean slipping into the future.

Bridge was originally ordered at 1.5m long but i went up to 1.8 to fill the space a bit better.

Before: Track Removed: Original Ladder Rack Removed:

Decided i needed a bridge to support the bridge so built one from aluminium angle i had lying around.

Hammered the supporting structure down level and sat bridge on top.
Filled with soil.
Added slate to match the rest (i thought about adding water / a pond for aprox 3 seconds)
Added some LED solar batter lights for night time

Then i made a video... why not!
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAhEjptSWng[/video]

Nice video and a brilliant bridge.

That level crossing scene was the last BTTF film wasn't it. Of course I could be wrong..

Wow great Delorian and signal though I am most impressed with the bridge built from aluminium angle "just lying around"

Jimmyb wrote: ↑Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:59 am Wow great Delorian and signal though I am most impressed with the bridge built from aluminium angle "just lying around"

Sorry, The Red bridge was built by www.mvlbridges.co.uk - i built the rather less impressive non-painted, now burried, support structure underneath from the stuff that was 'lying around' - (it was lying around because after it was delivered i discovered quickly i couldn't build anything anywhere near the quality that MVL could so ordered from them!)

Well, whilst theres not much else going on i'm going to install a new siding which will allow for a couple more trains to run at the same time under automation (currently 4 run without issue or traffic jams but this will make is 5, possibly 6)

Options A & B being considered are below, i'm favouring B as it effectively extends the station bypass line and could be formed of two short blocks (i.e the computer will be able to store two trains here one behind the other) as its just over 4m long.

Option A:
Inside the outer loop Option B:
Alongside the double track along back fence

B looks like the easier option.

Parts ordered for option B

Update on previously installed sidings down side of garage which were completed approx 9 months ago.

Plan Checking track
Job underway

Job Complete!