Penzance 1913

martink Aug 23, 2021

  1. martink

    martink TrainBoard Member

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    My next linear-motor-powered T Gauge layout has finally reached an interesting stage, with trains now running over the whole thing, so it was time to make a video.

    Penzance is a busy holiday terminus in the extreme bottom-left corner of England, the western extremity of the Great Western Railway. The layout is a 1:480 scale, 6x2 foot depiction of the station and approach viaduct as of 1913. This date was chosen because I wanted to include the cramped loco depot, which was moved a couple of miles up the line in 1914, and the timber trestle bridge along the beach front, which kept getting washed away by Atlantic storms and was replaced by a plain boring causeway and sea wall in 1921.

    The track plan is slightly simplified for practical reasons, but the missing tracks will be included as dummies later on. Operationally, passenger and goods trains both terminate and originate here, so the layout is built to perform hands-off shunting and loco turning. It is mainly designed for fully automatic exhibition running, but will have a control panel for full manual operation as well. It is currently using a limited 12-switch panel which allows basic movements and simple record/playback automation.




    penzance-trackplan2.jpg
     
  2. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Very slick! Very nice and smooth. Speeds a bit high, but probably helps reliability and smoothness. Looking forward to some scenery!
     
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  3. martink

    martink TrainBoard Member

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    Unlike conventional drives, running reliability is not affected by the speed. Very, very different from standard T Gauge. These beasts will happily run down to a scale walking pace (2mm/sec). I chose to run things overly fast for this video because of limitations with the temporary automation, which allows only one speed for each start-to-stop movement, and I was too lazy to wait for the next train to crawl past for a photo shoot!
     
  4. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

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    Well done.
     
  5. CNE1899

    CNE1899 TrainBoard Member

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    Martink,

    Really nice job! Love the wagons as well!
     
  6. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    Amazing... :cool:

    Even horse-drawn carriages. Though one of the horses seems to be a tad tipsy, wavering from side to side as it ambles along...:LOL:

    The blue pencil really puts everything into perspective.

    My hat's off you T scale guys.
     
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  7. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Would love to see an update on this layout, so cool!(y)
     
  8. martink

    martink TrainBoard Member

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    Good timing - I just got back to it a week ago after spending the last several months on other projects.

    Some experiments didn't quite cut the mustard, but were close enough that I will probably try again in a year or so after dreaming up a few fresh ideas (working semaphore signals in T, a very simple working model railway in 1:3000 scale, etc). Others did work out successfully but were aimed at future layouts, such as trying out models for the linear motor system down to 1:720 scale and up to NG 1:220 (there is a vid in the 3D printing category here).

    For Penzance, the entire goods yard was picked up and relaid about 15 scale yards further west, for a better but still imperfect match to the tight squeeze of the prototype even if it means more constricted (and hence realistic) operations. The track geometry is the main problem here: the wide track-to-track spacing means that things take up too much space. The sea wall and retaining walls are now in place, as are the platforms, and I have started work on the paved areas, road packing and footpaths. Rough sizing builds of the non-railway buildings are also under way. As an aid to doing the scenery, I have 3D printed a couple of tiny-scale models of the whole area, based off publicly available LIDAR mapping data. They really help with visualizing things, even if they are anachronistic by 100 years or so.

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  9. CNE1899

    CNE1899 TrainBoard Member

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    Martink,

    Nice progress! I like your building construction.
    I have used LIDAR for research and layout planning, but 3D printing, now that is cool!

    Scott
     
  10. martink

    martink TrainBoard Member

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    Designing and printing the non-railway buildings is now under way. These are being done as one print for each block along the road behind the station, between each pair of side streets, based mainly off overheads and street views in Google Earth plus whatever century-old pictures I can find. Oh, for a row of simple terrace houses!

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  11. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Wow, this is small!
     
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  12. CNE1899

    CNE1899 TrainBoard Member

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    Martink,
    Wow, a whole block! Actually, pretty efficient instead of each building at a time.
    I want to see these painted.

    Scott
     
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  13. martink

    martink TrainBoard Member

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    Given the complicated and interlocked shapes, with unique wings and extensions hanging off most buildings at all sorts of strange angles, this is definitely the simplest approach. Choosing an early time period also makes this challenging - Google Earth is a great research tool, but things have changed a lot over a hundred years.
     
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  14. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    This from a guy who's modeling in Z-scale. :LOL:

    From my scale, that's triple-extra small.:eek:

    Given the challenges of moving the trains at that scale, kudos.

    Printing a whole block of buildings at a time, great idea. A lot of housing was in the form of row houses, all stuck to one another.

    Better than printing them out one by one - an individual outhouse or shed could be mistaken for some large dandruff...o_O

    You guys never cease to amaze me.:)
     
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  15. martink

    martink TrainBoard Member

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    All of the non-railway buildings along Chyandour Cliff behind the station have now been 3D printed. That works out to about 625m of street frontage, with every building present and to the correct scale. There are some distortions, with the road and retaining wall curving differently to fit the available track pieces, and a few guesses to undo a century of changes, but close enough.

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  16. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Wow, you even have a shop with a turntable?!

    This is lookin' amazing!(y)
     
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  17. CNE1899

    CNE1899 TrainBoard Member

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    Martink,

    Looks great! I like how the row of buildings flow with the ground and road!

    Scott
     
  18. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    What's amazing is those 625 meters of frontage at this scale would neatly fit between the rails of 1:1 standard gauge (assuming 1:450 scale, about 54 inches, standard gauge being 56.5 inches).

    I bow my head in admiration. Absolutely fantastic work.:cool:
     
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  19. in2tech

    in2tech TrainBoard Member

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    Alright I had never heard of T Gauge before I clicked on this thread. I thought at first it was running on those magnets like the trolley's and stuff? Of course I then had to go down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos for T Gauge, and I can't believe how tiny this is, 1:450, I think they said? Amazing stuff @martink, how long have you been into T Gauge? For those like me that had no clue of the difference.

    T Gauge.png T Gauge Quarter.png

    Absolutely amazing! And since 2006, is that correct? And I thought my N Scale was small :)
     
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  20. martink

    martink TrainBoard Member

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    Conventional T gauge is just like the larger scales, but running on 5V instead of 12V, with a few intrepid people even using DCC. The main drawbacks are extreme vulnerability to track and wheel dirt, poor slow speed running, limited range of models, and the lack of proper turnouts. My linear motor work has been done mainly to get around those operational issues, although it has its own drawbacks.

    I think 2006 is correct for the date of introduction. I first encountered T as a small layout at a country exhibition here in Australia back in 2012, and when I saw "Orbost" by the same modeller at a bigger show the following year I was hooked. Seeing a train lost in the landscape is something that just isn't done in larger scales - in HO it would be the equivalent of a single track on a 10' wide baseboard. The one exception I am aware of is the 4mm scale "Vale of the White Horse" at Pendon Museum in England - truly superb modelling. Two more brilliant T Gauge exhibition layouts worth tracking down are "The Bridge" and its successor "The Bridges at Saltash".

    I built one significantly more modest conventional T Gauge layout in 2014 ("Sarum Bridge") and exhibited it several times over three years. I then started a much more ambitious follow-on project, but kept hesitating due to the expected operational problems, and eventually abandoned it. That is when I did a 90 degree turn and headed down my current weird and wonderful path.
     
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