The Railway Room

This post is another precursor to my intended post about "My Father". There were two attic rooms in 16 Broad Street (now it has been converted to the County Library these rooms seem to have disappeared, possibly because the access via a steep stairway was considered too dangerous). One was my older sister's bedroom and the other was the "Railway Room". Of course we wanted to extend the railway into the bedroom but the Committee of Ways and Means (or at least the general consensus!) did not allow this.

I have no doubt that the seeds of interest in model railway were sown early in my father's youth - he did have some original Hornby O-gauge tin-plate stock which, I regret, I sold for hard cash soon after he died. But the seed for a Railway Room genrminated when he met Warren and Vera Lane. Warren had, I seem to remember, as sort of dry face and black hair. He set up little more than three feet of OO-gauge track in our dining room and some rolling stock and that was that. Although I saw through immediately that his interest was of another kind. I wanted more track, what ran on the track was almost inconsequential as long as it was approximately train shaped and, above all, ran smoothly. I wanted the realism of what I will call "time and motion" study.

I regret that I have no photographs of the Railway Room. Back in those days the idea of making a photographic record did not occur to me. Besides the digital camera had not been invented and I could not afford film.  Later I sold much of the rolling stock and what became of the track I know not. Apart from a few items of rolling stock all I have left is memories and even those are fading. From these memories I have reconstructed the approximate layout. I have omitted details - for example the good shunting area was more extensive and I have only shown the basics of the station.

The Railway Room layout from memory and not to scale

I have drawn the layout to look as much as possible like the plans my father drew, only he used pencil and compass and I used Board Capture, IrfanView and PC-Paint.

There were switch and controller panels for three operators although nearly always it was only my dad and I. Each panel consisted of a number of switches to energise the various track segments and a train controller of the 12V bumpy d.c. and rheostat kind.

My father habitually operated the up line (colour cyan) and I operated the down line (yellow).

My father built the whole arrangement which was on three track levels. The station was at the top level and most of the track was on the middle level. On the lowest level there was a loop eminating from the goods shunting area (blue) which, due to the lack of operators and the fact that you could not see the train most of the time, was rarely used. His interest was in designing, building, and operating. Neither his nor my interest extended to scenery so that finishing (I suppose one might now use the term "rendering") the layout was always relegated to the never never. So different from other model railway enthusiasts who seem to major on realism. Having said that I did from time to time play with paper mache, green paint, moss for trees, etc., but it never got very far.

My interest, as I have said, was in "time and motion".  I "adjusted" my father's workmanship by cutting the track to make additional electric circuits. I did this contrary to his intention knowing that if I succeeded he would not disapprove. This is a great principle and has often held me in good stead in my present electronics design work - do not tell your client what you are doing until it it finished and working for fear that he will disapprove. I divided the down line into four sections. The start of each section was guarded by a colour light signal (which I made using grain-of-wheat bulbs) and a short isolating section to force an approaching train to stop if it did not obey the signal. Following this section was a short sense section wired via a "current relay". I invented and made these relays myself - they were basically a changeover contact operated by a low resistance solenoid, the resistance hardly affecting the train speed yet the current taken by the train being sufficient to operate the carefully balanced armature. The metal parts were held in place my a mixture of Polyfilla and PVA glue (which mixture takes a surprisingly long time to set). These relays (one per section) in turn each operated a 4-pole changeover telecoms relay to (a) effect automatic signalling and (b) automatically switch between two train controllers so as to give independent control of two trains on the same track. This system was wizard - it worked without fault for the entire lifetime of the Railway Room.

An additional improvement I made was to create a very simple inertia train controller. Knowing that the speed of an electric motor is largely governed by the applied voltage, but the torque depends on the current, I created a variable current controller with a preset offset current. Thus a higher than usual source voltage (more like 18V smoothed d.c. than the usual 12V bumpy d.c.) and more resistance than a conventional controller. The offset was adjusted to just balance the friction in the train, so that it would approximately maintain the train at constant speed. I then had a throttle which increased, and a brake that decreased the current respectively. This arrangement also was wizard - it was a serious improvement on the traditional controllers then available and made "driving" the train more of a challenge because you could not simple turn the control anticlockwise to stop the train - you had, to some degree, allow for interia.

All this has now be superseded by electronic train control. I do not know how succesfully because I have not had the chance to try one of these new controllers.

Another of my improvements: we had point motors to operate all the major turnouts. These consisted of two solenoids and traditionally were operated using a passing contact switch. Because the "passing" duration depended on how quickly you operated these switches, and because the solenoids were poorly rated, points often got stuck half way with disastrous results. The simple expedient was to operate the point motor from a capacitor charged by a resistor from a suitable supply. My control panel had exposed brass screw "buttons" and a stylus - two such buttons per point - touching a button connected the capacitor to the solenoid and gave it a good jolt enough to always operate it fully but with no adverse effect. I think I was even able to operate two points in parallel. The same button system was used for selecting which controller when entering the first section and other functions, the game being to design it such that the same stylus could be used for all functions!

The "time and motion" study was punctuated with the task of transfering trains from up line to down line. There are two routes from up line to down line, coloured green and magenta in my diagram. The latter involved a very steep descent. But no easy way to get back is shown. There would have been a cross-over in the station (which I have not shown). I really cannot remember any better method, nor can I figure out how it could have been engineered.

Time and motion was of course the essential element in my running around the perimeter of the sports field at Peter Symonds imagining myself as a train and, I have to say, is an element in my running to this day.

But I forget - this post was meant to be a precursor. How did railway sessions begin? They were invariably on a Sunday afternoon. Rather in the same way as the dog Meg hangs about of the weekend gauging when it is that I will be donning running gear and setting out, I would make myself obviously "available" (e.g. reading a book and not hiving off to my workshop). But it must never be discussed openly because that would run the risk of my mother suggesting some alternative activity (railways did not interest her and she was jealous of the time we spent railwaying we knew that all too well). One moment we would be altogether in the front room (this room was only used by the family on Sundays or to play the piano, although I would sneak in there at other times to read because I loved the front room, I loved the armchairs and the floral carpet and being alone). Next thing I would look up from my book and he would be gone. So then I would have to surreptitiously absent myself to see if it was railway time. I would creep up the steep steps and adopt my position of second in command, usually without a word, and so it would go until we were called for tea time.

Did my mother or sisters join in? There were, I admit, rare cases when any of the above came up to see what all the fuss was about, but it never worked. They were never interested in what made us tick and so their presence became a digression and they soon left out of boredom or feeling unwanted.

What did father and son talk about? Nothing more than instructions about transfer from up to down line, etc. - why talk if there is nothing to say? I do not remember deep conversations such as one is meant to have. My father's input into my life was via short remarks. And because such remarks were not frequent I guess I took notice of them when they happened. So when he told me that Carol**** was not my kind of girl I dropped my asperations (after all, I had not even been sure myself). When, later in life, he and mum told me I might be being foolish in giving up a good secure job with the BBC, selling my house for less than the market value and pooling the proceeds to buy a "community" house, and deciding to teach our own children I listened and took their remarks very seriously, so seriously that I still have their letter and I still remember their pain. Although it did not change my course of action.

Wow - Bruckner's eighth is so beautiful. I think I said that before but it was some while ago indeed it would have been the last time I listened to it. Like clotted cream or Narnia stories, too much or too often would be sacrilege.

Railway time and motion studies, sheer colour, loneliness, barefoot running, Bruckner's eighth - the love of none of these pleasures have I yet met in another person. Am I so very weird?