Animate your layout

Peter Marriott tests a system that can give movement to cyclists, boats, cars… and skiers!

Peter Marriott tests a system which can add movement to your layout.

For many years we have seen moving road vehicles using the Faller Road System, but when I was sent a Cross-country Ski Trail by Noch to test I realised that a similar system can add movement to any ‘OO’/‘HO’ gauge scene. This limited edition kit enables three skiers to move around a defined course using a ready-to-connect motor and power unit that drives a ‘Magnorail’ system. This consists of a plastic chain studded with magnets that runs below the baseboard. On the surface, the skier figures have metal plates on one of the skis enabling them to move around the predetermined course. Of course, the system does not only move skiers, it can also be used for cyclists and moving road vehicles.

USING MAGNORAIL

The Magnorail system was designed in the Netherlands and is manufactured and distributed in France. In a nutshell, it’s a flexible plastic chain running in a ‘U’-shaped track that runs under the surface of a road, footpath, stretch of water, snow scene or any scenic setting. It’s powered by a 12V DC motor and all sorts of objects can be fitted with tiny metal plates to allow them to be pulled along ‘above ground’ by the magnets positioned in the chain. The motor needs to be installed under the baseboard and it is necessary to cut out a 12cm by 8cm hole below to take it.

The Magnorail range features various cyclists, including a tandem, delivery bike plus pedalling cyclists (male, female or sportsman on a mountain bike). Some are available as kits, others are ready-assembled. Tiny metallic sliders are available as spare parts for road vehicles and boats in ‘HO’/‘OO’, ‘TT’, ‘N’ and ‘Z’ gauge.

There are various starter sets available with 2.25m of track and a single motor for use with two or three cyclists or cars. This can be extended to 2.5m when the loop is kept simple, while further extensions are also possible using Magnorail return loops, which are designed to have very low friction using a 180° curve. For longer lengths, it may be necessary to use more than one motor with the proviso that the distances between the motors are more or less equal. Incidentally, the speed of movement can be adjusted by powering the 12V DC motor via a regular analogue layout controller.

WHAT I LEARNED

Assembly and installation offered a few minor challenges, but here is a list of points that users may find helpful…

l The blue plastic links of the chain need to be removed from the sprue and the curved end smoothed with a sanding strip. They plug together easily with a pin and hole system – just be sure to bring the pieces together at an angle.

l It’s important to check that the two gears are the same height. One fits directly on top of the metal post on the top of the motor. The other fits over a plastic post – the metal ring must be inserted into the base of the plastic gear before the gear is pushed on to this post. Then a plastic plug is inserted into the top of the middle of the gear. In my case, I found that the first gear (on the top of the motor shaft) sat a little lower than the other side – I might have pushed it too far home on the metal post – so I loosened it off very slightly.

l Also, double-check that the two rubber O rings are the same height and are fitted snugly under the three retaining lugs on each of the two gears.

l Fine-tune the chain so that it has no kinks and does not zig-zag in the channel when it’s working. If your chain is too loose, use some of the smaller links shown as ‘S’ and ‘T’ links on the

sprue to reduce the amount of slack in the loop. Conversely, use one or two of the longer links to replace some shorter ones if the chain is too tight. There needs to be just a tiny amount of slack in the chain.

Slot the chain the right way round in the ‘U’ track channel so that the rounded end of the chain is pointing in the direction of travel. The chain will lift out of the track if the curves are too severe or if the chain is too tight.

Fix a cover over the motor drive section of the loop. There are four screw holes ready to take a piece of thin acetate which will ensure that the chain does not have room to jump out from the rubber rings as the cyclist or skier passes overhead. I found this to be crucial to satisfactory operation of the system because, without this acetate, the chain lifted out of the two rubber rings as the magnets were drawn up to the base of the skiers and came out of the running groove.

To cover the chain and motor, Magnorail recommend using photo paper of about 0.4mm thickness. To help modellers, there are 180 different street patterns available to freely download and print from the Magnorail website (see panel). The company suggests adding a layer of clear varnish to the printed sheet and slightly abrading the surface. Ideally, do not have any joins in the covering material but, if there is a seam, ensure the join is as smooth as possible both above and below the surface.

Fully test the system before fixing the road/ top surface down. It will be difficult to make adjustments afterwards and may mean that the road would need to be remade.

CONCLUSION

I was really pleased to have moving skiers and a cyclist on my layout. A few years ago, I would not have thought this was possible. Now all we need is a system for some downhill racers at speed… that would be a lot of fun.

What to look out for in the shops: the Noch 66832 limited edition Cross Country Ski Course comes complete with a compact AC/ DC power adaptor plus speed control with an on/off light. Note that the kit features a two-pin European mains plug.

At the base of the picture is one of the plastic sprues for the running ‘U’ channel track of the Magnorail system. The screws shown are for fixing the Magnorail track to the MDF sub-baseboard. To the top left is the housing for the motor.

These are the plastic chain links that need to be cut off the plastic sprue and the rounded edge smoothed down to ensure that the chain runs smoothly in the track. Even on this small track, cutting the chain links off the sprue and then smoothing their ends took over an hour.

Four pieces of 4mm MDF come pre-cut and are assembled to form the basis of the Magnorail running channel. Each of the pieces is screwed together using the supplied 7mm screws. I also added a little white glue between the layers to ensure a good fix.

When cutting the track pieces from the sprue, cut at the indicated position to retain the clip fit connection hook. I accidentally cut a couple of the loops off before I realised their purpose. Fortunately, my mistake didn’t affect the running of the layout.

The underside of the track shows how the moulded loops help the sections of ‘U’-shaped channel to clip together securely. The tracks have a good degree of flexibility and mounting holes are moulded into the ‘winged’ sections at regular intervals.

The track sections also feature extra mounting tags (circled). For the ski run model, they weren’t needed so I cut them away. If you were making your own bespoke model, they may need to be retained to help support the road surface above.

As advised in the instructions, I worked from the left side of the motor assembly hole and began screwing the track into the MDF base. Take care not to overtighten the screws.

After initial tests, I found that the chain came out of the motor drive when the skier passed overhead, so I added a piece of thin, clear acetate sheet, 5cm by 9cm, and held in place with screws in each of the four posts in the plastic motor housing.

The Noch kit comes with six tiny magnets, a pair of which is needed to move each skier around the track. The square magnets need to be pushed into two adjacent chain links, spaced to provide optimum contact with the metallic strip on the base of the skier.

A piece of cardboard for the course is supplied. The central area and outer edge can easily be cut out, to just leave the central skiing course if desired. After the border of the cardboard had been removed, the cardboard was positioned over the lines on the sub baseboard.

The Magnorail system is also suited to everyday street scenes, with various pre-painted cyclists available. The figures’ legs are fixed to discs of clear plastic and they perform a realistic pedalling action while the cycle is in motion.

The chain sections are moulded in blue plastic, and are designed with a pin-and-slot connection. Assembly of the chain is easy – put the pin into the slot at an angle, then bend it horizontally until they marry up correctly.

My first attempt at installing the chain wasn’t quite right. There was a little too much slack. I remedied this by removing two longer pieces of the chain and replacing them with one medium and one short piece.

After testing, the Magnorail system can be fixed to the baseboard and the surrounding scenic work completed. The Noch kit provides a bag of ‘snow’ scatter material and a handful of trees, plus a laser-cut wood kit of an Après Ski hut.

It might be worth placing some discreet markings on the surface to help align the moving object with the magnets hidden beneath the surface. Alternatively, Magnorail produces a handy magnet-finding device.

So I could reuse the Noch trail base, I used the card snow scene overlay as a template for creating an oval road circuit. The road was painted and laid over the Magnorail base, then the landscaping and scenic work could begin.

The motor and drive assembly, seen from the top. The motor uses two 7mm screws to fix it to the plastic housing. The housing then clip fits into the ‘U’shaped channel track.

The track is nearly all in position. The last few screws were not fitted until I had the motor housing in place, to allow the track to be aligned properly.

A pair of small triangular metal pads on the base of the tyres ‘connect’ with the magnets in the running loop beneath the road surface.