2014_01_06

2014_01_06  Got a phone call on Saturday and a parcel today

First my Brass N Class has arrived and is just waiting on a sound install

http://www.trainbuilder.com/nclass

The Parcel from SDS Thanks Steve :D

First for the year, and I think 2014 is looking good for most of us :)

Tony's T335 was brought up to collect the new wagons, so we shunted the first half into the train to see some comparisons.

T335 ready to depart for Bullarto, however the Engineers had a problem with the unpacking as the crane needed some attention. (funny thing, you accept the weathering on the T, and hate the dust on the van roof)

 

 U1621, fresh out of the shops with steel doors fitted

As the crane swings across....   ;)

 Nice crisp detail and KD #5 by the looks?

Took the opportunity to take this shot when the clutch on the cranes cable drum slipped and gently laid this one on its side (and I have no explanation how the next picture happened, none at all :D )

 

A shot from the crane.

1473 fitted wooden louvre doors.

 1473 coupled to 1053  Picture demonstrates the incorrect coupling height we all knew about but for some reason accepted, and it took 5 years of production before Auscision acknowledged and fixed the problem. Also note the head size as a comparison.

SDS have produced a nice van, haven't they?  :)

Cheers
Rod Young

2014 January-Happy New Year

2014_01_03 Friday

G'Day to you all and a Very Happy and prosperous New Year to all of you :p

Still have not done any wiring, but my parcels did arrive from London and the USA. So I have fitted a couple of sound decoders as well, as started to fix in the Wodonga Station track that was delayed by missing points.

You might like my Future of the Hobby that I posted elsewhere?

I just looked into my magic copper water bowl (It has a great history too being handed down from generation to generation and once belonged to Uncle Nostodamus )
Actually I see things are going to change in a big way.

I have this thing in front of me, and I don't know what it is called (because today it is unnamed :)

It is a development of the 3D Plastic Printers of the early 21st Century but other technologies have been added to it. in those times Imaging machines were called Flat screen TV's, maybe you still have one?

Some of these machines could have simulated 3D but you needed to wear green and red glass lenses in front of your eyes.

Samsung actually spent billions developing a 3D system that was brilliant for its day and glasses were not needed. Alas they were much too late because a young fellow from Belgrave in Victoria combined his love for Computer Train Simulations with his Fathers interest in Haleophotography And invented lifelike and life sized 3D images that could operate at 500 frames a minute and fooled the eye into believing a real steam engine, or anything else was sitting in his work room.

Simply put, this changed the face of operating model railways over night! (it actually split the hobby amongst Museum Quality solid modellers who spent most of their time created fantastic models and train operators who just wanted to drive their trains)

Now you download a Trainz map which uses modern photo realistic constructions of Railways anywhere in the World.    You download any models you want and following the easy instructions, you build your empire.

When you are finished, probably 3 or 4 Hours , you switch the lights down low and climb into your  chair and start the simulation.  In a small 3.3 m square bedroom, your brain is tricked into seeing you at the controls of a full sized engine.

Today we are riding Heavy Harry out of Spencer Street on the Spirit of Progress. It is November 1953 and as we pass by PascoeVale platform a small 8 year old boy is standing on the third rail of the gates with a stunned look on his face. You see he always ran down the Gaffney Street hill to wave to George Lynch, or any of the Drivers who ran his favourite engine up the hill any night. The look of disappointment in his eyes was there and the Driver waved back to the little kid, hiding the fact that this old man was excited to have Harry on the front, just this one time. The kid was me :) and I did learn to love Harry just as much as I did Matthew or the other blue machines whose job was to get the SOP up to Albury and back every day.

Anyway on the way our simulation comes across a glitch. Its a view of Broadmeadows station from 1963 that has accidentally been included in our simulation. So it is paused and changed out, showing Broadmeadows in the 50's.....  to be continued

Ha Ha

Rod Young  Happy New Year to all of you ;)

2013 December 19

2013 December 19  Bloody Hot. Thunder in the skies and..

All my plans come to naught and nothing much is done :)
Well I guess I gave Decoder Pro and ESU programmer a bit of a work out.
I now have 12 engines sitting on the Bench in various conditions as install sound in them :)
ah well so far I always have had a tomorrow ;)
Cheers
Rod

2013_12_11

2013_12_11
Just a little update. During the last week I have had some help from Alan Jeeves and Roger Lloyd. And we got heaps of work done.
The first thing to do was for Allan and I to finish of the wiring leading up to Bullarto and cut and fit ply bases in. This took longer than we thought it would, but finally all was fixed down ready for the road base.

We then went on and fitted the backdrop to the lower level, which was good to see finished. Paint is what is needed now :) Then some photographic back drops!
On last Saturday I collected Roger from a late running train at Wangaratta. Chased the Up steel train from Chiltern, even got some video at Springhurst :D

Then we got stuck into laying track up to Bullarto, and then Roger redesigned the cattle race for me.
It now is slightly changed from the original, but still retains the busy look, and will give lots of operational fun as both BG and SG trains can service the stock race.   Roger even came up for a way to simulate the two tracks along the stock platform. He did this using a gauntlet point at one end, and a length of gauntlet track. Ok its 4 rails rather than 3, but at least we still have only one place on the whole layout where vehicles can cross from BG to SG and back again. That is the Bogie Exchange

road :D  And of course this is a dead section of track, avoiding the problem of  someone driving a Loco through it. As in real life vehicles move through the shed with the help of the tractor or can be pushed with a Loco and match truck attached.
Cheers
Rod (pictures coming)

 

 

And whilst Roger was preocupied with the Wodonga Cattle Race, I started to do someting I am getting quite used to, Hey Al?

Demolition!!

He He He!!! :D

But of course I did get all the track back in along the rebuilt approach to Bullarto. All the points are ready to mount as soon as I get the track bed right and decide to do about the track itself. Trentham was originally built using hand laid track to very high standards. So much so that most of the points were not fitted check rails (which apparently was a modern invention to help trains negotiate poor track work)  Anyway the layout is now very old and the track work is now requiring an upgrade. So I have decided to replace all points and at least the track work in the platform,  and the through road. 

We will have to see if that is enough. Perhaps I can use recovered track to bridge the old joins where the modules came together, which is still a major problem :D

(Originally the rail used was older profile N scale rail, which does not match up with code 70 or Peco N scale rail)

Cheers

Rod

2013_12_04

2013 December 4 a wet and rainy day, but the trees need it :)

Despite the lack of posts everything has been going full speed ahead.  Since the arrival of the Eureka R Class I have been adjusting track to make things run more easily and reliable. The first video shows the R stalling with 7 cars and only capable of climbing almost to the top with 4 cars.
Removing the pony truck spring has allowed it to haul 7 cars (including heavy Norman) up 4 levels. Modifying the gradient is allowing it to almost reach the top. More work to do, but I am confident with a few ozs of weight and the extra gradient revision, it will take 8 cars to the top.
Anyway here is my video....

What on earth has FB done to my video :)

Looks like I better load it on You Tube :)

Cheers

Rod

2013 November 25

2013 November 25

Playing with the R Class?
 

Really the grade is pretty small, varies between 1% and 2%. The curve is wide and should help with grip, no?

2013 November 22 and 23

2013 November 22 and 23
Not a lot happening as I have had visitors and other commitments to keep me out of the room :( but also  :D
But I did complete the new bench work started on Thursday. As well I made this video, that was supposed to include the R Class, but as it would not pull the train, I substituted the T Class so as to enable me to brush up on my video skills (or lack of, I guess)

Cheers
Rod

2013 November 21

2013 November 21  Sunny not to hot, a really nice day :D

Had two visitors today. Tony was over from Bendigo for a bit of R&R and my Corowa mate Al was back for some more punishment :) I think he went home with a bad back. Hope he forgives me :(

Last few days has been tweaking track and running trains. I am absolutely thrilled with the results.  Still got some places to fix. R752 is the test engine. If it goes through and sounds are uninterupted, everything will go through. I was planning what to do for today. Al and I work well together, and we do heaps! Anyway I am afraid it turned into a demolition derby once again. I am certain Al looks forward to building bits, not tearing things down. Sorry Mate :( Next time I promise we will spend a constructive day ;)

Remember this photo?  I was pretty shocked at how bad it looked, and after fixing the long back wall, I bit the bullet and removed this eye sore!

 

The following pictures detail our efforts at improving things.   The last picture shows just how straight we got it.  

In this picture the boys are working out how to lift the heavy brackets. It turned into an awful job, as the brackets had to lift 70mm, and every pre drilled hole lined up with a cut out slot in the upright strut. Every hole needed re-drilling. Fortunately Al was able to fix my pedestal drill,that had not worked for 10 years, but it delayed us a lot.

So all the brackets have been raised and checked to be true with the level.
Now I usually take a heap of measurements and get down on the floor with right angle clamps and screw a frame together after cutting out the material. 3 days later....  :(

At Als suggestion, we simply cut out all the bits and then assembled the frame in situ on the brackets.
It took a couple of hours and fitted the space it was meant to occupy and was a near perfect job. We took time to get the brackets right, and the material measurements right, and carefully trued up the bits as we screwed it all together..

 THis picture shows it all bolted down and it is perfectly true! The brackets do slope up about 5mm, but that was designed to take the weight of the scenery on top. When I add the 5 ply sheet to the top, I feel certain the weight will pull it back down again .

Just looking at this picture, and remembered the plaster back drop was not done!  I meant to fix that in place before screwing the box sections in, to save my back. Oh well can't be helped.

So a great day, and the Railway takes one giant leap backwards (again :D )  but rebounds with this much improved bench top :D
Cheers
Rod

2013 November 15 (continues)

2013 November 15 (continues)

Just a couple more to finish off I guess.

The first pic shows the two R Class coupled.
The front coupling has a tiny shank about 3 mm long which is pinned to a clevis and swings aside just like the real one. Unfortunately their is no link coupling provided.
This head is a plastic dummy of similar dimensions to the popular KD. It does hold a coupling but you need to muck around a bit to get them to close. I found it easier to bring the KD coupling up underneath. I have broad curves and nothing smaller than No6 points. It appears to run nicely with no derailments.

When I wanted to put couplings on the motor end of my DERM's, I used a Euro type KD conversion coupling that had a head almost eaxtly the same as Eureka's dummy one. I think I might try to replace them with this one to make DCC coupling a little more realistic

Cheers
Rod

2013 November 15 (Continues)

2013 November 15 (Continues)

Ok So these are the rest of the pictures Enjoy ;)

 Goodness!!  Instructions...

16 pages of them and this is going to take some time, and it did too ;)

So next thing to do is get it out of the plastic. Time to head for the Train Room.......

Several hours later, here are the pictures and a video too if I can load it...

Two things to watch out for. The footplate linking loco and tender snapped when I lifted it up to plug the power through to the tender. I suspect it was snapped during assembly, and it is so fragile, I will not ask for a replacement. Rather glue a wire to the underside and use it to pivot in the hinges.

After a second or two an air pop sounds and the loco moves into neutral mode and all the extra sounds are played, such as ash pan shake, compressor etc.  You cannot move the loco in this mode, but eventually I started to understand the instructions. Just double click F6 and a double pop will tell you are back in primary mode and the loco will move off :)

The headlight is in low beam and when you go to run 1 it goes high.

Unfortunately their are no working marker lights or other lights, even red lights on the tender. The tender markers are a bit bizarre as well.

The sounds are as awfull as we guessef they would be.

The whistle is not the R whistle, more like a modified 38 to my poor ears.
The chuff is nothing like an R Chuff.
Overall I like what I have, and i will sell the sound chip after Mike gets his Loksound R Class working a little better.

about 6 out of 10 for me.  Marker lights and better sound would have made it a 8 1/2.
 Properly blackened buffers and wheels easily would have added 1 point more as well
Cheers
Rod
ps I am not disappointed. I like what I received, and the standard is better than I thought we would get. I am not a rivet counter. So more will be told in the next few days, I am certain

2013 Nov 15

2013 Nov 15
Today on the eve of my 68th Birthday at 10,33 am I got a call from the Post Master! My parcel had arrived!!

I am a little frightened to open it up :( After all three of my friends died without ever seeing their model.

I wonder if others will die of fright when they open their model? Just think it was 8 years since this was announced and the 8th anniversary of my Visa Payment will be in mid January 2014

Will I open it?  or wait till I have someone home with me?

I think I need to go shopping, the pantry is bare. I will think about it whilst I am in Wodonga

Cheers

Rod