2020_11_22 Plodding along

 2020_11_22 Plodding along

Still boring myself with wiring and fault finding. A lot of success lately..

And then friend from Melbourne turns up and didn't get to see a train move. Isn't it sometimes like that? I spent a day adding jumpers and fixing some track sections and wiring them through isolating switches. The locos would light up and we could hear sound, however I could not connect throttles to them. First the new isolation switches were still in off position! Discovered I had introduced a new back feed, which I eliminated yesterday. Everything went quiet, until I switched on the isolation switches, sound and movement was back. However visitors were long gone. Sorry Mark L.

Al and I are back doing Thursday workdays, except when they are on Tuesdays!  This is happening because of Doctors appointments usually only available on Thursdays after the Hospital reorganized themselves.

The New Helix is progressing nicely. Again its Al's project. He likes doing track work :D  And I am more than happy to let him at it. His track work is really superb.

Here are a few pictures.

And we have to do one layer at a time. Making sure we never have problems here, Al is being extra careful. He is soldering the track joiners to the rails and gaping the rails at an angle to help with curvature which is again 44 inches (112cm) and 46 inches (117cm).

And as of last Tuesday, Al has reached the top of the third level and started on the fourth.

The next full level  will reach the temporary  points controller panel, which needs to be removed to allow a wide sweeping right hand curve that joins up to the Sydney end (hidden) loading track. This loader runs up the wall behind the BG track and Honeysuckle. It climbs (1.5%) another 12 cm to reach the height of the top deck in the other "room" This will become an escape for trains heading North and in another circumstance, will stage trains from the North t run through Albury and to the South. This is facilitated by running a large radius point on top of the SG track helix and dual tracking the Helix making an up and Down line.

Ah Thank goodness for the Aircon!

Cheers

Rod