2014_10_26 Daughters Birthday Happy Birthday sweet Daughter :)

2014_10_26
So just because the posts have slowed does not mean that the enthusiasm is drifting.  40 years of collecting, with only a few years of layout ownership before circumstances and shifting houses brought that to an end has presented me with huge problems sorting out the chaff, repairing stuff that I did not know was needing it, and putting things back together again.
Catching up on 30 sound projects. I have a need to buy the chips when I buy the engines, but find it difficult to actually find the time to fit the more difficult ones.

So the last few months has been given over to relaying track on the Branch and making it reliable which has turned into a marathon. Even where the track was not replaced, I have had to remove the old DC wiring and start again. Then double insulating sections creating dead spots ,putting new droppers in etc etc.
Still not working, as I have found 3 persistent dead spots and three points that bemuse me by becoming reverse circuited, every time I change something..  I just do not understand how the original circuits were made to work, but discovered a few places where droppers went to point motor switches and switched the frogs from track rather than the feeds. These places generally got new wiring to fix the problems.

So Then because I can run trains now Woooooeeeee!!  I found that I wanted to double head and triple head :D
So hours spent speed matching locomotives!!
It is never ending :(

So here we are joining code 70 ME track to the old code 88 n scale rail of 30 years ago. Rolling stock including 4 wheelers bogie feight and carriages go through without a problem But Locomotives stop dead. Just noticed scratches on the gearcasing and suspect that one of the problems is caused by the point motor rod sticking up a fraction too high?  Need to trim it and see.

Another problem I discovered taking the picture is that both rails are loose and the dog spikes are no longer holding on to the rail. The track is a long way out of gauge and larger diesels and all steam engines are dropping into the gap.  Again easy fix, but where are those dog spikes?

The long roads are all now connected and operate as wanted, but two points at the other end suffer with reverse polarity problems. Just need to solder new droppers and remove the old ones from the point motors.

In most cases I have not found the old droppers, suspect it was soldered to the bottom of the rail before spiking and ballasting in place. The rail is bloody awful to solder to, even after using flux to etch it clean. But I did finally realize I had made the old mistake. That is I learned long ago to use single core wire for the droppers not multi core which is usually the best to use everywhere else. Single core just hides away so much better than multi core and seems to stick better as well (for me at least)

Speed matching locomotives which generally means slowing them down.
I use JMRI DecoderPro for all chips except ESU Loksound which seem to work much better after hooking it up to Lokprogrammer. Here I am running through the K Class trying to sort out a jering motion which I think might be a short between the foot plate and tender. Now as I have all wheel pick up on the tender, that should not happen?  I wonder If I reverse the wheels and transfer the pick ups if that will match polarity between engine and tender?  Should work, I think??

Write out notes and move to computer when I have got them right.

Walker is there because I just love the sounds :) The two Ts now run together. F Class waits a sound chip from Sounds of Australia (Thanks Mike)

B's and A's all waiting sound chips. I have the chips, but thought up an easier way to fit speakers. Waiting speakers ;)

Tried to run DL, but missing chip. Swore I fitted one?  Anyway here it gets a Loksound Select chip, unfortunately with a 16 cyl 710, because nobody makes a cheap alternative for the DL.

When I start a project and need parts I gather all the bits together and place them all in a clipper bin or storage box. Unfortunately after I order the parts they arrive and I should put the parts in the clipper bin they belong to, but rarely does that happen. I have a box of spares and a dozen bins with half started projects sitting around :(

The recently cleared space in front of Wodonga Coal siding took about 2 days to reach the cluttered stage once again. And as fast as I put the locomotives back together again, more seem to take their place.

Another lot out of storage and into the queue.

A load heads out to the Ford factory to pick up some falcons (probably drop them off at the tip? ;)

 

Took this one out of storage with my Auscision E Cars and found a very fragile bogie with loose wheels. Started sending off a few choice words before I noticed the coach was a SEM kit and the wheels were actually the flat pack SEM kit bogies. Really fragile! So order sent off to Auscision (sorry for the bad thoughts wrongly directed) and 5 sets of E bogies are on the way to upgrade all the SEM E cars

And now back out to the shed to fic that DL and if it does not get too hot, maybe fix the last of the polarity issues on the branch
Cheers
Rod

2014_10_17. Gosh October already! what happened to September?

2014_10_17

Well Bathurst has come and gone and one of the young guns has done Ford proud. Lets face it, it was won by attrition and the second car home was patched up after hitting the wall twice, no less. I believe Volvo had it all sewn up, but one little mistake put him into the marbles and game over!
Nice to see Whincup ignore advice and run out of bio-fuel Ha Ha
But there is always next year.

Anyway if Bathurst is over then my Annual trip to Liverpool must have come and gone as well.

Enjoyed my time with Roger Lloyd and Tony Hough (of AMRA)
And my visit with Col Hussey.   His layout is coming along fine. It seems he has a new wind since recovering from his spinal surgery. Thanks for putting up with us Col.

Spent a fair bit of money I did not have, up there, especially as my car needed a major service and took an unexpected $4000 out of the kitty.

The layout is still moving a little day by day.

The wiring of the old  Threntham layout being used on the top level has brought me undone and the last week saw me undoing it all and starting again.  I finally fixed all the dead spots and trains can circulate through the two stations and back around the deviation at long last.

Most of the 4 wheelers were circulating without a problem through this rewired area, but when I tried to run the new BPL carriages from Austrains, they kept derailing, suggesting that it is not just the track (4 wheelers prove that) The BPL cars are very light and appear to be very unstable. Not sure if it is just weight they need?  Anybody else finding problems with them?

Well I think I might relay a few lengths of track tonight and see if that improves anything, before attacking the carriages.
Cheers
Rod

2014_09_21

2014_09_21  a bit of a lull?  Maybe too much RailPage :(

But yes things have been quiet around here, although several projects are on the go.

Work is continuing on the Branch line and thanks to some prodding from Graeme Schultz we even started experimenting with some landscaping (eh? scenery

Here we have laid some shaped foam on the flat surface to break it up a bit and then conered it with paper cloth, which has been glued down with white glue. The towel comes in large rolls from Aldi for a few dollars.

And using granulated paper mache product already impregnated with plaster , just add grout colour and water and spread it out with a trowel and smooth with your fingers.  Better keep going before Graeme notices!

And after constant derailments and just frustration, I did rip up most of the track at Bullarto. (a long time ago?). Its time to run some trains and with Honeysuckle sitting on trestles, the branch line is the place to get operational.  Just a few joins left, add the droppers and the branch will be able to run trains ( via the temporary connection near the scenery works).

Just three connections left. If I shut this thing down, I might get them done today :(

These two magnificent guards van were added recently. They are the best hand made epoxy pieces I have seen. Its a tribute to the skills of our young modellers who are using the modern equivalents of the old epoxy resins and creating strong accurately detailed beautiful HO models RTR to boot!!

Thank you Dave Luketic, you do great work, and show us old farts the hobby is in good hands. Dave is a Railway Man too, living the dream, and working close at hand. Thank you mate for my great vans.

Ok I am back in the Studio, and hopefully more to do today and in the next few days.
Cheers
Rod Young

2014_08_29 continues

My mods to the Austrains G Class

The bottom board is fine (My V/Line G's do not have ditch lights) But the top board breaks all the rules with one wire an Andode + for one LED and a Cathode - for the second.
I kept the resistors

attached but cut the join on the -ve side and added wires to enable the tsunami  in this engine.

Here you can see the negative Cathodes are connected wtf?

Back of board just hangs the capacitors on the back of the LEDS

The Led on top is headlight and it is sunny white, much too yellow for a modern diesel. I might change it out for a white one, perhaps move the white one from the bottom board which creates a bright white marker light, should obviously have the yellow light there?
So the negative track is cut.

Just to make sure nothing leaks between the leds I cut these tracks as well. Not sure I had to?

Drill out the board and pull wires through to prevent the light path being blocked when the board is screwed back into the body.

Having got rid of the huge light board Austrains had fitted, I now had room to use the speaker boxes. If you keep the light board you can put those two speakers into the chassis below the fitted speakers, but I found the sound awful and did this instead (It is much easier to keep the Austrains light board, however I now have the marker lights connected to the number lights at eac end. I can run with headlights on and marker/number off for daylight running. Or headlights off and marker / number lights on, parked in a siding? I can have marker lights at both ends or just one end for night time running and pulling a train.

Cheers
Rod

2014_08_29 Something Different?

Hello All
The weather has turned, days are warm and dry, and each night is a little warmer than the one before :D

Jobs done! 5 Dcc Sounds of Australia chips fitted :) plus two Tsunami. That's a big deal around here.

And after unloading my goodies from Caulfield I was able to create a complete train.

Damn ETM was a cow to fit Had to file away the bogie top and find a flat head screw because the wheels jammed in the bearing holes. Looks like the hour or two I spent on it stuffed some steps too :(
I intend to swap the US heads with an original VR one in time ;)
So Watto I trump your one tank container with all the above :)

2014_08_24

Sunday after the big Exhibition (AMRA)

Well yesterday morning I awoke 5 minutes before the alarm went off at 3.00am and got dressed and grabbed a coffee and departed for Melbourne. All my plans for accommodation the night before failed to eventuate and I decided to go early. Parked the car at Kilmore East and went on to Caulfield on the first up, arriving at 8.20am just behind Big Watto :) Some enjoyable banter filled in the wait before the doors opened at 9.00 however a pest kept butting in as I tried to talk with Zec. who was there a few minutes after me.
Struggled home about midnight with a bag of goodies which I must go outside and check out now :)
More later
Cheers
Rod Young

2014_08_22

2014_08_22 

Have a look at this one :)   Thanks Jim for sharing

 As to my Railway, I guess I will never reach this stage, but then neither could this Russian, without his money :)
Cheers
Rod

2014_08_21

2014_08_21  The warmer days have arrived, but the nights are still coll, too cool for the shed.


Well again it was time to step back from current frustrations.  So I found I had 58 unfinished projects on a temporary work bench. Actually the front of the Coal siding yards. I decided to start on these projects and take a break from points and track laying, particularly point motors :)

Projects were mostly sound units not completed (remember the FA G Class (not going there yet though) I found a BLI track mobile that had stopped, and fixed that.
I restarted other projects, only to find I did not know where the parts I bought were stored, so I
went through the place and located most of my supplies, and eventually was able to get 6 models on to the tracks in service.

Yesterday 10 BP tanks arrived from Southern Models, and I am pleased with them. Unfortunately I am suffering a lot of derailments, and they are random vehicles at random places. The gauge appears ok, and they are code 100 so I cant blame code 88, can I?

I don't know that a better camera will help me, I think my eyes are failing faster than I thought :(
Cheers
Rod

2014_08_13 PL Cars

2014_08_13  The drought (no models) has broken.
With Southern Models taking money for the VR Tanks, and a parcel from Austrains, and  also notification that my 81's and final G's are to be sent today, my poor bank account is in trouble once again.

In this video T326 brings up 6 PL cars freshly out shopped for use on the Branch line.
Unfortunately T326 suffered sound decoder failure after I stored it on JMRI so I could use the WIFI Controller on my I-phone.  Fortunately I have an ESU programmer and mike will send me the project to reload and fix the problem.   The sound here is not representative of the DCC sounds I originally purchased.

All four body styles :)
Cheers
Rod