As usual, I managed to get away slightly early on Friday and arrived home
at the same time as the kids. We all got off consecutive buses and worked home
together. I was soon in the shed for an hour or so and got stuck right into running
my triple header mainline container train. This train was parked at The Risk and made
its way to Grafton Yard. At that point I ran the locos around the train and sent
it back off towards Clapham Yard so it could then come all the way back again to
Grafton Yard. However, on its way north from Grafton Yard, the train only made its way successfully to Cassino and was then making its
way into the Helix when the locos parted from the first wagon. Upon closer
inspection the coupler on the rear loco had a huge amount of play in it and as soon as the full
weight of the train, beginning its climb up the helix, was on the coupler - the coupler lifted and disengaged with the first
wagon’s coupler. I undertook an initial inspection was about to replace the coupler on the 48 Class loco with a
new KD, when I realised that the coupler box had split. So I just glued it back
together and when the glue dried, a test revealed that the coupler play had been now been
removed. However, that is where the train was left and it still resides. While the glue was drying, I packed up some wagons, locos and one of my controllers to take to the train club. I then
pulled up stumps and went to have dinner.
Saturday was our Club Meeting Day. So after watching my son’s soccer team
win their early morning (8:20am game) and watching the full game before and a
bit of the game after, I decided to make my way to the Club. The Boss took the kids home leaving me able to head to the train Club, as I was on early shift having to get my son to the soccer grounds for his Team photo at 7:20am. I got to the Train Club really
early. As I walked in a few members mentioned that I was early as well. I got my train out and proceeded to run a train on
the Clubroom layout for the first time in quite some time. My train ran well
unlike one of the trains I was following. That train ended up in the dirt on at least
three occasions. That made we feel good about my train. I ran the train with a single loco
and then with a double header. When I tried the other two locos I brought along, one sounded
like a chaff cutter and the other was playing up. When I would set the speed
step to zero on this last loco, it would keep going down the track. Later on in the day I took the loco to the test track with an
aim to reset it but it ran perfectly on the test track. Me thinks that one of
the locos on the Club Layout with me was distorting the DCC signal on the track at that time. There were a
couple of dodgy loco consists running so that could be the reason.
While at the Club, they were having discussions about the 12mm track that will be laid next on the top deck. They had a selection of items on display so the members could see what it was like. I was able to picked up a piece of Tillig track from Bob who had no further reason for
it. It is a splitter track with the narrow gauge and standard gauge tracks going in different directions. I could use that at Fisherman Islands.
Today I went to Bunnings to pick up two tubes builders adhesive and a small sheet of 600 x 900 x 3mm MDF. I cut that sheet of MDF up to get the last two triangles to enclose the shed roof bracings, and gave them two coats of white paint just like the other 8 triangles from last week. After lunch I started to install the two triangles left over from last week and one of the ones I just painted. They went up with ease. I also spent a bit of time re-organising the track into Fisherman Islands to accommodate the new track piece I picked up yesterday. That means I need to buy one less set of expensive narrow gauge points.
Next Friday or Saturday I will install the 10th and last triangle. I then need to match the paint colour for the roof when I paint them. I forgot to get a selection of paint swatches today - Doh! So I will do that one day this week after work.
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