Sunday, August 26, 2018

Work on Rocklea Sidings Continues


Last Sunday night, I got the styrene out and tried to manufacture my missing end to an NOAF(?) wagon.  I was kind of happy with what was produced.  On Monday night I popped down to the shed and tried to fathom out what could be causing the lack of electrons in the Rocklea Yard.  I found the main jumper for the yard had a cold solder joint on its pickup.  This was as I had assumed last weekend.

So on Saturday afternoon this week, I resoldered that wire and low and behold, my 1720 class loco was now running along the narrow gauge track.  To get the rest of the sidings working, I still had to add jumpers to some other tracks in the yard, and I wired up 2 jumpers yesterday and completed the task with 3 more today.  The wiring has been successful on all the narrow gauge track.  

Last Monday night, I was checking out the wiring on the point control underneath South Brisbane Interstate.  I found a spare point motor on the layout and I installed it under the new point that splits the track which leads to tracks 6-8 to track 9-10.  This was wired back to a spare connection on one Digitrax DS64 point controller that I had at South Brisbane Interstate.  This was wired up, and I also had to add a new push button to the South Brisbane Intestate control panel and wire this wire back to the South Brisbane NCE Mini Panel.  I had to re-write 3 inputs, and add a link to set of common points as now I had 5 points in the diagram that needed to be thrown for three track routes.  By default you only can have 4 commands on each input on the Mini Panel.  So the new coding was done, and the changes also made.  It was tested and it worked first time.  Amazing!

Earlier on Saturday, I went via the local hobby shop and picked up another NCE QSnap point controller.  I will use this to control the two extra points I will connect up in Rocklea Yard, and I will also move a pair of points (currently controlled by a n NCESnap-It) that allow a standard gauge train to go from track 1 in Acacia Ridge Yard to the dual gauge track.  But by moving this function to my new QSnap, this gets more utilised and I then end up with a spare Snap-It, which I am sure I will eventually use somewhere else on the layout.

Today I wired up two point motors in Rocklea Yard back to my existing NCE QSnap, and started on pre-laying wires for the next two point motors (to the just purchased NCE QSnap) when I get some more point motors.   I then cut out the troublesome piece of track in The Risk loop on the mainline, and relayed it with a new piece.  A few trains have now gone through this area and it looks like it is now running well.  I then resumed running trains on the layout, to reset the trains back to the beginning of the timetable.

I ran about 13 trains day.  One container train with lots of 80 foot containers on it was giving me trouble entering Clapham Yard.  I checked one wagon to see if was bogie swing and realised that it had a huge scale build up on the wheels.  I then checked the rest of the wagons on that train and they were just as bad as the first.  So I spent quite a bit of time, cleaning each wheel of each carriage on this train with a track rubber.  I then reran this train back into Clapham Yard and it did not give me any more trouble.  I have done this before, but it has really been a long time between drinks for this wheel cleaning service.  This is the only train that I end up having to do this process to.  I don’t know if it something wrong with the wagons and the wheels on this train?

Next week I will move into writing my session notes for the upcoming Modelling the Railways of Queensland Convention.  I’ve received an email tonight from the head guru advising that they need to be completed by the end of next month.  I also have to make two dioramas.  I better get my finger out.

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