Pre-Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition

On last Sunday evening I tested a loco and while I could get all the lighting functions to run, I could not get the loco to move.  I could not read anything from the decoder on the programming track.  I know I installed the lighting functions of F1 and F2, but I had no idea what model and brand of decoder it was, as I could not read it back on the Programming track.  From looking at the decoder I also could not tell what brand and model it was.  I had had enough with this decoder,  So I was about to rip it out and replaced it with an NCE D13SRJ that I had lying around. 

On Monday morning (a public holiday in Queensland) I went over to Aurora Trains to see what they had in the Kerroby range, as George had advertising during the last week that they now had this line of detail items.  While I was there, a couple of guys came in and spent some money.  I had a good chat to Anatol.  I was discussing the issue of my stubborn loco.  I thought about this issue some more.  I thought that it had to be a cold solder joint on one of the wires to the motor.  I did a test again with a 9V battery to the motor.  It worked.  I then tried to follow one of the wires up to the decoder and touch the battery connection there.  It would not go.  So I decided to hit the motor connection with the soldering iron again.  Guess what?  The 9V battery was now powering the motor from the decoder.  So I took it back to the shed and gave it a further test on the programming track and then the layout.  It was now going back and forth on the track.  I adjusted the momentum figure down and while pretty noisy, it was running reasonably.  The loco was put back into its consist with a dummy loco, also a reverse 442 class and together they look pretty nice.

I also washed down a couple of tables, before I put them in the back of my car for the Model Train Show on the weekend just gone.  After lunch I packed up a few items to take to the exhibition as well.

In the leadup to the Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition, we had Geoff, Geoff, Darren come over to provide some traffic on the layout for Tyler to get an idea of what it is like to enjoy a kaos filled Ops session.  Glen forgot to come over.

Before the crew turned up, Tyler presented and I gave him a tour around the layout.  I had previously sent him my training manual.  Tyler who currently lives in Tasmania, was in town for the Brisbane Model Train Show this last weekend.  So what better excuse than to run a train or two or three, over a couple of hours.

It started off with the trains moving very slowly, if at all.  That was a problem.  The control panel showed no shorts, full voltage, but every loco was only just moving.  So I decided to go to the old trouble solution.  I turned off the layout amp meter, and guess what?  Full power to the track returned, and trins could run.

There were a couple of issues.  While I have run a few trains back and forth since the last Ops Session in December last year, basically nothing has really run on the layout since.  There were a couple of uncouplings, a couple of derailments.  I will address each of these bit by bit next weekend.  I had a loose track wire that has since been fixed.  I’m a bit pre-occupied this weekend, with the Brisbane train show.