Ops Session Wrap

On Monday I sat at the kitchen table and set about installed LED’s into Kyogle Signal box and then connecting the wires up to a plug.  The plug was then wired out the other side, to the Arduino, and the other side via a switch, which was later cut into the layout fascia so these lights can be turned on or off separately.  Later, while I was cutting a hole in the baseboard underneath the signal box, I realised that a small fettler’s shed next to the Kyogle Platform, which I had picked up at a Buy and Sell, had lights installed inside.  So I also ran wires from that shed to the Arduino and I tested them and they are working as well.

On Tuesday I had Anatol visit and drop off some 12mm track that he purchased and I repurchased off him.  It contained about 6 sets of 12mm points, so it was a bargain.  Tuesday evening was Tuesday Nighters.  Eight (8) of us got together of Geoff’s place.  We can only have a get together at his place during school holidays as his wee small kids would be disrupted in their bedtime routines during school days.  I purchased a QR destination board from Darren that used to be fitted to the QR Diesel hauled passenger trains around the suburban network.  It works, and it has internal lighting.  I will have to ask some questions as to how it is wired, and what voltage is required.

Wednesday being the day before I went back to work, was not occupied by much modelling related activities.  Although I did glue the fence posts onto the Kyogle platform and did some maintenance to one of the under platform support structures.  A total of all of 5-10 minutes work.  I also did clean up the kitchen table a bit and put a few things away in storage bins.

Saturday this week I did nothing.  The day was interrupted by the boss wanting to through our existing lounge out at the upcoming council cleanup, and then go looking for a new one.  So we spent a few hours trawling through the shops.  I am still stuffing around with the lights for Kyogle platform.

Today I had the pleasure of heading over to Anthony’s Ops Session.  These are great days.  There was 7 of us there.  I was SAR#1.  I had two easy as jobs running from Kybybolite to Tatiara Down with a freight, and then with the Overland passenger from Tatiara Downs back to Kybybolite again.  There was also shunting the freight at Tatiara Down.  The third train was a freight from Kybybolite to Tatiara Down, with some wagons dropped off and more added, and then to Border Junction and then onto Jameston.  OMG!  My brain was stretched to the limits.  I had about 8 wagons onboard.  I had to pick up about another 8 wagons.  The wagons needed to be picked up and placed on a couple of team tracks.  Just remembering where everything was to go back to.  It took me hours.  But I finally got the freight train back off the branch and into Tatiara Down.  Dropping some wagons, and picking up a lot more.  Then I had to run back to Kybyolite and stable the train.  I still have 2 trains to run, when time was called on the session.  This was the 54^th session that Anthony has run and this one was apparently my 25^th attendance.  There are about 4 crew in front of me in terms of attendance proficiency, and of course the host has attended all 54 sessions.

 A view of Nankiva.

The headshunt end of Nankiva.

A view of a section of Kybyolite Staging.  In the distance we can see the Border Junction location.

Another view of Nankiva.

One of the Silos at Tatiara Downs.  

Some of the industries at Tatiara Downs.

More industries,

One of the teams tracks at Jameston.

I great end to a week.  Back to work for a couple of days and then back on the tools working on my Armidale presentation.

Lead up to the Gold Coast Model Railway Exhibition

Monday this week, was spent building the station ramps for access to Kyogle platform.  I am also building the various fence panels.  As the ramps began to take shape, I added the legs underneath them to support them at the correct angles.  More fence panels were made up.

On Tuesday I painted the ramps my desired colour.  Once that was dry, I added four runs of fencing to the model.  I then joined these up and then added the last lot of three fence posts and made the last run of fence rails.  So far the model looks passable.  I still need to add the first two runs of fencing to the platform.  These are just sitting on the platform not glued in yet.

I installed my Arduino to run off rectified track power, underneath Kyogle station.  I also wired up the first three LEDs at the southern end of the platform.  I tested them, and they all work.  I have written the Arduino program to control all the lights, and it compiles.  But I have not yet uploaded the program into the Arduino, or even tested the program on the workbench.

Thursday was my Anniversary so we all went to breakfast in town, and then did some shopping in the late morning.  I gave my self a day off modelling.

Friday I got everything ready to take down to the Gold Coast Model Train Exhibition at Nerang.  I thought I would spray paint 12 tea bags in various colours and have them ready to work on during Saturday.  The car got packed so I could have an early get away.  I watched the cricket on TV.

So, at the Gold Coast Exhibition on Saturday, I was doing demonstrations at the Exhibition.  I started with the tarps.  I already had a stash of painted tea bags, and first job was to cut them to HO size of a 24’ x 16’ scale tarpaulin size.  After I had cut them all to size I moved onto the folding and tying up stage.  I had a few people ask about them and I got some bystanders to fold up their own tarps and tie them up.  Next task was to cut up 10 lengths each of two difference sizes of dowel.  These were then split with a modelling knife to create a pile of fence posts.  These were then dipped into a stain mixture of ink pad ink and metho.  So that was the second job for the day.  I can’t remember what I did after that.  I think we put on a decent display for the day.

Being a glutton for punishment, I went back down to the Exhibition day for a half day, today.  I added a tap to my scratch built hand basin for the Kyogle Signal box.  I then made up the waste pipe from the hand basin.  I still have a lot of detail to add to the signal box.  I was hoping to fix my wiring for the two LEDs in the signal box, but I did not get around to that.  I will get onto that either tonight or tomorrow.  The next demonstration was to build a structure to allow two roof top whirly birds inside a large shed to turn in unison when connected to a slow rev motor.  My previous effort did not have aligned gears and the motor would not run the gears.  There was just too much friction.  So I built a new structure.  Now it is free spinning and the device spins way too fast, even with a slot rev motor.  So I have made a gear reduction drive and it is still too fast.  I can still but one more gear reduction in line.  However, I do have a tortoise motor that runs at about 3 turns per minute, maybe I will drop the drive reduction building and just use a tortoise to control the whirly birds.

We had some interesting conversations with people from Sydney, Hobart, and also some locals.  Numbers through the door certainly picked up today.

I’m back at work later this week for a few days, and then I think I’ll shout myself some more time off from mid next week.

Kyogle Activities

This week’s tasks included the following.  I stained the various split posts that I made last weekend on Monday.  I also drilled some air holes in my Jiffy box for the headset power supply.  I don’t want that to overheat.  I had been looking at making some animated whirly bird for a shed roof.  I built the first prototype and it is a bit tight to get the motor to turn things easily.  I might have to build version two next week.

Tuesday I painted a small section of platform that gets inserted between the signal box and the station building.  I also installed 12mm bogies on three 12mm wagons.  They seem to roll quite nicely.  All I need to do now is find some KD couplers and install them.

A Guards van and a weed spray van with new 12mm wheel sets.  wagons are sitting in Acacia Ridge narrow gauge yard.

The petrol bomb and the louvred van ready to roll.

I attended a funeral on Wednesday and caught up with some people.  On Thursday the Postie rocked up with my Auscision Containers.  So they were split up into mine and PK’s and mine went to the shed and found some wagons for them to be installed in.  Following their arrival, PK and I placed a further order for the unannounced cage containers.  I might have that by late next week as well.

Also it what must be great relief to many of my Tuesday Night group, the XPT got run on Thursday.  It ran from Grafton to Cassino and through to Lismore.  It then ran back and forth to Old Cassino a few times.  It appears that it has lots of low coupler tangs.  So they were all adjusted.  One short coupler was replaced by a longer next one, as the wagons bump when traversing the curves out of Old Cassino to Lismore.  I also removed most of the bogies and added some lead weights to the bogies.  The train now seems to run much better.  But I will look at it again next week with more outings on the layout.  Closer inspection also revealed that about 6 couplers were too low.  So when I replaced the KD’s in the set recently I may have forgotten to adjust the coupler heights.  This probably contributed to the suspect running particularly with all my gradients on the layout.

On Friday I installed three platform lights at Kyogle.  These sit behind the platform and hang over it.  I also made up lots of fencing for the platform sections from the signal box to the station building, and from the station building to the end of the platform.  I still need to manufacture the platform access ramp and also add some fencing to that.  Again a future job, maybe Monday.  I need to buy some more 0.020” x 0.030” styrene for the rails of my platform fences.  I have run out of that size.  However, I scavenged another length from a worksite inside the shed and it allowed me to finish the fencing for the platform.

This shot shows the three station lights if you look close enough.  The fencing on the end of the platform is just stand there by itself.  It is not yet glued down.  The fencing to the left of the signal box is glued to the platform section.

The platform fencing for the Brisbane end of the Kyogle platform.  This is just sitting on the platform.  The ramp will be built and placed there on Monday - hopefully.

The overview of the small opening that is where Kyogle is on the layout.

Today I had this idea that I could use one of my power supplied to power an Arduino.  So I wired up a power supply, that rectifies the DCC track signal and ran it through a plug which connected to an Arduino and Voila!  It powered up.  That will allow me this week to continue working on the lighting for Kyogle platform.  The Arduino will make one light flicker.  I will have to also add lights to the station building and the signal box, but as these items will be removable, I will have to install some sockets under these structures, and have some plugs in the structures, and as they are placed into position the plugs go into the sockets and we have electrical connections.  I have already done this in the Park Road Transshipment shed, and it worked well.  Lets see how we go.  I might be able to show off some lighted structures next weekend.

Saturday we ventured out to Karalee and our monthly NMRA gathering.  Just under 30 minutes each way.  I dropped off PK’s containers as we arrived at the same time.  We had a good turnout to the gathering, over 20 people and I gave two presentations.  They covered the wagons in the photos below. 

The two wagons above, are the Ballast Wagon (left) and the Ballast Plough (right) which I gave a presentation on building and detailing at Saturday's NMRA gathering.

More activities this week include preparing for doing a clinic next weekend at the Gold Coast Model train Club’s Exhibition at Nerang.  I think I’m working all Saturday on the NMRA stand.  Come and say hello if you are attending.

Club Activities

This last week, I had 3 work days before resuming my Long Service Leave duties.  On Thursday I did nothing on the modelling front.  However, on Friday I got around to putting all my AMRM magazines into plastic sleeves and then putting 12 plastic sleeves into some binders.  There are now 5 binders to a tub and 5 tubs have been relocated to the shed.  I have copies every AMRM issue ever produced.  These tubs are now in the shed under the Cassino baseboard.  This has freed up some bookshelf space in a bookshelf in the office and removed a few piles of AMRMs from the floor in the office.  I have since re-filled the book shelf with a few other books that were laying around on top of other books.

Saturday was the official opening of the RMCQ Clubrooms extensions, the Outdoor G gauge layout and the 50^th Anniversary of the Club (actually the 51^st).  I had the job of cooking the BBQ, so I missed the two G scale trains running through a paper banner on the new G scale staging sidings located under the new carport.  I did see some very nice weathered models running around on the layout.  A rather QR 12 mm trains was running around and it looked a treat.  Later on in the day, I saw a standard gauge train running round and it was every bit as good as the first narrow gauge train. Well done for Mitch for his weathering efforts.

Today I went to the shed and worked on cutting up quite a few split log fence posts.  These still need to be stained before placement around the layout.  At lunch time I went to Jaycar and picked up a small jiffy box to house the power supply components for my layout communication headsets.  I took the opportunity to move the LED in the power circuit that shows that power is on to the circuit, to the top of the jiffy box.  The jiffy box was attached to the layout fascia, power applied and everything tested good again.  However, just later today I worked out that there are no ventilation holes in the jiffy box, so if it gets hot, it might cook itself.  I think I will drill about half a dozen ventilation holes in the jiffy box tomorrow morning.

I need to change gears and focus on my November presentation for the New England Convention in Armidale.  So the plan was to do some work there this afternoon.  Buy my procrastination gene took over.  I reviewed the two power point presentations that I will be giving next weekend at the NMRA meeting.  I fixed a couple of spelling mistakes.  I then basically developed the outline of a whole new presentation for a future NMRA meeting about the NSW NOCY wagon.  It was then that I pulled out my notes and did a bit more brain storming and planning for the November presentation.  So that will be this week’s job.  More work will continue tomorrow.   

Ticking Off All the Short Tasks That Need to be Done

On Monday I decided to cover the area around Rocla Sleeper Siding (right next to Grafton Loco) with various dirts and sands.  One thing that I discovered is that my supply of red earth is very, very low.  On Tuesday morning, I got the various scatters out and ground covers out, and spread them over the dirts that had dried from the previous day. 

The area below the railway line is newly sceniced.

On Tuesday evening this week I had the guys come over to my place for Tuesday Nighters.  11 people turned up.  We went to the shed and I showed off a couple of recent updates.  While doing things I noticed that a couple of items were not working.  One of my NCE QSnaps was not powering.  A point throw via wire-in-tube had slipped out of the Peco point.  One of my scenic items had collapsed.  So on Wednesday morning I fixed the collapsed bench near Lismore Yard.  I fixed the wire-in-tube point throw in Border Loop.  I added a bit of super glue to prevent the wire from slipping out of the Peco point hole.  I had a quick look at the NCE QSnap, but it appeared that there is now a loose connection in its power input.  More work was planned to occur on Saturday.

I then added bogies to a QR OLO oil tanker.  I also added KD couplers.  I will give it a test run on Saturday.  I should get around to adding bogies to the other 4 or 5 wagons sitting in rotten row at Acacia Ridge narrow gauge Yard on my layout. 

This is Acacia Ridge Yard.  The petrol tanker is middle left, and the other narrow gauge wagons to add bogies to are along the bottom of the photo.

I also cut up a sheet of 2mm Styrene and made the platform for Kyogle between the station building and the signal box.  I then turned that upside down and made the underneath frame out of two sizes of I beam.  I placed it on the layout and the height was perfect.  You can be lucky.

I had a short day at work on Thursday.  I left after 7 and half hours and when I got home, I went to the shed and brought forward my planned weekend work.  I started to build my hand basin for the signalbox.  So it was soon shaped with a drill and a Dremel with a sanding disk.  Then I went back to the NCE QSnap.  I removed the power wires, and then re-installed them.  Although I did that earlier in the week, this time, it seemed to resolve the problem with the QSnap.  I also was having issues with my traffic control signal.  It was not always firing up.  So again I removed the power circuit to the Arduino and re-seated all the connections.  It now comes back on every time I power it.

The NCE QSnap on the right was the dodgy one.  All good now.

On Saturday, 1 June 2024 I went down to the shed in the afternoon.  I had the house to myself as everyone went out.  I realised that I had a broken wire in my telephone circuit from North Coast Control to Acacia Ridge/Grafton Yards.  So that was connected and I tested it out and it was all good.  I then decided to work on the power circuit for my headset circuit.  I powered it all up, connected up two headsets and started plugging them in all around North Coast Control.  That was where most of my issues were.  I tested a few headset connections.  They all worked with hearing, but some did not have their push to talk working.  I found two wires off in a major junction next to the headset brains.  I fixed them and one run of headsets run was then completely working.  But there was a another run with three headsets that still could not get their push to talk buttons working.  I pulled all the panels off and found another wire missing.  I fixed that and the headsets still did not work.  I traced the wires back for that headset run and found a junction box just behind the new fascia I installed last year.  I decided to cut some fascia off and check the junction box.  You guessed it.  A wire was off.  I fixed that and it now appears that everything is working again.  However, that will be only until I have a few guys over and they start using the headsets.  They are sure to break then.  It always does. 

The headset controller.  The power supply is just hanging down to the left.  It will take either a 9V battery or my 12V plug in.  The power supply will by put into a jiffy box on Thursday this week.

The other thing I did on Saturday was paint my hand basin for the Kyogle Signal Box, ready for install.  I will add a tap to the basin tonight.  Today’s main task was to try and fix some lights at the Glenapp Signal Box.  The staff exchange platform light was out.  So I fixed that.  I also looked at replacing some old lights with some LED’s for street lights at Cassino and also for some other locations around the layout.  I tested threading an LED through the street light post and that is all OK.  I also spray painted my signal lever frame.  But first I need to remove it from its delivery packaging.  It seems securely glued in.

The light over the staff exchange platform is now working.

While pottering around in the shed, I thought about if I needed to install another set of cross overs in Fisherman Islands Narrow gauge yard.  I just placed them where they would be spliced in.  I also moved the 5 spare coal wagons into a run around track in the yard.  I need to complete the removeable loads for these wagons.

An overview of Fisherman Islands Yard.  The future narrow gauge cross over points have just been laid between the dual gauge track and first narrow gauge loop.

Another think I fixed today was my Fairy Hill Hall with the disco.  My Arduino was not powering up and running the disco.  So I unplugged and replugged the USB cable a few times and all is now good.  Other things that I need to do is build some staff hoops, a wall Clock, for inside my Kyogle Signal Box.  I then need to make some items for the tables inside.  Like a jug and coffee cups, a jacket to put over the chair and some register books.