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.