Operations Weekend

I saw that The Great Southern train was in Brisbane and due to leave at 10:15am on Monday on its way to Adelaide.  So I went down to the local park for a potential photo opportunity.  The issue was that the train was many hours late into Brisbane so the departure was likely to be late as well.  I stayed for about an hour after scheduled departure time, and it turned out it went past about 15 minutes after I left.  I can hear my travelling train buddies laughing out loud, after our last few road trips to conventions and exhibitions.  I’m just in a rut guys!  I will get my power back.

The Interstate line next to a local park.  But no train.

The week started off with more preparation for the Operations Session for Saturday this weekend (yesterday).  Finally, I drilled the holes for and then cut the various jumper wires for track bus connections in Sunnybank on the layout.  On Tuesday I finally soldered them up.  I have yet to apply power and see if the section runs, but that is next week's job. 

I had a bit of a cleanup in the shed.  I put a lot of stuff away that I had out to take to various working bees on the Division Freemo Modules.  I cleaned the dispatcher’s desk so he can use it.  I tested each plug in point for the headsets and they all worked.  I ran a cleaning train from Grafton Yard to Cassino, and then branched off and ran to Murwillumbah.  I ran through each track in each of the crossing loops.  I then ran back to Cassino and then took the main line through to Acacia Ridge, and then to Dutton Park.  From here the train went to Fisherman Islands and ran down tracks 3 and 4 before derailing in track 4 as the narrow gauge point was set for a crossover and that was not good, as I was going straight ahead.  We then back tracked to Dutton Park, and then ran through Park Road and ran up and down the first 4 tracks in South Brisbane Interstate Station and Yard.

I also turned on the shed wifi, and then turned on my Wifitrax WFD-30 wifi device which then works via the shed wifi.  This gives me up to 8 wifi devices in the shed.  I then logged my Procab-W (the one with a wifitrax WFN-32 wifi card in it) onto the wifi.  Because I have a password on my wifi router for the great unwashed when operating on wifi, I had to enter that into the Procab-W.  But I cheated, by pressing the WPS button on the router and it auto logs on and is given the password.  So that was made ready for the Operations Session.

I had a couple of issues when running the cleaning train on the layout.  The push button in Clapham Yard South Panel that controls entry into the dual gauge track in the yard, was not working.  I will have to get behind the panel and see if a solder connection has broken off.  A major issue was the fact that when my train was running across Fawcett’s creek Bridge at Kyogle, it derailed over the bridge.  This bridge is all scratch built, and the track was hand laid.  Upon closer inspection one rail had come loose over a considerable distance, no doubt due to the various hot days we have had lately and the track was only originally secured by Aquadhere.  It must have just popped.  So after the train cleaning train running had been completed and I turn track power off, I got out some track gauges, and placed them over the code 60 rails across the scratch built bridge and used super glue to try and secure the rails to the wooden sleepers.  Time will tell if this was successful.  But it held up through the Ops Session.

I had also been spending considerable time, adding wiring to the Future exhibition layout control panel.  I had added hundreds of wires to the various LEDs on the display board.

I tested a few things and some worked, some others didn’t.  Then eventually my Arduino Mega went up in smoke.  I ordered two more, but at a dearer price than the first one.  I discovered a few things.  While I await delivery of a new Arduino Mega, I have swapped in am Arduino Uno.  The issue is that my signalling program is too big for the Uno, so I had to comment out about 2 thirds of the code and variables associated with the Down track, Branch line and the Dual gauge while I do some debugging.

It appears that I need to add some external power supply to the Arduino, as well as all of the 16 port Port Expanders.  I also need to add some pullup resistors to the Port Expander I2C wiring.  So this has caused a redesign of the wiring layout inside the Control Panel.  So while this is being done, I will test some of the changes bit by bit.  I tried a few things and I am having issues with more than one device on the I2C bus from reporting its address.

I went to the shed on Friday morning during Lunch at the Cricket and gave all the locos in the remainder of the timetable a test run up and down their current siding location to ensure that they are all running.  I was also investigating what I might do to the troublesome point at Dutton Park and how I can get it throwing.  I have another Peco Right hand medium point, I also have a large radius Y point to replace it with.  I also have totally different point with no internal over centre spring in the switch from Micro Engineering (I think).  I picked up about a dozen of these at a buy and sell some time back.  I might try and make my own version of the Peco over centre spring and install that on the micro engineering point.

On Saturday morning as I was preparing to set up everything for the Ops session, like the BBQ, the urn and tea/coffee in the shed, etc., I saw I had some messages when two attendees had issues and could not appear as crew.  So that left us with just 6 drivers, North Coast Control and myself.  Kyle took control of North Coast Control and I think he did a pretty good job for his first time.  Barry was back after a long absence and he did a good job running trains.  Arthur was able to run 6 trains by himself during the session out of the about 25 that ran.  It should be realised that some of these trains can take well over 30 minutes to run from South Brisbane Interstate to Grafton Yard.  The other drivers were Geoff, Geoff, Bill and Greg. 

Kyle on North Coast Control.

Grafton Loops starting to fill up with trains.

The Gold Coast Motorail at Murwillumbah waiting for line clear to head to Lismore.

Just ahead of the GC Motorail, is the paybus, going flat out to get clear of the Motorail.

The Gold Coast Motorail eventually gets to Lismore Station.

There will be a couple of fix ups that need to occur following the session with a couple of wires coming off some track sections, and some additional signage will appear on some fascias.  One additional train that ran towards the end of the session was the XPT from Grafton to Cassino on a trial run.  This train is not in the Ops Session timetable, so it was an extra.  I guess those XPT critics - Marty, Glen, Clinton and PK will just have to see the various photographic proof and take the verbal acknowledgments from those present that this movement did occur.  I did have one slight issue with one XPT power car not wanting to run.  So I cancelled the consist, reset its address and re-added the consist and we were away.  basically the session ran pretty well.  Lots of question from the crew "How to I do this?".  "Where do I do this?", "I need some help here".  We completed the timetable, found a couple of locos that were not in the correct place and today I worked out that one train that was sitting in the Yard at Cassino, was mid route at the end of the previous session, but its timetable card was put in the completed list, not still running list last session.  So I finished it off today. 

The XPT is mid-section heading towards Cassino on a test run.

At Cassino, the XPT has arrived, and thus caused mayhem with the roads available.  Arthur has to take the back platform road as he is heading to the Branch.  he has just set the points at the far end of Cassino to allow a train coming through on the loop to exit back to the mainline on its journey south.

Just seconds later the mixed train is heading south through the loop.

"You can't take that track, I'm going to take that track!"  Geoff and Bill almost come to blows working out who gets the mainline.

These two got tangled up, between their throttles and headset cords.

Greg is running his steel train through the Border Loop main.  he happens to be overlength for this crossing loop.

This was going to be fun.  Two overlength trains arriving at Border Loop at the same time.  I think this is called a Geoff-off.  This is easily accomplished by using the two runoff roads on the loop.  

Today I have started work on a few suggested improvements and added some text to the fascia at Acacia Ridge Yard and Clapham Yard.  I also have some more text to add to the fascia under Fisherman Islands.  Yesterday afternoon at the end of the session, it appeared that I had an issue with a short in Power District 1 (Grafton Yard to Cassino) as it looked like I had low voltage in that area.  However when I turned the layout on this morning, I saw no remnants of this.  I also had an issue with a Bachmann tamper yesterday.  So I reset it today and it will not run.  All the lights work.  Just thinking now, it may be in a consist.  It runs well on DC, just not DCC.  I'll check it out tomorrow.

I have also updated my Operations Manual with some more thoughts and updated my Pre and Post Operations Checklists.  All in all a good day.  I will just go through everything this week, and ensure that the timetable is ready for the next iteration.