XPT Fun and the Layout Model is Shown Off

Late on Monday I went to the shed and ran my XPT from Grafton to Fairy Hill and return.  Then I ran it to Kyogle and return just for kicks.  I think I noticed an issue inside my helix.  So I investigated.  A section of track had lifted, so I glued it back down on Tuesday morning and put a weight on it as the glue dried.  The next time I powered the layout on, I forgot that I had a weight on the track.  I got a short – Doh!  I realised so I then removed the weight and that section no longer had a short.  The XPT then ran smoothly through the helix section.  I also identified two sets of points at Kyogle where the XPT was jumping when it was travelling through that location.  So I shimmed the check rails with two slivers of 0.010” styrene and that seemed to help wonderfully.

On Tuesday evening amid all the expectations of the Tuesday Nighters, I successfully ran the XPT from Kyogle station back to Grafton Staging.  I was then asked to run it back the other way.  So I ran it from Grafton Staging to Border Loop.  I identified an issue with a set of points on the southern end of Border Loop.  The rail had come adrift from the throw bar.  So I attempted to push it back in.  That seems to have done the trick.  I also identified that two particular coaches on the XPT, the centre one and the last one seem to be causing random derails.  I had a suspicion that the bogies had wheels out of gauge.  On Wednesday morning I got the NMRA track gauge out and sure enough some wheels were out of gauge ever so slightly.  So I did a bit of adjustment and put the coaches back on the train.  Later in the arvo I had some time and ran the train from Border Loop back to Fairy Hill crossing loop before reversing it again and sending it back to Border Loop.  I still seem to think that I had a couple of other bogies that are out of gauge ever so slightly.  I will eventually check them all out.

Earlier in the day I cut up some pieces of styrene, including ‘I’ Beam, ‘H’ Beam and various slabs ready for painting.  These will help make up various steel loads for numerous open wagons.  It will also help provide some loads that someone wants me to make for them.

Saturday was Club Meeting day.  I decided to take the scale model of my future layout to the Club for comments.  It sat on the back seat of the car.  I fielded many questions throughout the day about what it was.  

The model of the Modules for the future exhibition layout.

While at the Club, Greg showed me some 3D printed signals that he put together with some brass tube used for the post.  I purchased a tube cutter from Bunnings today and then went to Jaycar and picked up a stack of LEDs for the signals that Greg will eventually print for me.  I have assembled the first trial signal that Greg printed and gave to me yesterday.  It looks pretty good.  I will eventually get around to making the RJ45 connection from my control panel to the signal as another piece of my layout puzzle gets materialised.