I’m always on the lookout for items to add to The Shed for storage or making Operating Sessions run better. Last Sunday on our way home from the Mother-in-law’s place, I noticed that one of the houses nearby had what looked like a small magazine storage rack (like the type at news agencies) out the front of their house for council cleanup. So on Monday morning I organised my morning 5km walk to end at this house and then walk back home. As I turned the corner of this street at around 7:30am, I noticed no rubbish out the front of this house. I looked further down the street, and noticed a truck picking up the rubbish – Nooooo! The first day of rubbish collection and early in the morning! I could have walked in the reverse direction but I didn’t. Any chance of verifying that the item was a usable magazine rack for my crew to use in the shed and picking it up and carting it home was gone.
Anyway on Tuesday I went another direction for my walk and the rubbish was still in place in that part of the suburb. I looked down a street about 1.7km from home and saw what looked like a small 4 level storage frame - just like the 4 I already have. Upon closer examination, this frame had 4 plastic tubs in the slide in slots. I took 3 tubs and the frame and walked back home carrying the items. Woo Hoo! On Wednesday I walked another way and sure enough outside my kids former primary school there was a wire storage basket that fits into my previously acquired storage shelves. That also made its way home with me. Thursday was also a walk in another direction and about 2.2km from home, I found another 6 shelf storage frame - yes, I have two of these already. This was also assisted back to my place. As I was making my way home and I was almost there, I passed my wife walking in the opposite direction, she just shook her head, commented something that I cannot print, and then added ‘Stop picking these things up’. So I now have plenty of storage frames, but I do need about another 6 storage baskets. But all the local houses have now been cleaned up. Maybe next year. I think it was a good outcome from my morning walks this week.
On a modelling note, I soldered up the LEDs to fit into Greg’s 3D printed signal faces and they are ready to place on my test track after I add wires and feed them down the post. Greg’s initial test post had a brass tube for the signal post. My next 4 have been made out of styrene tube, as I had some of that, but no brass tube that fitted. I have also fixed up my test track and started adding the first signal and IR detector. I have tested the signal and IR detector by applying power via the CAT5 remote cable connections and the first signal and IR detector work. I have a 6 way gang that initially will be used to put on my control panel to connect back to the signals via CAT5 cable. The first 4 ports will be used for the 4 UP signals, the fifth connection for the narrow gauge signal in the sidings and the sixth connection used to manually test anything that I plug into that connection port. Eventually this port will be used for the shunt ahead signal aspect and the two route indicators on the second UP signal. I had my order of 50 x 0402 White LEDs rock up on Friday as well.
Saturday was NMRA meeting day and I think it was a really good meeting at Glen’s place. We are planning what the future meetings will look like. We did a bit of a discussion with the members in attendance and what they were after. So I think this will come together. After the meeting two members Alisha and Aaron came back to my place (on their way home) for a viewing of my layout and I think they had a bit of a laugh at some of the scenes on the layout.
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