New England Model Railway Convention Week

On Monday a crew of us went on an outing.  The southsiders caught a train from either Kuraby, Altandi or Sunnybank and ended up at Roma Street Station.  We then went and picked up PK and Clinton and we ventured out to Kippa Ring by train.  We then caught a bus from there, along the water front at Redcliffe and across the bridge and into Sandgate.  From there we had coffee and then caught the next train out to Shorncliffe, before catching that same train back to the city and out to Cleveland.  There we went for a walk and found a nice cake shop and had some lunch.  Then back to the City (or near enough for 3 of us at Park Road Station).  I caught the Gold Coast train to Altandi, while the two others caught the Beenleigh train.  

Tuesday night 10 of us met up at Glen’s place for a run in his shed followed by adjourning to his dining room table for coffee and supper.  We were solving all the world’s (and NMRA’s) problems on that night.

So shed activities were slow to start this week.  On Thursday I adjusted the already laid 12mm track to Rocklea by about half an inch, and added in all the new standard gauge track.  I still have to splice in one more piece of track, the splitter for narrow gauge and standard gauge on the south side of Rocklea Sidings.  That is just a Dremel cut next Tuesday.  Then the trackage will all be tested and the point motors will also be tested again following the changes I made on last Thursday.

Friday was driving day to Armidale for the New England Convention.  PK and Glen rocked up at my place early, and we hit the road.  At Warwick, we caught up with the other 2 cars in the convoy.  More food was consumed at Glen Innes, and as we were leaving the hail hit us.  It poured most of the way to Armidale.  We had dinner in the Bowls club and caught up with many faces we had not seen since 2 years ago.  Saturday was presentation day.  I was second up straight after morning tea and before lunch.  The room was packed.  I also attended some good sessions.  It was interesting that there was some tie in between the sessions that I attended.  The Dinner on Saturday night was very nice.  Good company and great food, and average speaker.  Sorry I couldn’t resist Marty. Hehehehe!  At the Trivia contest our table did rubbish.  Glen called himself a NSW driver.  His knowledge of NSWGR history was crap. 

On Sunday I presented again, this time first up in the morning.  Again, the room was pretty much full.  The other sessions I attended on that day were enlightening.  So a great convention over all.  Thanks NEMRC for a great Convention.  We want to be back in 2 years time.  We then had a few beers at the Bowls Club, followed by the usual dinner at the White Bull.  We booked a table for 16, but 29 turned up in our side of the bar, and there were a few others, maybe 6 on the other side of the bar.  We did a bit of table rearranging to cater for the 29 that we had for dinner.

Tomorrow is visiting visiting Rohan day followed by our convoy’s drive home.  Let’s hope that the New England Model Railway Club will arrange the next convention in 2 more years.

Rocklea Siding Possession

This week started off slow.  I did not do anything in the shed.  I was advised that a delivery of track was being shipped on Monday, so it raised my anticipation juices.  I was also still waiting for some electrical switches early in the week.  I tossed up if I was to go to Jaycar and buy some alarm cable, but I decided to wait a few days.  I eventually picked some up on Wednesday using my NMRA discount.  I saved about $3.

So early in the week I did scan through a presentation that I was preparing, adding a few extra words here and there.  I had promised our Div Super I would have four new presentations completed by February next year.  One is complete and the second only needs pictures added.  That is probably a week's work to do it properly.  A third is also almost complete and the last one is nowhere near being started.

I finally got a delivery of some track on Thursday so I went straight to the shed to install some trackwork.  I decided to change my strategy and prioritised the Rocklea Siding area.  So I took a track possession.  My God it was hot and humid in the shed and I just dripped sweat as I pulled out the trackage at Rocklea and re-laid it.  The narrow gauge track work was all completed on Friday.  Again very hot and humid.  I reinstalled the point motors and gave them a test and they all worked, except one standard gauge one.  This one will no longer throw.  So I will look at the point and point motor at a later time.  I then decided to try and run a narrow gauge train through the area that has been relaid.  I had to jerry-rig the power to the narrow gauge section, as it gets its power from the standard gauge bit of track, and that was removed.  Slight overlook there!  But one was connected up, the loco ran well through the new trackwork to the old Rocklea Sidings.  I still need to install an auto-reverser for the standard gauge/narrow gauge diamond crossing.  Until this is done, I cannot run back out onto the mainline towards Acacia Ridge.  So that will be Tuesday's job after I mow in the morning - I think.  

Saturday was NMRA meeting day where we got to view Jim Costello's New Haven layout.  Very nice indeed.  When I got home in the afternoon, one of my deliveries of switches was in the letter box.  

I was waiting until the Sunday Buy and Sell so I had planned to I pick up some more lengths of second hand 16.5mm flex track - to complete the standard gauge trackage through Rocklea.  So while at the Buy and Sell I picked up a couple of extra points and some more point motors and I will swap out the sticky one in Rocklea on Tuesday.   I sold some bits and pieces, but ended up spending more on my purchases.  There were some absolute bargains to be had.  I plan to have the whole Rocklea area re-done as of Tuesday afternoon, or Wednesday at the latest.  

With my point work being delivered on Thursday I had also joined the other bits of track for two of the three ends of the angle going into Dutton Park.  I will spend some time this coming week working out what extra baseboards need to be installed before this gets installed.  Some of the baseboards may be just too narrow to support two tracks.  I will see.

We all know that good things come to those that wait.  While at the NMRA meeting on Saturday, a presenter showed a photo of a location where I was planning to base my future exhibition layout.  He used to live next to the track there.  So a USB is coming with a few hundred photos.  This will help me with the planning over the next year or so.

Further Work on the 12mm Empire

A new week means more building projects.  Monday started off with me laying a lot more wires for Yeerongpilly station.  In particular the control panel for the points here.  I ran out of wires.  I was also installing the baseboard for Park Road Station and ran out of screws.   On Monday I also reinstalled the fascia for the nolix between Clapham Yard and Dutton Park, or at least the section in front of Yeerongpilly station.  I also made room for the new control panel in the fascia.  I also ordered a stack of push buttons for 5 new control panels and some toggle switches that allow me to isolate each of the panels.

Tuesday was replenishment day.  More wire and more screws were purchased.  When I got home I added the baseboard for Park Road.  This was three separate boards that take the layout an extra 2.7m and will allow for the station to be installed at Park Road.  I then reinstalled the staff machine for Dutton Park-South Brisbane Interstate and the headset plug in points to the layout.  I'm thinking that I will need to add some more headset plug in points at Yeerongpilly and Park Road and maybe another one at South Brisbane.  These jobs can be the last ones done, as the track will not be in use at the next Operations Session in December

On Wednesday the plan was to lay a bit more track through Park Road Station.  That was easy.  I have identified the two points and point motors for this location.  In doing do, I realised that I need two more point motors for the Dutton Park.  Luckily there is a Buy and Sell next weekend, so I'll hopefully pick them up there.  As a background task on Tuesday, I cut up my last string of pallets into 27 individual ones.  On Wednesday afternoon, I painted 20 in Blue and 20 in Red.  

Yeerongpilly Platform laid.  A future headshunt will potentially be installed here at the end of the platform

Park Road Platform laid in front of Park Road Siding

My delivery from Australian Modeller rocked up early on Thursday.  So I quickly installed my QSnap up to 3 sets of points.  Two work perfectly.  The third set which was an existing set at Dutton Park for the dual gauge, is now not throwing in one direction.  I will get around to looking at that later on.  Given that I have laid all the track I am going to lay now, until my points and crossing turn up from QSM, I will switch modes to jump back onto my railmotor and motor drive setups.

The new Mini Panel installed

Dutton Park about to be upgraded with a separate narrow gauge trackage and a narrow gauge triangle included.

On Friday afternoon I plugged my Procab into one of my NCE Mini Panels (Loco Pilly) to check out that the locations in the Mini Panel that appeared to be free were actually free.  Bugger!  They were not.  I had previously used them and I had not updated my hard copy of the code in the Mini Panel.  Now I need to run some wires a huge distance from where the panel is to Fisherman Islands.  That particular Mini Panel is basically three quarters empty.

Loco Pilly Mini Panel exposed after removing the fascia here.

South Brisbane Mini Panel is also full up.

Fisherman Islands Mini Panel, has lots of space free.

I also investigated how I would get some track to a future Sunnybank station, a passenger terminus of my future passenger empire.  I investigated the trackage through Rocklea Siding.  By slewing the tracks over by up to about 3cm.  I think I have enough room to run a narrow gauge line (Rocklea Siding to Sunnybank) next to the current dual gauge line (Clapham Yard to Acacia Ridge Yard).  Also in doing this work, I will consider also changing the standard gauge entry into Rocklea Siding.  This is slightly problematic with the standard gauge point operation.  I can just move things around and have the standard gauge entry just a little bit closer to Clapham Yard.  What this means is that the narrow gauge entry onto the dual gauge will be after the standard gauge entry to Rocklea Siding, and not before it.  A much simpler point arrangement in this area.  But a future project for implementation.  I want to get Dutton Park completed and operational first.

The top of this picture shows Rocklea Siding's point work.  The layer below Rocklea Siding is Acacia Ridge Yard.  I have laid some new track over the top of Rocklea to get a bit of a view of what it will look like once it is redesigned.

A standard Peco 12mm crossing, was split down the middle with a dremel tool and made into a standard gauge - 12 mm crossing.  It seems to work.  It will go into the new Rocklea Siding point work.

On Saturday morning I tried to lay out the actual point work needed to rebuild the Rocklea Siding entry and make allowance for the new Sunnybank narrow gauge main line.  So I made a wish list for purchasing.  At the same time, I thought about running wires from the new panel at Yeerongpilly Station to the Mini Panel at Fisherman Islands.  I think just purchasing a roll of 4 core alarm cable is the way to go.  I still need to run a single cable as well as I will need 5 cables for the 2 point motor controls with 2 positions each and the common wire running from the control panel to the Mini Panel.  At this stage I am not thinking about the South Brisbane Mini Panel required for new narrow gauge crossing at Park Road.

While I was in the shed, I plugged my Procab into the other 4 Mini Panels and verified what locations were spare.  I found some more locations that had not been kept up to date.  So everything has now been updated.  But the Fisherman Islands Mini Panel is half empty, so I will run my cables from there to Yeerongpilly for my new crossing Loop at that location.

Hopefully this week I will get a delivery of some push buttons for 3 control panels and some point work, that I will then start installing into Dutton Park.  NMRA meeting next Saturday and a Buy and Sell on Sunday and then Armidale the week after.  Hopefully I will pick up a three lengths of standard gauge flex track and three point motors at the Buy and Sell.  I wonder if I can get this all completed before I head off to Armidale on Friday week?

The Narrow Gauge Empire Expands

 Monday afternoon started in the shed with me finding a stray coupler dropped by a Tuesday Nighter in the Lismore area - (Geoff).  I then tried to re-glue the roof back together on the damaged Cassino Fettler's Shed.  I then put my newly acquired far North Hobbies Paybus on the test track and it ran very well on DC.  I am yet to decide what I will do with that.  I have one of these Far North Hobbies ones myself, but it has a DCC chip in it, but unpainted.  But the new one, is all painted.  So I might swap the DCC bits and pieces over to the new one, and then I will be left with a mechanism that might be able to be narrowed down to 12mm for use in my railmotor.  Again that is all future work.

My attention then turned to pulling up the standard gauge track between the two points at Park Road Siding and South Brisbane Interstate Station.  The track was then slewed over slightly by reducing the radius of this rather large horse-shoe curve by about 3cm radius.  I then through a couple of lengths of 12mm flex track down on the outside of the standard gauge track to see if both tracks will fit on the current baseboard.  They certainly did.  However, I had to move the point motor of the Main/Siding at the northern end of Park Road Siding was moved from outside of the curve to the inside of the curve.  That was re-tested and worked.  The point for the Siding 1/Siding 2 at the northern end of the Park Road Siding was also adjusted to move this point motor the further away from its original position.  This is because the narrow gauge track work will be travelling straight through the old position of the point motor.  So this was moved, tested and was OK.

The point motor at Park Road was relocated from the outside of the track to the inside, and the radius of this curve was reduced by about 3cm.

This point motor was moved outwards with an extension added to the throw mechanism to allow for the 12mm track to go through there.

Looking North, the new 12mm track is on the outside of the curve.

The next section looking further north.

I then did some more work on the baseboard at South Brisbane for the 12mm trackage.  At about 2/3 of the way between Park Road Siding and South Brisbane on the 12mm narrow gauge track it needs to start to rise so that it can clear the standard gauge track for sidings 9 and 10.  It is all just planning at this stage.  Future changes could be made.  But I plan to have everything in place before too long so I can perhaps run some 12mm trains just in this area and sort out the point work and track work at South Brisbane.  Again lots of work needs to still be done for the track work between Dutton Park and the northern end of Park Road Siding.  So now thinking about this, does this mean that I can install a crossing loop and possible platforms for Park Road making a 12mm station?  That might allow me to then have a separate block sections from Dutton Park to Park Road, then Park Road to South Brisbane.  This might speed up traffic traversing the Dutton Park junction section.  

So on Tuesday I completed the standard gauge changes and tested everything and this area is all back to normal.  I will contemplate the Park Road 12mm changes.  But I did lay a few lengths of 12mm track from the end of Park Road Siding around the curve into just short of the throat of South Brisbane.  I have been building the incline into this location as I go.  Initially it will float and when complete I will make the incline ramp permanent.

I also purchased a sheet of ply for the extra 12mm baseboard width from Dutton Park to Park Road Siding.  It will be used to increase the baseboard width from Loco Pilly to Dutton Park as well.

On Wednesday while the boss was out, I spent some more time in the shed, installing the edge barrier, and then taking the track all the way into the point work at South Brisbane.  I also laid the SX siding outside South Brisbane station.  I've even tested the running on the track from South Brisbane to just before Park Road Station.  Nice!

On Thursday, the soldering iron came out and I started to tie the 12mm trackage back to the main power district bus for that power district.  I then installed some more barriers for South Brisbane and then started to lay some more trackage here.  

Looking south from South Brisbane towards Park Road the track barrier (Plasterer's Angle) on the left.

Now looking north towards South Brisbane Interstate and South Brisbane Station.  The SX siding is on the far right.

Wagons sitting just outside South Brisbane Station.  The SX siding on the left.

So on Friday I started ripping up a sheet of ply.  I then added extra baseboard width along the trackage from Loco Pilly to Dutton Park.  I added about 4.2m of baseboard.  I have decided to add in Yeerongpilly Station, and then change the track layout for Dutton Park.  It currently is a point with Dual gauge to Fisherman Islands and standard gauge to South Brisbane Interstate.  I was going to build a dual gauge point here with all three rails going in both directions, but by removing the dual gauge splitter way back just outside Loco Pilly, I now have separate standard gauge and narrow gauge tracks running from here (out of Clapham Yard) to Dutton Park.  That allows me to put in Yeerongpilly station.  I then can adjust the track layout at Dutton Park, with a standard gauge point and a narrow gauge point forming a crossing the separate tracks continuing to Park Road, where a Park Road Station will be built.  I just need a standard Tillig crossing for narrow/standard gauge.   In the other direction, towards Fisherman Islands, the Dual gauge splitter piece of track that I removed from outside Loco Pilly, will go into use here, before Fisherman Islands.

So on Saturday after visiting the local hobby shops and picking up some track at one, the other had nothing that I really wanted.  So I went and purchased one of the items online from Australian Modeller - who seem to have it, and then ordered some other items from Queensland Scale Models.  So I'm spreading the love around.  When I got home, The track maintenance crew took possession of the track and removed the old gauge splitter track outside Loco Pilly.  They then straight railed the standard gauge line, so that is back working in a short period of time.  The two power feeds for here were reattached on Sunday.  I then started to lay the narrow gauge on a new alignment through Yeerongpilly station.  The point was installed and the hole in the baseboard cut.  The power feeds for this track, and wire the point motors for Yeerongpilly back to a yet to be delivered QSnap were also installed.   

The Tillig Gauge splitter is being removed.  The new extended baseboard for Yeerongpilly platform will be to the right.

These changes will not be cheap, but you only live once, and it is only money.  I will need an additional NCE QSnap, and a standard Narrow gauge crossing from Tillig - again not cheap.  I thought I needed 4 new sets of narrow gauge points.  But after spending some time in the shed on Saturday, I then thought I will need only an extra 2 sets of point for the track re-arrangement at Dutton Park.  Isn't time amazing.  I laid out some trackage on the floor to get an idea how much room I'd need at Dutton Park and then it dawned on me.  If I purchased another QSnap (Oh the pain!), and another two sets of points, I can actually install a 'Y' at Dutton Park just like in real life.  This will allow South Brisbane narrow gauge to get to Fisherman Islands.  Now I also need a second Tillig Crossing.  So the track coming north from Clapham Yard is laid all the way to just short of Dutton Park.  The point at the far end of Yeerongpilly was also installed.

I had Darren visit today and I bounced a few ideas off of him while we had a beer.  I have no idea how my safeworking will work between Clapham Yard, Yeerongpilly, Dutton Park, Park Road and South Brisbane.  I might have to call on my two QR Train Controller mates to earn their free beers from Ops Sessions to put them to work, deciding how this will be implemented.  But what it will allow me to do is run narrow and standard gauge side by side between Clapham Yard and South Brisbane/South Brisbane Interstate, allowing me to replicate my childhood travelling to and from school.

Tuesday Night Antics, or No Imagination - Followed by - Roadtrip!

We had a visit from the Tuesday Nighters on Tuesday.  About 12 or 13 turned up.  Tuesday Night antics included turning about 6 cars upside down (sitting on their roofs) on the layout.  These cars were (1) near Fairy Hill Signal box and (5) near the Cassino Meatworks.  There were also cars swapped from right hand drive to left hand drive around the road system at Cassino, Three of these were on Simpson Parade at Cassino and two on Barker Street at Cassino.  Two more were similarly treated at the Lismore Level Crossing, and 4 at the Old Cassino level crossing on West Street.  Another 4 wheel drive car was moved and placed on the tracks just outside a tunnel in the Border ranges.  Luckily I saw it before I ran a train as that could have caused a derailment and then some damage to fences and scenery.  The next issue was the bobcat operator that is usually outside the gate at Ron and Marg's B&B - near Fairy Lane, which is near Fairy Hill Crossing Loop, he had walked onto the middle of the track and was standing there.  Again luckily I saw that he was there or he would have derailed a loco 2 inches from the edge of the layout and causing a loco to go over the edge of the layout.  

I also had a thumb planted through the roof of the Cassino perway shed next to the Cassino Signal box.  That has been there for close to 15 years minding it's own business.  God knows why?  Also a tree had been uprooted near the Rocla Siding.  It will need to be replanted.  Monday's job.

So on Wednesday I decided to make another 27 pallets - because I could.  That was quite easy while watching the idiot box.

But I did have a brain wave in the morning.  I was wondering if I had the available real estate to add a separate narrow gauge line from Clapham Yard to South Brisbane.  I could put a 2 road runaround in at South Brisbane for the 12mm.  It might even have two lay over sidings, one for a railmotor and one for another SX set.  Now at the other end of the narrow gauge world, or nearly, somewhere after Rocklea Siding, I might add a turnout that takes the narrow gauge track south towards Sunnybank.  That will also allow a turn around of trains and maybe a goods siding as well.  Sunnybank used to have a siding there.  I can then run my QR SX set from location to location, and I might have to get a second set.  Alternatively I could run a future QR silver bullet (or two) between those two locations.  I might have to work out the safeworking arrangements for these new sections.  For the complex track work at Dutton Park, I will need to have an actual dual gauge RH point, with the third rail on the left hand side, before its gets onto its own right of way.   

On Wednesday night at 7:00pm I was asked by the Superintendent to do a presentation for this Saturday's NMRA meeting.  Bugger.  Not much time!  I had only just started working on a potential article for AMRM along the topic of Prototype Modelling following some of the lighthearted feedback I received on Tuesday evening from the crew.  So I thought I'd turn that into a Powerpoint first.  So that was Thursday afternoon's job.  Basically it was finished then.  I did a bit more on Thursday evening, while talking to a few NMRA guys on Discord.  On Friday morning I did a few small tweaks to it, before I went out for a happy hour at work.  

Saturday started pretty early.  Not as early as the north side crew - hey PK?  We went down to Lismore and Casino for some layout visits at some NMRA guys places - 5 in total.  I gave the presentation on Saturday afternoon and it had the required affect.  A few laughs.  But we did find 3 typos in it.  Whoops!  Oh there was a pub visit for dinner on Saturday night.  Sunday included a lap of the Casino Miniature Railway and Museum.  A great weekend and over 500km travelled.  Well done to the organisers, the hosts and the various attendees.

On Thursday afternoon, I did some work on my South Brisbane deck.  So it has been installed and I need some 3mm MDF for the baseboard here.  The baseboard is very narrow, just wide enough to handle 2 tracks and has a length of pine underneath supporting it.

Blog Post Number 900

This post is Blog post number 900.  This week I did some further work on the Cassino refreshment rooms building.  I cut out the back platform side of the building.  Oh and did I make some mistakes!  I have plugged those up, and hopefully no one will ever know that they are on the building.  So I have also seen my 3D window producer (Greg - at Saturday's Club meeting) and he was going to look at producing the windows for the building.  I need 25.  I really did not want to scratch build that many windows.  I only had about 4 of the similar windows from the AMRI station building available.  I'm not smart enough to do a loaves and fishes trick with those 4 windows.  I also painted up the next 22 platform awning supports today.  These were 3D printed by Greg some weeks ago, from a master that I created for him.

On Friday I painted up over 80 pallets in four different 'natural wood based' colour schemes.  These look quite nice.  While watching 'The Great Race' on TV today, I cut up and made another 54 pallets.  These have yet to be painted, maybe a job for later this week.  I will get around to making another 50-odd pallets next week.

After the race, I went down to the shed and ran my track cleaning train from Fisherman Islands to Grafton Yard and stabled it there.  I needed to ensure that the track was sort of runable for Tuesday when the guys come over to my place.  I also fixed one small section of fence that had been broken by someone.

Tomorrow a few of us are going train tripping out to Rosewood and then to Springfield for morning tea and lunch on our $0.50 fares.

Catching Up

Following more activities yesterday, I now have some time on my hands to catch up on my blog.  Over the previous week, I started measuring out the sides for the Cassino Refreshment Rooms.  I also built the intermediate roof supports for the breezeway between the station building and the refreshment room.  I also cut out and painted the northern end of the refreshment rooms and added the brick section to it.  I cut out the end door.  I also cut out the southern end of the building and added the required window.  The slow mark out of the front and back of the Refreshment rooms revealed some detail that I had not previous noticed.  But all my photos showed this feature.  Some windows were placed higher from the ground in the building.  I then slowly cut out the front side doors and windows.  I then joined the northern and southern ends to the front side of the building.  I also installed some initial internal walls for the various rooms and some spacers to keep the front and back sides parallel.  I still need to cut out the rear platform side.

On Tuesday evening PK brought over my two 12mm locos.  I had one 1460 class and one 1502 class with sound.  The first loco was put on the track on Wednesday morning and ran well and sounded brilliant.  The second one was put on the track and it sounded like it was revving up, but did not move.  So after lunch I put it on the programming track and saw that the momentum CV's 3 and 4 were both set to 32.  I thought this value was too high.  So I set them down much lower and when I put it back on the track, the loco ran.  I then checked the first loco and it had those CVs set to 32.  So I then set the troublesome loco's CVs back to 32 and it now ran just like the first.  I had no idea what the initial cause was?  But it was now working.  So the 1502 class loco is now assigned to my SX set and the 1460 class loco is on a coal train sitting in Acacia Ridge Yard.

On Friday night, Darren, Geoff and I ventured to Brendan's place for a great meal (thanks Alex) and a modelling night.  While there was a small amount of driving and shunting occurring on his layout, we never got around to doing any modelling.  We just sat around the table, had a few sherbets and solved all the world's problems.  Saturday was also when Darren and I went to a local Buy and Sell event.  There were not many sellers, not many buyers, but there were some bargains to be had.  Two other members of our Tuesday crew were there and both secured some good buys.