Usual Things This Week

This week I was focused on completing my Emergency Control Panel for the future layout.  I’m still waiting for some deliveries of Servo Motors and SPDT switches.  But I went looking for a piece of hardware that allows me to plug in two RJ45 plugs and an RJ12 plug.  This piece if hardware was found at a local electrical outlet and it was installed into the rear of my Emergency Control Panel.

I had completed all the various soldering up of the wires, when I found that a huge blob of solder had landed on my PCA9685 Port expander right in a place where I was certain that I could not remove the solder.  It covered an IC and various components on the board.  This piece of kit was now more than likely totally cactus.  Luckily I had placed an order for a few more of this piece of equipment during the week and they were on the way.  Now I have to wait for this before I can finally test my Emergency Control Panel.

 

Saturday was a day working on the NMRA FreeMo modules for our division.  We had quite a few workers attend.  Basically it was a bit of a cleanup of some items on the modules, and then we actually started to connect a few modules together.  By the end of the day, we had 6 of our corner modules attached, 2 were in another garage and we might have been a bit slack, and never connected them up.  But we had 6 of the modules connected, and we had a couple of locos running around the ¾ circle very smoothly.  Just looking at the modules, we identified a couple of things to do in the future to help blend the modules together so that the scenery has more flow about them.

 

We also had a few modelling brain waves about some, what I would call unique modelling scenes, that we are planning on some of these modules.  We had very good buy-in from those present to help make these future modelling activities work.  We have tasked various people to 3D print some items and when we get together next time, we will see how these all come together.  These scenes will take these modules, which look pretty good already - even if we say it ourselves, they will go to the next level of fascination of the viewing public.  I think we will have animated scenes that I am not aware of existing on other layouts, let alone exhibition layouts.

The first Loco to run the layout was an 81 Class.  It was controlled by a former NSW Driver.

The Loco is peeking out from under the road bridge.

Next it has to cross the road crossing.

Then it got to the end of the modules.

 

I understand that there is a plan for an official viewing of the FreeMo modules sometime in December/January at a local location.  We will set up in the morning, and get everything working, and after lunch time we will open the viewing to other Division 1 members to come and have a look and maybe run a train on the modules.

 

Working on Emergency Panel

I got home with Bob on Monday arvo following our long drive that morning from Newcastle.  We had a very good time attending the Rosehill Great Train Show last weekend.  Modelling activity this week included putting all the stuff I purchased down in Sydney away.  Activity also resumed on my Emergency Panel for the future layout.  I had my first delivery during the week.  I got some servo’s and they were the 360 degree versions.  I really wanted the 180 degree version.  I’m sure I could search the net and find some sample code that will make these servos work on my layout points, but I think right now, it will be easier to just buy some more 180 degree servos.  I also placed a few more orders for various items this week. 

I have been tinkering with the code on my Arduino in my Emergency Panel and I have it throwing servos for points and also changing the LEDs on the panel diagram in unison with the switches being thrown on the panel.  Hopefully all my equipment deliveries will arrive towards the end of this week and I will have the panel basically completed by next weekend.

I still need to mount my RJ45 plugs on the control box somehow.  These plugs will allow the Emergency Panel to talk to the servos on the layout.  I will look for solutions next week.

I had to laugh yesterday, after looking in a box of my electrical components for the umpteenth time.  I pulled out a selection of battery terminals that I purchased in Sydney last year.  I just purchased some more since I could not find these ones.  But two weeks after I needed to find them, I did.  You can never have too many of these items.

Rosehill Exhibition

Don't you hate IT?  I was writing a sketch for my Arduino and I was wondering why it was not working.  I had my servo motor plugged into port 0.  I then was merrily running through ports 1 through 5 and wondering why port 0 was not working.  Then I saw my gaff.  Who would work in IT?  Bugger - I did.

Wednesday was when I hit the road to Newcastle.  I met Bob at Broadmeadow station.  We stayed in that city on that night.  Thursday was a trip down the highway to Blacktown and then an hour in Model Railroad Craftsman.  I picked up some items.  Then we travelled to Liverpool to Casula Hobbies.  We saw Josh from the Club there and had a chat.  Then it was down to Campbelltown for our bed for the night.  We met up with Smithy and Paul.  Maybe we had a drink and then went to the RSL for dinner.  Friday morning was breakfast at our standard cafe and then down the road to Thirlmere.  Then we played follow the boofhead.  We followed Smithy and we made about 4 trips back to forth around Thirlmere.  Then we hit the road and again did 2 or 3 trips after Smithy missed the ballast train on the loop line.  I think he did a handbrake turn into someone's driveway and we were on his tail with someone coming the other way.  I'm sure Smithy misses his flashing blue lights on the roof.  We went bush and got some photos of the ballast train on the Loop Line.

Ballast Spreader

The rear of the Ballast Train propelling backwards.

The first ballast wagon and the 421 class attached.

The 421 was being lead by a Crawfords locomotive

We finally got to Peter's place after getting some morning tea.  We ran some trains and then went down to the Southern Highlands Train Club.  We saw three huge trains running.  They were about 8m long.  They all ran flawlessly.  Well done guys.  We then went back across town to our hotel at Rosehill.  

Saturday was an early start after purchasing a 2-day ticket online.  As well as being cheaper, it allowed us to get access to the Buy and Sell at 8:30am.  I found a couple of bargains.  At 9:00am we started looking at the exhibits.  I might have bought a few more items.  I caught up with some Queenslanders, also some NSW mates.  The afternoon included a trip to Australian Modeller to pick up a replacement motor for my Jumbo and then picked up a few items for Frosty.  Then it was back to the motel, before we went to visit Marcus.  We had pizza and apple pie and ice-cream and then down to the layout.  I ran a double garratt coal train.  I enjoyed it alot.  We got home close to midnight.

Sunday was similar, with a later arrival at Rosehill, a walk around and conversations with lots of people.  I might have bought a couple of special purchases.  

This is a smoke generator.  It actually produces steam.

In the afternoon we drove to near Newcastle and met up with Aaron and viewed his layout in person.  I have operated on the layout quite a few times, but this was my first visit.  We then went to the model down the road, had dinner and will hit the road early tomorrow to get home and rest.

MERG Kit Arrives

Last Saturday while at the RMCQ Model Train Exhibition, Greg handed over his recently received MERG purchase.  I had asked him to order some MERG kits for me.  So on Monday I assembled one of the Servo mounts that I ordered.  I had one spare servo, so I worked out how it gets mounted.  I just then needed to find the servo white actuation lever and connect it to the Servo mount.  I still can't find my actuation level components - I must have put them in a safe place.  I can then try and mount it on a test board so I can play with it.  I now want to see if I can get any feedback from the servo when it reaches it full throw on the points it will be controlling.  I will play around with that.  I have just ordered 10 more servo motors to play with.  They should rock up later this week.

I will also be building a failsafe/emergency control panel that can be swapped into my future exhibition layout if the Signalman’s Panel suffers a cataclysmic event.  That way I will still be able to throw the servo controlled points on the layout, as they will be controlled by servo motors.  With out the control logic commanding the servo motors, the points will all be dead in the water, unable to be changed.

I continue to think about how I will build my emergency control panel for my servos and I recently picked up some components from Jaycar to further its progress.

Saturday was the latest NMRA Gathering.  We had good numbers at Sparkle's place.  We also had a couple of good presentations and we heard from a number of attendees from my last Ops Session talking about their experiences.  We had an aim to introduce operations to a number of interested people and we are helping them get exposure to this AP.  We also got to see the progress on Sparkle's N scale layout.

This coming week I head down to Sydney with Bob, where we meet up with Smithy and Paul for some activities which centre around the Rosehill Great Model Train Show.  It will be good catching up with my Sydney based friends.  I have some purchases lined up to make while down there.

RMCQ 2026 Model Train Exhibition

This week started with 3 days up at Caloundra with the boss visiting one of her girl friends.  What a brilliant view we had. 

After that start to the week, I struggled to do anything hobby related, apart from packing the car with what I was taking to this weekend’s RMCQ Model Train Exhibition at the Brendale Sports Complex.  What a great weekend we had!  Great Venue.  Good Layouts in attendance.  Good assistance and company on the NMRA Stand, really good numbers through the doors and reasonably priced food.

I sat at the modelling table with 3 other modellers on Saturday and Sunday.  I completed 8 industrial bins on Saturday, and about 9 clotheslines on Sunday.  I had two animations on my table.  One was a clothesline that spun around, with the mum hanging off it.  This was all on a 90mm end cap and was from a previous competition at a convention.  My second one was an old 6m x 6m garage, with a tilt-a-door where the door would open and close at the pressing of a button.  This was an Arduino Uno controlling a servo linked to the tilt-a-door.

Both of these drew many comments, laughs, and the beginnings of many conversations with the public, hence not much modelling done.  I also had an entry in the RMCQ modelling comp.  My entry was a flickering station platform light that finally answered how many people does it take to replace a  light bulb?  One station light would flicker for a while, (again controlled via an Arduino Uno) then the light would come good for 20 seconds and then repeat the process.  There were three workers standing around trying to fix the flickering light.

A view of the oil siding on the Amby West layout by Arthur Hayes MMR.

A great industrial complex on this layout just inside the front door to the exhibition.

Darren and I took the equipment from the NMRA stand back to Paul’s place for storage after the exhibition.

Now what to do next week?

Post Op Session Fixups

Monday was 'fix up the layout' day following the Operations Session on the day before, last weekend.  Basically I soldered a wire around a point, but this time it was the other end of the wire I soldered the previous week.  So when I change that point I now have power to the staff machines.  I adjusted the wires to an NCE QSNAP and it was working again.  It was now throwing points.  A point at the southern end of Border Loop had a bad point blade for the mainline.  That was superglued and now seems to work.  While running some trains, I found one point in South Brisbane Interstate Yard was not throwing in one direction.  I started tracing the point wiring and found no issues.  So I manually toggled the point and sure enough it is now throwing back and forth.  You can not make this stuff up.  It just happens.

I adjusted one train that was put into a track in a yard that I advised, but it was the wrong track.  So I fixed this up.  I adjusted the coupling heights on two wagons, by adding some washers under the bogie.  I swapped out one 44 class loco for another 44 class, as the old 44 class loco had wheels that kept going out of gauge and derailing on points.  So the person who drives that train again should get a better experience next time.

 

I also double checked the North Coast Controller’s headset, and I found no issues with it.  It seemed to be working.  As previously said, it probably was operator error.

 

I had a look at the timetable and realised that there was one train that had almost completed its run and was stopped a couple of loops short of its destination, and then by looking ahead at the next few timetable cards it showed that the next 8 cards needed to be run some of the way through their runs to be at the same time.  So I adjusted the fastclock time and I ran all 8 trains to where they should be at the same time.  So it will be 15:10 in the timetable when we next run.  I did quite a bit of shunting to get those trains to that point, so I probably deprived some people of that activity.

 

I have no idea when the next session will be.  But there will be one on the 28^th of December this year after a request from one regular to delay my normal Christmas session by a day.

 

Thursday was a day to finally look at my modelling project for the upcoming RMCQ exhibition.  I butchered some code up for my Arduino and gave it a test run.  It worked first time.  Now I just need to build my model.  That was Friday’s job.  The model will have a subterranean Arduino underneath the above ground detail.  I built up a step ladder.  I found some trees and some workers.  So early next week I will finish off the track and platform and do some terra forming, scenery and ballasting.

Lead Up to Novice's Introduction to Operations

Early on in the week, I cleaned up the pergola so we can all have a sit at the outdoor table following the today's Operations Session.  I washed the table and chairs and swept out the pergola.  I had been using the table in the pergola to work on my Signalman’s Panel.  So the Signalman's Panel was sort of packed away.

The next task was to clean the shed up for the Operations Session.  First I moved some of the items off the floor, and put many things away.  The Dispatcher's desk was then cleared.

On Thursday this week, I continued my cleaning and preparation activities.  I tested the headsets all around the layout at each plug in point.  They all worked.  Our North Coast Controller actually had issues with the headsets during the session.  I'm not sure if that was the battery finally going flat or operator error.  I then did a quick amount of maintenance around the layout.  I soldered a wire to the main bus after an incinerator at Border Loop had lost its power.  Maybe someone knocked the wire off at a previous Ops Session.  I then remembered that the lights over the road overbridge at Cassino were not working.  Again a wire had been ripped off the switch on the control panel.  However, this time I know this was me doing work on the lights for the Cassino Station building.  Yes I must get back to working on the roof sections of the station building and the refreshment rooms at Cassino station.  So that was re-attached and the lights resumed working.

I then got the track cleaning cars out.  They ran from Grafton Yard to Cassino and then all the way to Border Loop.  It was there that I realised that the XPT had been parked in the loop at Border Loop and the track cleaning train could not proceed north.  The main line at Border Loop was blocked by the Paybus and the 620/720 on the Mountain Goat service.  So I moved the track cleaning cars into the main, short of these two trains.  The XPT then ran back to Cassino and ended up the first train to take the use of the Up Siding next to the Coal Stage.  It has only been there for about 15 years.  But I never used it.  Well I have now.

The track cleaning train then continued to Dutton Park.  I tested my troublesome standard gauge points at that location and they worked.  So the track cleaning train made its way to Fisherman Islands, and then back before resuming it path to South Brisbane Interstate Station.  While there I ran up and down tracks 1 through 8.  The next two tracks (9 and 10) had wagons on them so they were not cleaned.  At this stage the track cleaning train made its way back to Cassino, this time taking all the loops, at Acacia Ridge Yard, Glenapp Loop, The Risk, and Fairy Hill Loop to ensure that they were also operational.  I then needed some sustenance.  After lunch the track cleaning train then made its way from Cassino via Old Cassino, Lismore and arrived at Murwillumbah.  Again on the way back it went via the loops at those locations, and then continued onto Grafton, and then into its storage siding. 

It was at this point that I realised that the staff machines for Grafton – Rappville section were not lit.  So I pulled off the fascia panels.  A wire had come off the jumper at the points that housed the track cleaning train, and the jumper no longer jumped.  So I touched that wire with the soldering iron and everything then live again.  However, during the Ops Session, someone through the wrong point at Grafton Yard and the staff machines went out again.  So that wire had come off again.

My order for more Arduino UNOs rocked up on Friday.  So that means that next week will be for building my entry in the RMCQ modelling competition at the RMCQ exhibition in 2 weeks’ time at the Sports Complex at Brendale.  Also on Fridays I added couplers to my two 3D printed SX cars.  These have been added to my RTR 5 car set.  I will see how they go in service.

On Saturday I painted up a few 3D prints of bases for Evans Cars.  These were matt Black.  I also painted two bad (fuzzy) prints of some Evans cars to see what they would look like with the paint colour I was using.  the fuzzy prints turned out like crap!  I then hit two good prints with the same colour and allowed them to dry.  The colour seems passable, after I hit it with some dull coat.

So Sunday was Ops Session day.  I got the tea, coffee, milk and stuff ready.  Everyone rocked up before the appointed time at 1:30pm.  We only ran for 2 and a half hours today.  The reason for the Ops Session was to introduce a few Div 1 members to Operations and get them started towards their Dispatcher AP.  We had some incidents.  Derailments, a couple of track issues, a spilled beer (by me), and a few good laughs.  The novices enjoyed themselves and I think everyone wants to come back. 

The second train of the day was the Rocklea Shunt, dropping of the wagons of Superphosphate, and picking up 3 empties.  The three empties are now attached.  But when operating, a couple of points would not throw.

 

It wasn't until later on, I saw that one of the QSNAPs (one on the left) was not powered.  So I will look at its wiring next week, but that will explain why some points would not throw.

Front and centre here is Greg.  He was ably assisting the novices in helping them find locations, advise them on procedures.  Three novices are in the background.

Another novice is in the headlights, with Greg behind him.

Another couple of novices, close to the camera, and Greg assisting Paul, farther away from the camera.

One thing the newbies need to check, is that the points are correctly set before the train goes over the points.  Otherwise they might derail like this incident.  There were a few others as well.