Tuesday Nighters, Cameras and More Point Control

Last Tuesday was "Tuesday Nighters" and the Shed was squeezed to overflowing by the presence of 9 visitors. It was quite warm, so both doors were open and the fan was on. A few members brought along their new Trainorama guards vans as there for at least 4 packets present. We put two vans on the track at Fairy Hill and let them run. One would only go about 6 feet before stopping. The second went all the way down the helix and stopped just short of the exit on the bottom circuit (4 and half loops at about 950mm radius). My old Trainorama guards van runs all the way past this point and travels another 12m into Cassino station. So I guess the wheels are not as free flowing on these new models as the last lot of vans.

Well what can you say about Mad Mike. Mike our resident octigenarian (plus) turned up with a scenic gem for one of my houses. It was an outback dunny that had exploded, due to the toxic mixture of chicken, egg, broccholi, and PK and that's my story. Mike has another one.

No Sign of PK now!

He said he had to go one better than the one I had two weeks ago at Shelton's shed. I had started building an O scale dunny with opening dunny lid that I was making for the Narrow Gauge Convention over Easter at the Ipswich Railway Workshops.

David aka Lefty (not in attendance due to an early flight to Canberra the next morning - I did hear a few comments about beauty sleep and something about it not working) and Raymond (aka & Son) delivered a few old PK point motors for installation on two points that had their wire in tube actuation removed. So now I need to go and buy some more hookup wire and another DS64 to make these work. While talking to Greg at work on Thursday or Friday telling him about my dilema about where to position the DS64, which is to control one point at Rappville, one point at Cassino and two at Kyogle, the cost for amount of wire needed to run to the four point motors would have crippled a small nation, as the points could not be any further apart on the layout, Greg suggested that I use single point motor controllers instead of the 4 point DS64 - Doh! Another one of those epiphany moments - Now why did I not think of that? I checked with the local hobby shop on Saturday morning and they did not have any NCE Snap-its in stock, so its now a wait of a week or two.

Rappville Panel with the new push buttons installed - No expense spared on my layout!

I did some research during the week about suitable minaiature cameras that would fit into my loading gauge. I had looked at the Swann Security DVR-410 with a 2GB micro SD card for a RRP of $99.95, although Dick Smith's had them for $69.95 without the micro SD card. Saturday morning I received an email from WOW about their weekend specials. For $45 this weekend only, you can get a DVR-410 a video camera in the shape of a car remote that includes a 2GB mico-SD card. You also get a Bronco's foot massager - Whoopie! So I ordered one online. This fits into my loading gauge very nicely. So eventually I may be able to create some driver's eye footage of a train heading around the layout and put it up on youtube.

I spent some time on Sunday afternoon cutting out the baseboard for installation of the point motors from David.

The old point actuation method for the Rappville point is via wire in copper tube - Sorry picture is out of focus

 

The peco point motor installed at Rappville

  The peco point motor installed under the Cassino point

I also received a phone call on Friday night from another mate (Yes I do have some PK) wanting to do some swapping of point motors for decoder installs. Pitty I'm currently all set for point motors.

Yesterday the Tuesday Nighters travelled to Darren's Shed for a Saturday daylight get together. Six members turned up to check out Darren's masterpiece. Darren's shed is about 9 x 7m and it was certainly well setup. Darren used to live in this part of his shed, while he built his house. In front of the shed in a separate walled off area is his very well appointed workshop, with a carport in front of that. Darren's layout is NSW based and set in the early 1970's. Darren has completed two crossing loops on his layout so far. The terminus (Wattle Flat) looks great. There were a few wagons scattered around, and we were able to make up a train, or break up a train. Darren had 3 sound locos in operation. Brendan brought along his new 49 class for a run. I took 3 sound equipped 44's, but did not have to get them out. Darren has three throttles and with my throttle, we had trains running left right and clogging up the loops. We even tried to make the trains too long for the loops. It was great fun. Trains ran very smoothly. Darren also cooks a mean sausage on the BBQ and along with our own poison of choice it was certainly a great 4 and a half hours.

Darren's layout room is certainly well thought out. His workbench is well lit with some fluro lights under the first shelf. There is plenty of storage containers above that shelf and it well presented and tidily kept. More stoage is below the actual layout which is built in 1200mm modules bolted together. The modules are built on top of steel legs which give enough height so Darren's bookcases and library, and rollingstock fit underneath. Only about just under half of the baseboard and track has been laid so far.

I expect that photos of the day will appear on Geoff's, Darren's, Shelton's or even Brendan's Blog before the week is out. I forgot to take the camera didn't I. I can't wait until we are invited back for the next running day and the whole track has been laid.