Running Day # 2

Tuesday this week, was Tuesday Nighters. We went around to Geoff's to have a look at this Splitter Swamp Creek layout and Darren actually had a run with his 49 and 32 Class. Shelton had a GY wagon (I think) that he built from a kit with fine scale wheels. A small amount of shunting was undertaken to give the pointwork, the locos and the few wagons on the layout a check out.  We got to see the scenery up close. It looked good, but when you see those photos Geoff put up on his blog, it looks like the water is actually running down the creek. Well Done Geoff! It does look great.

I came home early on Friday for a last minute tidy up in the shed. I also had to run train number 11 to Murwillumbah, run around and run back to Grafton Yard for stabling for the timetable run. Upon closer inspection I found that a couple of trains were staged in the wrong order in oneof the loops. So I swapped them over. I gave a couple of tracks a rub over with the track rubber and ran a loco back and forth over those areas. This was to generally sidings that don't get trains over them that hopefully were to be run over this weekend. I randomly tested a few loco to ensure they were still in consists - and everything was.

Just before I left work for home around lunch time, I received a call from Old Mike. He had completed the factory he was building. I arranged to come over that afternoon to pick it up later that afternoon.  Sorry I never got around to taking a photo.  Maybe next week.

On Saturday morning I placed the factory in its chosen location in Kyogle at the end of one of the sidings. It will become the Veneer Company's building. Might be renamed to Boyde's Veneers. I set up the tea, coffee and spoons and washed up the coffee mugs again. The fridge was stocked with Beers and softdrinks. I also got the boss's clear nail polish and hit most of the diverging frogs on the Peco large radius insulfrog points were I get occasional shorts from the loco wheels.

At 1:00pm, I had just one attendee. But soon after we had the rest show up. I had three guys sign their indemity form and acceptance of the layout rules. I wrote my rules during the week, from some info that I found discussed on a yahoo group - Ry-ops-industrialSIG. Mine start off serious, but go down hill pretty fast. The first draft was circulated on Tuesday Night this week and got a few chuckles and two signed copies returned. Unfortunately, for the running session we only had Shelton, Barry, Darren, Brendan, Rob, Greg and myself running. One was OS (PK), one has just returned from OS and had his family over (Peter), one was working on his new exhibition layout (Geoff) and one intended newbee was under the thumb from his boss - hey Darryl - and wasn't allowed out to play with the boys. I had also asked a couple of others and they also could not attend. So, Darren assumed the position of North Coast Control and Shelton was the Yard Master at both Grafton Yard and Acacia Ridge Yard and the running began.

Well we still had a few uncouplings - between locos in consists, or between wagons in a train. We still had a few derailments during the day. Feedback was consistant throught the day and some really good suggestions were made. A number of miniature clipboards the size of the timetable sheet will be made up, with a notepad behind and a pen allocated to each driver. This will assist the drivers in running their trains and making notes on the timetables when required. I found a few trains had the departure and arrival times on a crossing loop reversed. These will be fixed in the timetable this week.  It was amazing how close a lot of the trains ran to the actual timetable time.

We had drivers reporting to North Coast Control when they had a an issue - derailed, breakaway, etc.. Control then marked on the train graph the location of the issue (the section) and the train number so these can be looked at later - well done Darren. The first 10.5 hours went well, but we were about 2 drivers short to operate the full list of trains so a couple of trains were not run.  After the 10.5 hours, we had a refreshment break (chips, crackers and dip, fruit cake and anzac biscuits with their guys choice of liquid poison) and then after the break, we were slow to start back up again - too much talking going on about stuff - the current AMRM - Brendan's 38's or his FS and BS cars, Rob's Layout plans, etc.. Then a couple of the guys had to head off.

Some of the Crew caught looking at Rob's Plans when they should have been working - We have a railway to run you know!

Brendan's 2 x 38 Class Locos which he put together from Ron's pieces he was selling from the Brisbane Show 2 weeks ago.

The 38's hauling a trains of Austrains coaches towards Brisbane on Dusk.  The interior lights in the coaches was turned on.

So those remaining eventually got back to running trains without a North Coast Control and a Yard Master.  I further culled the number of trains to run (all the conditionals were scrubbed). A few more of the crew left and then we finally finished running for the day.

Overall, the comments were positive. There were certainly less issues than last time. There was no train stealing! The comments were that the trains ran better. For some reason the control panel for the Rocla Siding was not working. I will have to check that out. I did a very quick test on Saturday night and the DS-64 was accepting its throw commands but for some reason the Mini Panel was either not getting an input or not issuing a throw command. Other inputs on the Mini panel are working and points are being thrown. I will test some more during the next week.

Last Tuesday on my way home, I went to Big-W in the city and picked up two more headsets. On Saturday Brendan brought over his amplifer setup for our future Intercom system and he thinks he may have solved it. He has wired up two pairs of plugs for two headsets to be tested with a 9V battery. We plugged in two headsets and there is a push to talk button and by-George I think the man has done it. I gave Brendan a second pair of headsets to take home and continue testing. We will see what the final solution is when he puts a diagram or post up on his blog. There is certainly interest in our group about these headsets - basically a party line back to North Control Control. This way you don't get everyone hearing what is occuring between all crews and North Coast Control.

The Amplifer on the bench with two headsets and other junk.

Today I had another modeller from the next suburb come over for talk about his layout.  I think he went away convinced that the way he is heading is in the right direction.  See you all next week.