Tuesday was our Tuesday Nighters session at Mike's Place. Numbers were down, but those that turned up brought along what they purchased from the recent show for a Show and Tell session. Just as we were about to start, Old Mike brought out what he had been working on. OMG! First up was HO factory from a 1996 Model Railroader that Mike found in a box in the garage. While not finished, it looked great. Next was a HO double track through girder bridge, followed by an O scale log cabin diorama, with water tank, chopping block and old fashioned prop up clothes line. Next was a model in O scale of the QR out of shed that graced the cover of the May 2011 Semaphore magazine (the RMCQ newsletter). This was followed by an O scale raised water tank kit (on wooden frame) with some of the frame built in underneath to form a room/storage shed. Then came an O scale shed, with some Rusty Stumps detail items inside the shed. Then there was another O scale shed with more Rusty Stumps detail items inside. I just wanted to give up. That man is 80+ and produces some fabulous models. I hope I can be half as good at 50. Mike did ask if anyone wanted the HO scale factory and my imagination started thinking about the Veneer Siding building needed for Kyogle. I was not sure it would fit. But me being forgetfull, I forgot to check the required space available and it was not until Friday afternoon when Mike rang to remind me that I gave him the go ahead to say yep it will fit. I said if you want to complete it, I would be honoured to have it on my layout. So Mike will spend the time over the next week or so and work on this model. That will fill in a large whole on my layout in an area that I will spend some time on scenicing in detail this year.
Now back to Show and Tell. Brendan picked up a not-quite-right model of 3801 from Ron on Saturday and when he came back on Monday to the show, advised that after fixing the quartering of the front wheel, it ran like a charm. Chalk one up to him. He purchased another on 38 class on Monday, with 3830 mainframe and 3801 tender. He advised on Tuesday that he could not sleep on Monday night so he put the new combination on the track and low and behold it made a noise. A rather bad noise but a noise. So he took the tender apart and found a small screw next to the speaker. This was removed and the model retried on the track and brilliant sound eminated. The cheapest sound loco you could get - what a lucky bugger. This will end up with the 3801 mainframe from Saturday's shopping safari. The tender from that loco and the 3830 mainframe will go together and be painted up by Brendan into another combination. A great win. He also picked up a couple of B's and an EL class from Auscision. Other purchases were an O scale S wagon in 7mm from O-Aust. The detail on this kit just has to be seen to be believed. He also brought along his 59 Class loco that he entered into the modelling competition. Very nice.
Next up was Geoff. He had a few packets of scatter from Railco, and some other scenic stuff in bulk packets for his layout. He also wrestled some Mini-nature scenic clumps from another shop. Geoff also picked up a long awaited sound chip for one of his locos order from one of the shops.
Darren ended up the book worm of the group, with a couple of NSW books. Raymond's big purchase ended up being a live steam loco that I saw steaming the previous weekend from the Narrow Gauge Convention. This I think runs on O gauge track - absolutely amazing.
I think the Loco on the Left is the one that Raymond purchased
Talk at the end of the night turned to communication between Dispatcher and loco crew at signal boxes for our various running sessions. It was a great discussion. Here I talked about how I wanted to use cheap headphones because I don't have room for phones on my facias. Darren will use phones as he will have the room. I asked Brendan if it was possible to talk to some of his work mates to see if they could come up with a simple amplifier circuit so the microphones on the headsets can be heard in the headphones. On Thursday I actually found a couple of circuits that looked like they may work. On Friday I purchased the required components from Jaycar and I will try and put these together this week and next weekend - but I doubt I will get it to work properly.
A couple of hours was spent in the shed on Saturday moving trains into place for the running session in 2 weeks time. I think about 6 trains were put in place. Today the rest were put into place. While most of my trains could be classed as block trains, travelling from Yard to Yard, there are couple of actual shunting movements - with pickups and drop offs. Attention then turned to how a couple of my shunt trains would actually work. What wagons were to be dropped off at what crossing loops or siding? Will the train fit in the loop? Will the shunt loco from Cassino be able to take the dropped off wagons and get it ready for the next shunt movement up the main line, as this train is heading down the branch. Is there enough time allowed for this to occur between scheduled trains? Do the other timetables of the trains being crossed say to take the correct tracks at the crossing stations? This was all manually checked by reading the timetable and having a walk through so to speak. It looks like it might work - but the proof is in the actual running day.
There is going to be bedlam at both Cassino and Old Cassino while this shunt train is doing its thing. There will also be bedlam at Murwillumbah later in the day as well as there are about 4 trains there at the same time. I bet that never happened at the real Murwillumbah station - even in its heyday.
While moving the trains about, some wagons had some issues. These were addressed by loosening a few bogie screws to help the tracking of the bogies around the curves and through the pointwork. See ya next week.
CM, I didn't think IBM made 3830 mainframes anymore ;-) GB
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