This week I received my pack of 3 VLNX from On Track Models. They arrived safe and sound early this week. Apart from opening that delivery there has been no model train activity this week until yesterday morning when I took my three VLNX wagons down to the shed and loaded them onto the loop at Fairy Hill. They started to roll off! Boy did they roll well. I did bend the coupler pin up ever so slightly as I don’t like how low some of these are. This activity was followed by a trip to Austral Modelcraft at Mt Gravatt to pick up some liquid flux. Upon return I started to install a decoder into a loco for Barry. I can’t get the loco to run. So I might try a different decoder this week or next weekend to see if that fixes the issue. As it could be a DOA decoder. The loco runs when you apply power to the motor terminals, but not via the wheels. I get sparks on the connection.
After being frustrated by the loco that would not run I decided to try and make my first dual gauge point. Nothing like starting at the hard end of the spectrum. I cut out my PC board strips for the rails, and gapped them all according to the template. I laid them onto a fast track template for 10.5mm gauge for the third rail, while I need 12mm for my HOn3 and 1/2. I held the sleepers down with colours thumb tacks and then applied a bit of flux, and soldered the straight stock rail to the sleepers. Good enough! I then started soldering the curved stock rail to the sleepers. I added a few rails at the end of the point and have test run both a 12mm and 16.5mm bogie through the 3 inches of track I have successfully laid. By that stage I had lost all motivation and could not be bothered to go to the shed and bring up a few files to start making all the angled connections through all the frogs. So that was about it.
After being frustrated by the loco that would not run I decided to try and make my first dual gauge point. Nothing like starting at the hard end of the spectrum. I cut out my PC board strips for the rails, and gapped them all according to the template. I laid them onto a fast track template for 10.5mm gauge for the third rail, while I need 12mm for my HOn3 and 1/2. I held the sleepers down with colours thumb tacks and then applied a bit of flux, and soldered the straight stock rail to the sleepers. Good enough! I then started soldering the curved stock rail to the sleepers. I added a few rails at the end of the point and have test run both a 12mm and 16.5mm bogie through the 3 inches of track I have successfully laid. By that stage I had lost all motivation and could not be bothered to go to the shed and bring up a few files to start making all the angled connections through all the frogs. So that was about it.
We took the kids to the school disco last night so there was no more modelling time that afternoon or evening. Today I went to a school working bee and built a 10m or so lock block wall. It was so hot! I was absolutely stuffed when I arrived home after 5 hours of toiling. So I just sat in front of the TV and watched the cricket.
Tuesday this week we have a meeting at Peter’s place. I can’t wait to see what he has done since we were last there.
Next week I will maybe get back down to the shed, and build the next 3m of baseboard on the top deck and then get the gradient confirmed for the run up the rear wall above The Risk Loop. I will also try and make some more progress on the dual gauge point.
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