Changing Scale

Tuesday this week we had our Tuesday Nighters Meeting at Geoff's place.  This is my first visit to Geoff's since he has done his garage up.  It looks very nice and it was not that cold out there. 

We had some very good conversations and some great information was swapped between those in attendance.  I had some of Jim's AMRM Magazines with me, that he wanted to give to a good home.  Some of the Tuesday nighters availed themselves to some magazines.  I still have about 200 sitting in the book of my car, along with about 100 Model Railroader magazines, some from as far back as 1977.  These magazines will go on sale at our Club's Buy and Sell on the first Sunday in November at our Clubrooms unless someone makes me an offer before hand.

Now back to the topic of this weeks post.  Pride of place within Geoff's garage is Splitters Swap Creek.  Geoff had his recent building projects on display on one side of the layout and this was drawing alot of encouraging comments about the quality and detail level of the work on display.  While on the other side we understand that Geoff is seriously considering changing scales and hence his modelling focus for his next exhibition layout. As most followers would already know, Splitters is currently based on a NSW country branchline aka Splitter Swamp Creek.  Geoff is toying with the idea of modelling a standard gauge mainline mining operation. Geoff has already purchased his first Caterpillar Dump Truck that will ferry the coal or iron-ore raw materials to his dumper to fill up his coal or iron ore wagons.  We were all advising Geoff to "Don’t do it Geoff!" and "Your current layout is so nice!"

Below is photo captured by Shelton of Geoff toying with his change of scale.

Geoff's Caterpillar Dump Truck on the rear of Splitters Swamp Creek

Geoff was around the other side of the layout when I encouraged Shelton to take this shot.  It certainly drew a few laughs.  Geoff is expecting this to be posted this weekend.

Last week I had a guy ask me to install some decoders in some N scale locos.  I normally steer away from dodgy old British Hornby kit from pre WWII and N scale. Well, this time I said I'd have a go, so I finally put them on the table this arvo, after a week of not being able to scratch myself all week and yesterday.  Today I just can't scratch myself, as I went to a Buck's Night for one of my Nephew's yesterday and I'm feeling the worse for wear for it.  Not as you guys are thinking, it had nothing to do with alcohol, as I only had three beers.  It was the game of Indoor Cricket that I had.  I had not played Indoor Cricket for what must be something like twenty years.  I took wickets, took catches, stopped some balls, (i'll omit the ones I missed) ran people out, ran into people at full tilt, bounced off the net, smacked a few fours, hit a few other runs, got run out, and pull a hammy with three balls to go in my batting stint.  Luckily I fielded first.  We doubled the opponents score.  It was absolutely great fun.  Today is no fun, but yesterday was.

Anyway, the first two N scale diesels I checked over had a split frame that powers the mechanism and has no space for a decoder.  I hate these types of mechanisms in HO.  In N scale with no space for a decoder was not a good start - none from 2.  The next one I looked at was an RDC Budd Car.  The decoder that was supplied with it was a special one to replace the components within the RDC and while after reading the instructions with the decoder and seeming like it looked pretty simple, it turned out being a bit of work, it was a lot harder than first thought.  Trying to get the various components off the chassis was interesting and in doing so caused some of the locking lugs to be no more.  The way that this decoder is installed is quite engenious.  It goes between the pickups from the track and the motor - as it does.  It just goes between where these items touch.  Brilliant design!  The only issue is that the touch was not a good contact.  I derived a way to solder the decoder to the underneath of the chassis pickups.  I then had to raise the motor terminals a bit and then had to use some electrical tape to try and pull everything together to maintain contact.  Prior to the tape, I had to use my finder to push down to make contact.  The tape method seemed to work.  When it was finally tested, some three hours later, I'd had enough doing installs for the day. Except I spent two minutes re-installing a decoder into one of my mate David's pommy locos.  This was his loco that went for trip off the side of the layout a few weeks back.  It's trip damaged the previous decoder, but the new one works well.

After today's episode, the thought of changing scales will never enter my mind.