Still Making Progress

Yesterday was an early start as I had to go to one hobby shop and return something I purchased the previous Sunday.  What was a Stationary Decoder, which was actually for Servo motors and not for Solenoids even though it was by Peco.  When I purchased it, the shop assistances didn’t know what it was for.  I took a gamble and when I googled it when I got home, I found it was the wrong item.  It was no trouble refunding it.   Then over to Austral Modelcraft on the off chance that my NCE Snap-It was in.  But no!  Still on back order.  Maybe next weekend.  After killing some time, I went over to Anthony’s place and picked up two spare left hand medium radius points that he had.  A facebook message to a few mates on the previous evening revealed he had what I wanted.

Upon returning home, I went down to the shed after lunch.  I immediately spliced in the two left hand points to form a crossover in Fisherman Islands Yard.  This was tested and all OK.  My attention then turned to section of track at the eastern end of Fisherman Islands.  I knew there was a short in this section, as I had kitbashed a dual gauge point and it had given me some trouble in the past, so I just disconnected the power to this region in the dual gauge headshunt.  So bit by bit I tested the track, and connected up track jumpers one by one.  I eventually worked out that I needed to put two cuts in the dual gauge point and have the frog power switched by a Peco change over switch on the point motor that threw this point.  After testing that too was marked off my to do list as fixed.

I then looked at my list of items from last weekend.  Ah yes, I needed to install my Snubber at the eastern end of Fisherman Islands power district.  So that was wired in and another item ticked off my to do list.  I then went to the other end of the power district, as the snubber at that end was not wired in.  So it was wired in and I noticed that the last jumper on the bus was not connected to the track at the far end of the section.  I drilled a hole in the baseboard and the jumpers from the power bus connected up and all was good.  I then squeezed myself into the access section behind Dutton Park. It was then that I realised that I had to replace three metal track joiners with three insulated track joiners at the dual gauge point at Dutton Park.  This is the start of Power district 6 from Dutton Park to Fisherman Islands ( a distance of about 35 feet) and Power District 5 continues through on the straight route, coming from just north of Acacia Ridge Yard through Clapham Yard, through Dutton Park, then Park Road Sidings and then onto South Brisbane Interstate (maybe 95 feet long).  So a test of the power district, revealed that the issue I had last week with districts 5 and 6 being linked, was fixed by adding the insulated joiners at the junction points.  At this point, I realised that I had disconnect the power bus onto South Brisbane Interstate, and this was causing the straight section from Dutton Park to South Brisbane Interstate to not power up when the point at Dutton Park was set to the Fisherman Islands branch.  So this was re-connected and further progress continues to be made making the electricals on the layout more robust.

I think I need to make up another half a dozen more snubbers and connect them to the remaining power districts on my layout.  Again a future task.  During the week, Southern Rail Models announced that for an extra $60, sound was available for the 2300 and 2400 locos if they were preordered.  Well guess what my order for 3 x locos is about to get sound added.  During the week, I also got around to order a NSWGR Paybus with sound from Auscision.  So these along with a couple of 48 class locos from Auscision that should be delivered before the middle of the year will make the layout a little bit noisier.

While at the hobbyshop on Saturday morning, I heard a story where an elderly customer, was driving his 9 month old car around and it was raining.  He kept moving his wiper switch up, and the wipers would swing once and then stop.  This was driving him mad, and with all the rain over the last few days, it was difficult for him to drive.  He even took it to the dealer to complain and get the wipers fixed.  They eventually told him, that was the single wipe switch.  Move it down and it goes to variable intermittent, and move it down again and it is on slow wipe and down again it is on fast wipe.  Two things here.  It proves that once people get to a certain age, they should not be driving on our roads.  And some people are so stupid, that they tell others how stupid they are with a smile.

While on the subject, I also saw two incidents of utter stupidity on the bus going to work last week on consecutive days.  I was that close to advising how stupid these two gentlemen were to their face and telling them to get a grip on reality or just stay at home, before they harm someone on the bus.  If their umbrellas had touched me they were about to get a verbal reality check and potentially insertion of their umbrellas where the sun does not shine and rendering them and their umbrellas useless for evermore.

Anyway back to the model railway world.  Today Darren and I ventured down to the Gold Coast for the Buy and Sell at Nerang.  There were good numbers of sellers and good numbers of buyers.  I picked up 4kg of Chuck's ballast for $20.  A great price in some good colours.  Darren picked up some as well.  I also picked up a few cars, a tractor and a large container forklift for a combined $14.  Another bargain.  I also saw some mates and if I had a bit more money I might have purchased a few more great items for the layout.