Whoops!!!!

I left work far later than I had hoped on Friday.  There was some planning being undertaken related to some Saturday work I was doing, Project Managing the migration of some UNIX servers from old IBM Power 6 kit to newer Power9 kit for a customer.  This included a Database upgrade as well.  I'm not a project Manager either.  Anyway, I also had my car in for a service, so caught a train from Central to Moorooka.  I noticed a guy sitting on the other side of the carriage to me.  When I got off at Moorooka, picked up my car and then went to Aurora Trains to pick up some Tillig track, that guy who was sitting opposite me on the train was there at Aurora Trains.  Small world isn’t it.

So I picked up my Tillig point, went home, and eventually spent some time in the shed, installing this point just outside Rocklea Sidings.  The point that came out, was stripped of its narrow gauge track and it was temporarily placed on Grafton Yard track 1 to allow for a small dead end siding at this location for storage of my Rail Bus, or 400 Class rail motor and another short train that may eventuate in the future.

Saturday was an early start for work at 5:30am, but by 10:30-ish I was able to get down to the shed for a short period and splice the point into Grafton Yard Track 1 and lay the new sidings, and then while I had the Dremel out, I had to cut one dual gauge piece of track on the mainline south of Rocklea Siding to connect up the new Tillig Track.

Testing ensued.  I then spent some time trying to work out the best way to ensure that the point motor on this point threw each time successfully.  After some swapping of components, it all seemed OK - or was it?

Today I got down to the shed after lunch and I then had to wire up the new siding off of track 1 in Grafton Yard.  Another 10 minutes work and voila.  That was the easy part of my tasks for today.

The short dead end track off Track 1 in Grafton Yard.  The railbus and 400 Class Railmotor will reside here initially.  I may store the second of my Track Tampers in this siding as well.

While trying to attach the point throw rod to the Tillig point, I twisted the actuation bar on the Tillig point and broke one of the point blades from connecting to the throw rod.   I very big Whoops after just spending $92 on the dual gauge point.  At that point in time, I swapped throw bars to one that came out towards where the point motor was and not on the other side of the point like when the point out of the box. 

After some thinking, I drilled a hole in the throw bar and bent up a thin piece of #32 gauge wire into an 'L' shape.  I tinned the wire and fed it through the hole in the throw bar and then tried to solder it to the curve point blade.  Well it seems to work.  What I didn't say, is that I did all this work with the track power on.  At least three times I was trying to install the wire into the point rod, and I got a few rather sever boots from the 5Amp system.  I was sweating and I was resting my hand across both rails in the siding.  Those boots caused me to jump, and I kept throwing the 'L' shaped connect in the air.  I then had to find it.  I had to make another and that one went for a fling as well.  I eventually found one, installed it and soldered it successfully.  The point motor throws the point straight and curve and standard gauge trains run in both directions over both routes on the point.  Narrow gauge trains also run in the straight route through the point in both directions.  All these are a hell of lot more smoother than occurred during my Operating Session a few weeks back.  You would not even know there was a point there now.  The Tillig point is even powered correctly via the switch atop the Peco point motor.  So it is almost like a bought one.

So despite me stuffing up the new point, it looks like it has been salvaged.  I also adjusted the first standard gauge point in Rocklea Sidings and it now throws in both directions very easily.  It was struggling in one direction. 

The troublesome Tillig point letting standard gauge traffic into Rocklea Sidings. 

A wider shot shows the narrow gauge entry as well as the standard gauge entry.

At this stage I have no idea what I will be going next weekend.  Maybe I might run another short Operations Session with the same 16 trains as the last mini session with all my problems now fixed.

Although I just remembered that one track in Rocklea Siding needs it track feeder fixed up.