So I got down to the shed today and did a bit of work late
this morning and some more mid-afternoon. These visits were after a trip
to the park with my son to shoot the soccer ball (morning) and before a driving
lesson with my daughter (afternoon). So the first thing I did down there
was fix up the control panel wiring in Acacia Ridge Yard. There were
actually a few of wires off – actually 3. The reason is that when people
push the buttons, they push the back of the panel into the wood framing behind,
so I think this causes the wires to rub against the framing and eventually come
loose. I will have to put some form of buffer in there next weekend to
spare the wires in the longer term. While on the subject of Acacia Ridge
Yard, I added about 4 sets of tooth brush bristles to some of the narrow gauge
sidings to stop any run away of wagons when there is no loco on the train.
I also cut up some lead flashing to be used as added weights
in 9 of my QR narrow gauge louvre wagons. I had a comment from one of the
crew on Saturday that the narrow gauge wagons jump when they go over the
existing tooth brush bristles. He said they were too light. So this
added weight should hopefully solve this problem. I did test run the
wagons by pushing them at speed through some of the sidings and no issues were
identified. Although, there is one set of toothbrush bristles in track 4
of Clapham Yard (the dual gauge track) that needs to be trimmed a bit, as all
my wagons jump when going over this obstacle. While doing the weighting,
I also added some weight to the first two wagons on my steel train. I
have two wagons, with two scratch built butter boxes as a load. Made from
styrene these are very light. The first wagon, is a kitbashed lima 4
wheel wagon, that has been turned into a 45 foot bogie wagon with Gloucester
bogies fitted. The second wagon is an Auscision container flat. So
when the super glue holding the this new added weight dries, I will test these
wagons out again – most likely Thursday now.
So in between the two sessions in the shed, I visited
Bunnings with my your apprentice and picked up a set of cheap circlip plyers so
assist with upcoming maintenance on my Trainorama 44 Class locos. I also
picked up another litre of white glue and a blow mould table for modelling that
will be used at the upcoming Brisbane Miniature Train Show on the May long
weekend. I then went to Jaycar for some electrical tape. I have a
plan to enhance my many small control panels that are scattered around the
layout. I intend to use the electrical tape as pin striping on the
panels.
I think Anzac day will be when I run the last train from the
timetable, and fix up where my narrow gauge rollingstock is currently located,
as the wagons are currently scattered in slightly unusual places. They
are in the correct yards, just not the correct sidings.
On the layout fascia at some of the crossing loops, is a
sign that says what is the name of the next crossing loop in each
direction. I have now relocated a few of these, so they are directly
above or below the staff machine for that loop. The signs were previously
offset somewhere on the fascia underneath the crossing loop – there was no
logic. Hopefully this slight move will assist with loco crew getting to
know their way around the layout better.
Tomorrow I will make a change to a couple of the timetable
cards following the session. There were some issues with instruction identified.
I am also making an instruction sheet for me, to remind me when I start a
session to do a number of tasks. Like some of the ones that I forgot to
do before this session last Saturday. Must have been old age.
No comments:
Post a Comment