NSWGR RUB Set and Completing Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard

I had plans during this week for working on some N scale butter box containers.  I lost motivation because when I got home from work on Monday, I was greeted with the news that the wife was out when my RUB set was trying to be delivered.  Bugger!  That is always the case.  I had no forewarning RUB set was in transit, only a few people on the various Facebook groups advising that they had received their sets.  So I came home a little bit earlier on Tuesday to head off to the local post office but the boss had already picked up the RUB set from the post office.  I unpacked it and set it up in Acacia Ridge Yard.  I noticed the wires on the PHS and the terminal car.  I got my NR class loco out from Grafton Yard and took the RUB set for a run from Acacia Ridge Yard to South Brisbane Interstate.  I had various derailments along the way, with an odd wagon here and there popping off the tracks.  To me I think it was some sort of locking of the inter-car connections, or bogie swing limited by the hanging down bits underneath the wagons.  I noticed that there were no screws to loosen for the bogies as they must be some form of press fit.  On Tuesday afternoon I left the train in the platform at South Brisbane Interstate Station, and made plans on how I was going to tune the carriages up.

I had Friday off and started by building another 4 gen sets.  When that was finished I went down to the shed and completed the track laying in Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard.  This was mostly adding a third rail next to three narrow gauge points on the dual gauge trackage and adding a few nails to keep the track in geometry.  I ran a series of wagons both narrow gauge and standard gauge through the track and everything went well.  I then looked at my RUB set again.

I was running it in and out of South Brisbane Interstate station, and it kept coming off the track going into platform 1.  The wheels do not give it enough movement to stay on the track if the track transitions from flat to super elevated around curves.  The wheels do not want to stay on the track.  So I packed under one of my points and it ran a lot better.  I added a long shank coupler at one end of each wagon and checked the gauge of all the wheels.  I thought that most of the wheelsets were a fraction of a mm under gauge for my liking.  I fixed that and set everything aside again.

Friday afternoon after letting my daughter drive home from school and meeting my son at the bus stop, I went back down to the shed.  I decided to relay the track into the platform at South Brisbane Interstate station.  I had some very old track in that location and maybe some of the track was under gauge.  So after replacement the train now runs much better through there – read no derailments.  I then started the train back off towards Grafton Yard after running the loco around.  As it was travelling past Park Road Sidings towards Dutton Park, the train derailed.  Again it looked like some under gauge old track as well as some level changes to the trackage.  I then made the decision to stop off at Austral Modelcraft on Saturday morning and pick up a length of Peco flex track to replace this section of track.  

Saturday was Soccer Day.  First game was for school and it was scheduled for a 7:30am start about 30km away.  Yes you have to be there 30 minutes before and the motorway was shut so we detoured and got there finally at 7:05am.  The score ended up either a 14-1 or 16-1 win.  I lost count of the goals.  I thought it was 14.  But a tally of who scored how many after the game, had the score coming to 16.  After five minutes, our coach took one of our plyers off the field and we played with 10 men after the score was 3-0.  Although you would not think it from the score, the opposition goalkeeper had a blinder.  He must have stopped or deflected more than a dozen serious shots on goal.  He continually drew praise from the sideline for his efforts.  If he wasn’t man of the match for his team, I had no idea who would have been.  We stayed around a bit to watch some of the other teams in his age group play their games.  No other team in his year won.  On my way back from the morning game, I stopped off at Austral Modelcraft and picked up a single length of Peco flex track.  No sooner had we got home and had something to eat, we were out again.  The second match was at 1:00pm with his Club team photos from 12:15pm just before kickoff.  That game ended up a 2-2 draw.  This was his Club team's first points for the year.  Also the opposition’s first points for the year as well.  Kyle scored 3 goals in the morning game and 1 goal in the afternoon game.

When I got home from the afternoon game, I went to the shed and painted my last 4 gen sets.  I could not get motivated to replace the track near Dutton Park.  I then decided to affix some additional under-layout bracing for Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard and then cut some curtain rod to help provide stable support up from the level below.  Next job was to drill holes for track power droppers at the far end of the yard and cut up and install all the dropper for one side of the track.  These were soldered together and to the track.  For the other side's power feeds, I cut all the droppers, and then I lost interest.  So it was tools down for the day.

On Sunday just before lunchtime I shot off to Jaycar to get a few meters of power bus wire.  This was then installed at the far end of Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard to tie all the feeders together.  I completed the rest of the feeders from yesterday and then I fired up the old NCE 5 Amp system and ran a 1720 loco through all the tracks I had just powered up.  A few issues, with two power feeder wires coming off and a couple of track nails not being driven in far enough.  But after these were fixed, the new trackage seems to operate quite well.  Oh yes, I must install a protective sheet of clear Perspex around this area to protect the floor from my locos and wagons, or vice versa.  You know what I mean.

So that still leaves me with the track replacement project for Dutton Park to complete and then some more work in Fisherman Islands Yard.  This will involve the installation of a few track power feeds around the new point work.  Yes I need to save up some money for 3 more sets of narrow gauge points for Fisherman Islands and some more money for another 1720 class loco.  That might be my last for quite some time, unless Wuiske brings out a QR DH loco.  I will have to get one of these if they come out.  

I was greeted with some bad news on Friday night when Wuiske Models advised that a particular loco (Bronco 1743 with blue air-conditioned) had been sold out in HOn3½ gauge.  I was planning on buying that loco in August at our Club Exhibition in Strathpine.  Bugger!  I suppose I could just get another Bronco colour scheme loco.  But I did want that particular one.

The far end of Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard.  Both dead end tracks are dual gauge.  This allows a run around facility for narrow gauge trains within the operations session.

Another view of Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge yard, this time from above.  You can see the tracks coming together.  I also added a narrow gauge siding to the left for some more interest.

The other end of Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard.  One track is for my coal train, and another is reserved for my Grain train.  The other tracks are for general freight.

This view of Fisherman Islands Yard shows the recently added two small looks on the top left.  There will be two sets of crossover installed between loop 1 and the main track and between the main track and the dual gauge track.  A siding will also be added at the end of loop 2, the left most track.

This photo is of South Brisbane Interstate Yard.  The recently replaced trackage is on the far left on entry to the platform.  This yard now has 8 tracks and a loco siding to the left of the candy loco in track 9.  Track 10 is to the right of that loco and is for oil and bitumen wagons.  In the distance is Park Road Sidings with wagons in the two sidings here and the RUB set on the main awaiting the track in front of it to be replaced with a new length of Peco flex track - at a time in the future.