Narrow Gauge Timetable Updates Complete

This week things have been more back to normal than last week.  Over the last few days I have had access to a whole lot more equipment as I had been down at Coolangatta for 10 days holidaying with the family.  But I did do some modelling, I just can't take everything down there.  No paints, and I forgot to take the couplers for the wagons with me.  

When I got home, I did check the headsets I purchased last week and there is no individual volume control on them.  What do you expect for $5 each?  I am still to plug then in and test them with my setup.  But I foresee no problems.

This week I have been spending plenty of time on the planning of the narrow gauge components of the Operations Session timetable.  This included desk checking a new timetable with various wagons moving between different sidings to create some activity.  I believe I have made plenty of progress and I think it is now suitable to give it a try during an Operations Session.  The timetable cards for all the narrow gauge trains have been adjusted with extra wording and a lot more wagons have been conscripted into service.  There is still plenty of room for more wagons to be added at a future date.  I could be opening up myself for lots of issues, if the wagons are too light, but they seem OK with tests done so far.

I also did some more follow up work on my latest narrow gauge wagons.  I visited Aurora Trains on Friday and picked up 6 sets of narrow gauge bogies for my latest creations.  These are going under the last few wagons I have scratch built.  I can remember back to when I had about 12 or 13 narrow gauge wagons total and I could have 2 or maybe 3 narrow gauge trains.  I needed to get some mates to bring a coal or grain train over and the barrow gauge track was hopeless when those trains ran.  Mine ran OK however.  This narrow gauge empire sensis now has ballooned to about 39 wagons when this last lot of wagons are complete.  This is thanks to about 15 of these being scratch built over the last year or so.

These latest bunch of scratch built wagons have now been painted and seem to run up and down the track and through the scratch built point work quite well.  I have one more HWA wagon to add external ribbing to before painting and before adding couplers.  The other 4 wagons that I built during the last week and a bit, all still need couplers to be added, but are all painted, and almost ready for use on the layout.  Maybe this last task will be completed on Christmas eve while watching TV.  I need these wagons for an upcoming Operations Session the following weekend.  I feel that last HWA wagon that I built, has ribs that are too large.  The next one will use slightly smaller strips of styrene for the ribs in the various locations on the wagon.

The timetable graphs have also been adjusted with the 4 sets of new train paths that exist between Acacia Ridge and Fisherman Islands.  These could be narrow gauge or standard gauge trains.  I have also added the Rocklea Sidings location to the train graph.  However, there is not yet any changes to the timetable cards to separately mention this location on the timetable cards.  However with Rocklea Sidings on the graph, the train controller will see what the various shunt trains - 2 narrow gauge and 2 standard gauge - need to do, with the trains reversing on the mainline to access the Sidings.

I am considering switching the timetable cards from perforated A4 (giving 4 x A6) cards to maybe going back to some perforated A4 (giving 2 x A5) cards in the future as my eyes seem to be starting to fail me more and more.  Then the timetable cards can be a lot bigger and there will be plenty of space to add new locations - such as sidings and wayside halts if required in the future.

I'm back to work tomorrow for 2 days before being on leave for another week.  When on leave again, it will be around to track cleaning and locomotive and train testing for 3 days before the Operations Session.  I hope to have plenty of photos from that session in next weekend’s Blog update.