Rain, Rain Go Away - Just Upset Putin's Day

Well I have no idea what I did over the last week.  It just seems to have been washed out of my mind.  This damn rain needs to stop.  There cannot be any more rain left up there.  I have a couple of little puddles in the shed.  It is coming up through a couple of cracks in the concrete floor and creating a small droplet about 2 inches in diameter.  Nothing serious. 

Yesterday I went on a trip to two local hobby shops.  I picked up a second hand bargain from Modeller’s Warehouse, and then picked up some rail joiners from Hobbyone.

When back in the shed I installed the new dual gauge point (made by PK) for access to Rocklea Sidings.  This replaced another point that was given me the irits.  The new point was cut to exactly the same size as the one it was replacing.  So I spliced it in, and went to turn on the layout power and it was registering a short circuit in that power district.  Bugger!  Odds were that the point was causing it.  I slept on this issue and formulated a plan of attack.  So today I thought that I must have a sleeper that needed to have its isolation cut made bigger.  While I was cutting through the last sleeper in the point on the straight direction, the loco I was testing it with started moving.  So first problem was solved.  I could run a train into and out of Rocklea Sidings with no issues.  The best and smoothest it has ever been.

However, once I got past the point on the main line from Clapham Yard heading towards Acacia Ridge Yard, I had no power.  When I started to measure the power, I had both rails the same polarity.  This was odd and that had me confused.  So I traced a few wires around and came to the conclusion that there was another isolation joint in the point between the two diverging tracks that needed to be cut.  I did that and after I connected the power rails to the point again, I had full power back to the section of track between Rocklea Siding and Acacia Ridge Yard and I could run trains in that direction as well.  Problem Solved.

Yesterday I also set up the next dual gauge point (also made by PK) to be installed, using my test jig and verified the operation was working correctly from a Peco point motor with a Peco PL10 base plate with a over centre spring in it, and with a Peco PL-13 Accessory Switch mounted on top.  That is next week’s task, to replace the existing Dutton Park dual gauge point with this new one.  It is also in a difficult location on the layout.  The Accessory switch is linked to a pair of LEDs high above the layout that advise which way this point is set.

While I was working on the Rocklea Sidings dual gauge point yesterday, I noticed that another dual gauge point which was made from a Peco standard gauge point with an extra rail super glued through it for the narrow gauge route, was damaged with the narrow gauge rail coming loose.  This point in for a standard gauge train to go from the mainline (track 1) at Acacia Ridge yard to the dual gauge track at this location.  So I will tart up the dual gauge point I just removed from Rocklea Sidings and this will be used to replace this point at the southern end of Acacia Ridge Yard.  I have deduced that this old dual gauge point from Rocklea Siding which was just replaced was working quite well.  It was the point motor and actuator that were not working well and causing problems in my operations session.  I will need to devise some sort of new point actuation method for this new point I will be installing, as the motor – a Peco point motor for the current point was installed below ground and there is no room for an above ground motor like I have with all of my other dual gauge points.  I also need a locking mechanism for the point, as the dual gauge points we make don't have one.

I did just remember what I did on Friday afternoon, I had planned to work on the Tillig point at Acacia Ridge Yard.  I had issues and the original actuator bar broke.  So I did have to build a new one out of PC board sleeper.  So this was done and the actuator bar hooked up to a DPDT slide switch via an omega loop to compensate for changes in the actual throw distance and it seems to work quite well.  So hopefully this issue is now solved. 

Hopefully the rain will ease tomorrow and the shed will dry out before I can get down there next weekend.