Clothes Lines and Pallets

On Tuesday night we made the trek down to Johnno Love’s place and got to check out his layouts.  Yes two.  One was a British outline, and the other was QR 12mm.  The QR layout was not finished, but most of the track is down.  One new crossing loop needs to be spliced in and a couple of extra staging tracks may be added at a later date.  OMG!  The weathering on some of his locos and wagons is mind blowing.  Some of the work is beyond description.  Just brilliant.  I wanted to take a couple of  the 1720 locos home.  But I resisted.  At least PK and I learned who won the competition for most 1720’s.  It was neither of us but Johnno.  He has at least 8 that I counted.

On Thursday morning I started down the path of making up some level crossing detector kits again.  I purchased some jumper plugs from jaycar, both male to male and male to female.   I also ordered some more Arduinos Unos as my stock is getting down to almost zero.  They will rock up in a few days.  On Thursday evening I also started cutting up some styrene to build some more HO clotheslines.  I continued that task on Friday until I ran out of 0.030" styrene rod.  So I ventured over to Hobbyone and picked up one packet of styrene I was after.  However, they were out of the 0.030" styrene rod that I wanted.  So I put a call out to Raymond the Magnificent, who only lives in the next suburb, and to my dismay, he didn’t have that size styrene either.  I reviewed my previous emails to Raymond, and back in April, I borrowed that same size styrene off him as well.  That review also showed I picked up a replacement packet for him 2 days later, but it did not state that I actually delivered it to him.  So no one on the southside has that size styrene.  I emailed PK on the northside of Brisbane and he had a single packet in his possession, and he will pick up 2 more packets for me on the north side on Wednesday this week.  So I will send one packet Raymond’s way in case I did not return one to him from April.  On Friday afternoon I had to change tack from clotheslines and started making some more pallets.  I then painted the 20 clothesline posts that I had completed and about 10 clothes lines tops that I made before I ran out of styrene.

On Saturday morning I visited the local hobby shops.  At Aurora Trains I picked up a set of level crossing flashers.  I then went to Modeller’s Warehouse and dropped off some clotheslines.  I also picked up some more trees for my layout.  Upon returning home I made a string of 27 pallets from my available styrene.  Today I cut those pallets up and painted those along with some others I already had awaiting painting.  These were painted a natural wood colour.  I also dull coated about another 10 red coloured pallets to make them look like standard red ‘Luscom’ pallets.  I have now all but completed another string of 27 pallets, but I ran out of 0.010” x 0.040” styrene to put all the strips on the top of the pallets, so I did not put any on.

Tomorrow I will head over to the local hobby shop and pick up another packet of styrene that I need to complete these pallets, and while there I will also pick up another three packets that will also give me enough styrene to make another 50 pallets should the need arise in the future.

So on Monday I plan to investigate the programming of a special level crossing sequence into one of my Arduino controlled level crossing units for a new level crossing to be 'modernised with flashing lights' in Old Cassino on the layout.  This level crossing is at the West Street intersection.  I think as well as the standard track activated detectors, I think I will also include some manual activation and cancelation buttons so that the shunters working in Old Cassino Yard and the Oil Siding can travel across the roadway in safety.

What are Mates For?

This week started with a trip to Sydney last Sunday.  My hotel room was fabulous.  The view north was not bad either.  I spent two days down there attending a workshop before flying back to Brisbane.  The view from the IBM building out over the Harbour was even better than my room view.  On the Monday morning I got a text from the missus.  The daughter who was away all the last weekend had caught Covid.  Bit of a bummer there.  Anyway she has been quarantining in her room and the lounge room and the boss waiting on her hand and foot.  That way she doesn’t touch the fridge, the cupboards and the cutlery etc., hoping to minimise any further transfer within the household.  That has been quite successful as no one has gotten Covid so far.

Friday afternoon after work I visited George at Aurora trains and picked up another Noch Naughty Scene.  On Saturday, PK came to my place and I then drove him to Darren’s for the NMRA meeting.  Darren’s layout just is marvelous.  I ran a few trains.  They run well and people just get absorbed into the scene.  I may or may not have located a few signs around his layout advising that if the roadways were blocked by wagons, to call Darren on his mobile phone number.  That caused a bit of a laugh.  This occurred because during the week Darren posted some footage of him doing some shunts on the layout and he had wagons left across roadways.  So I could not resist.  The NMRA meeting was about three presentations.  Some were excellent.  Then after the meeting where we caught up so some mates that we have not seen for quite some time, some 'ex train driver' might have parked a few wagons across some of the local access roads.  Just to give Darren a bit of a laugh.  We await his response and I'm certain I will get the blame.

On the way home from Darren’s, PK and I detoured over to Modeller’s Warehouse at Slacks Creek where we picked up a few packets of trees and other items, hopefully making it worth Tyson’s while to stay open.  The countdown clock is now ticking for the next NMRA meeting at my place.  I must do a bit of a tidy up and try and complete a couple of projects before the meeting date.  Only three weekends left.

On Sunday morning (today) we had the NMRA-X livestream event beamed into our houses.  So I watched the second 4 hour segment.  I was surprised by how interested I was with those four sessions.  I spent about 45 minutes in the breakout room talking to the young presenter of session number 7.  After the last session by Gerry, we all jumped into the breakout rooms and had a chinwag with Marty, Brad and a few others.  Attention then turned to the Armidale Convention.  This will be on the same date as the next NMRA-X stream on the Sunday 23rd of October.  That happens to be the date of my presentation at the Armidale Convention. 

Tuesday Nighter's this week is at Johnno's place as a special event.  We will get to check out his HOn 3 1/2 QR home layout.

Still No Progress

So this week I did not do anything much layout related again.  This is becoming a bit of a habit that I need to snap out of.  However, the week started off with Tuesday Nighters at Kevin’s place.  Again a good turn out with about 9 or 10 present.  There was some progress on Kevin’s Logging extension.  That is going to be good.

Yesterday I finally sent off some notes to Warren for the New England Convention.

Today I flew down to Sydney for a couple of days to attend a presentation for work in the centre of Sydney.  I don’t think I will get away with attending the local hobby shop in the city over the next few days.  Oh well, there is always next year.  So this blog is coming to you from my hotel room in Sydney.

I have started to put together the weekend dates between now and my NMRA meeting, and will work out all the things I must do between now and then.  There is a few things to do and to clean up.

One thing I did do was put the wagons that I purchased the previous weekend at the RMCQ Pine Rivers exhibition on the layout.  The container wagons even got some refrigerated containers.

Pine Rivers Model Train and Hobby Expo

The weekend just gone was spent at the South Pine Sports Complex which was the location of this year's Pine Rivers Model Train and Hobby Expo.  This was organised by the Railway Modeller's Club of Queensland Inc.  The attendance was great.  The venue was fantastic.  The layouts on show were interesting.  I caught up with lots of mates and had quite a few laughs over the weekend.  I might have walked away with quite a few bargains from some of the shops/traders.  I know some people learnt some modelling tips off of me.  I certainly learnt some tips off others doing modelling clinics over the weekend.  I didn’t accomplish much.  I just chatted to people all weekend.

Today I was given a tour of the Sports complex by my mate Gerry, and what a great little gem he has there.  It is certainly a great place if you want to hold a convention.  I can feel an upcoming NMRA convention being held there over the next year or so. 

I'd be pretty sure our Club will be booking this place again next year for another model railway exhibition.

Tuesday this week is Tuesday Nighters at Kevin's place and in a couple of weeks we are going to Darren’s place for our next NMRA meeting.  I need to complete my Armidale Convention Notes.  I just need to type some changes into my document.

Club Weekend

Earlier this week we went over to Cliff's to check out his workshop.  I think we had about 8 or 9 in attendance and had a good constructive time chatting away.

Well this Saturday I headed over to the Clubrooms pretty early.  I got there at 9:35am.  That is early for me.  There was a HO layout meeting scheduled for 9:30-ish, so I wanted to attend and contribute.  I got a job to investigate about a DCC booster.  The next thing was helping out a young member in the Club.  We were able to find him a resistor and an LED so he could put a headlight on his small HO DCC controlled loco.  I cooked the Club BBQ and in the afternoon we had the Club meeting and while that was going on, we packed a couple of hundred show bags for our Exhibition next weekend.  We had some Wuiske show bags left over from previous shows and some plastic ones, and we popped a couple of model railway magazines in each show bag.

Greg brought along some of his 3D printed items, like witch’s hats and bath tubs as I wanted to buy some more.  They will be available at the Model train exhibition next weekend.  Arthur has given me his shopping list of Greg’s items last night, so he’ll get then next weekend at the show as well.

On the way home I stopped off at a hobby shop on the other side of town and picked up the two new colours in the Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color range.

So I still have not been able to kick start my modelling activities.  I seem to have lost my mojo.  Although late this arvo while down the shed getting everything ready to pack away for next weekend's Model Railway exhibition, I was pushing some 12mm wagons back and forth and then I found out that one wagon was derailing.  Upon closer looking, the wheels were out of gauge on one of the bogies.  Out came the plyers and I adjusted the wheel set and gave it another test.  This time it ran smoothly through the curved points and double slip.  At least I had some success.

Later today I was giving some modelling advice to PK about tarpaulins.  Next week on the Saturday, I will be giving Geoff a lift to the train show, as it is a sensible thing to do given our locality and the distance we need to travel.

I’m currently working on some notes for the Armidale Convention.  So I should complete those next weekend, and then I will be ready to send my stuff off to Warren for inclusion in his Convention notes.