On Wednesday this week, I had the dirty Dozen rock up at my place for an Operations Session. This was the largest roll up for some time. It did not start well as the head set system which was tested a couple of days before went down immediately. So we had manual correspondence back to North Coast Control, who was tracking who was where. Apart from a new operator plugging into my Powercab slot and trying to control a train, most things went reasonable well. I did find about a dozen KDs scattered in trees, in end loader buckets, etc. And this, when there was no Marty present. Feedback was that everyone had fun, but I felt that the session could have been better. We ran about 25 trains. Hopefully the layout will be the better for this session.
Following Wednesday’s Ops Session, I ventured down to the shed on Thursday afternoon. I went looking for the locos mentioned in timetable cards, or those that we O-5-O’ed during the session that needed some more work on them. I brought 6 locos up to the house (it was cooler up there) to be reset via the portable Powercab. I then gave those locos a wheel clean. While in the shed, I found that a few banana wagons where not in the correct place. There were two in the Old Cassino Yard, instead of the Goods Shed Siding. I have now updated the timetable card to mention the Rear Good Shed Siding, in lieu of the other track in the Old Cassino layout which has a building on it for transhipping goods to trucks. The banana train was then seen in the Norco Siding at Murwillumbah instead of the Banana Siding at that location. The Banana Siding is before the Murwillumbah Platform, while the Norco Siding is after the Platform. They are quite some distance apart. The diagram on the aisle fascia does identify these locations quite visually.
I also made some changes to the ballast train timetable card, as it said to ‘propel back from Cassino to the Bonalbo Ballast Siding’, then it said ‘await line clean by train No.6’. I think it really needs to read, ‘Await Line Clear, and then ‘Propel back to the Ballast Siding’. But the driver did not then fill the wagons with ballast. Now I have to pay overtime rates to fill these wagons with ballast. Maybe this was because the timetable card said to fill them with coal. So that was also fixed up on the timetable card.
I did hit one of my Austrains 442 locos with a file to the cow catcher. It was bottoming out when travelling through Fairy Hill Loop where there was a change in gradient. So that has now been fixed. I did also get some reports of a 44 class loco bottoming out in Lismore at the level crossing and the Fairy Hill level crossing. More research needs to be done here. I could not replicate that.
I did hear about issues at the Bruxner Highway Level Crossing. But have not yet investigated.
I need a new sign to place underneath the Layout’s Powercab plug in point. As a new operator plugged in his Powercab (acting as a Procab) there and then could not control any loco on the layout. I did not realise where he was plugged into when I started to problem solve his issue. After about 10 minutes of me getting very frustrated, as the train ran very well on the test session a couple of days earlier, I realised the cause. I looked like a right big dork. The problem had me thinking as every loco I tried from this operator’s throttle, did not work. Which was very unusual.
Another issue that I have not had before is that one operator using a WI throttle was trying to run my CPH set. It was long address CPH 03 and CPT 051 in a consist. The operator could not access long addresses under 128 on this throttle. Surely that is not an issue with WI throttle? That must be able to be done.
I did receive some feedback from some attendees and I have been going over some of these suggestions. I did a clean up on a few more timetable cards. This included changing the locos in a consist as one of my locos has totally died – or at least the decoder did. So I’m now ready for the next printing of the timetable cards. I think I need to have a copy of my layout Operations Manual available next to the timetable cards.
On Saturday morning I ventured over the Club via a local hobby shop that had a 10% sale on. I picked up about $100 worth of styrene. On the way home, I dropped into PK’s place and left him my Auscision Paybus. He now has it running just like a bought one. I then went to another Hobby Shop and cashed in a $50 voucher that, to my surprise the guys at work gave me, and I purchased some detail items for the layout.
On Saturday afternoon I completed three trains in the timetable that were almost at their destination but needed to do some shunting. I also adjusted 2 trains were they were left in the wrong places. I then went about moving all the trains in the timetable to their location as at 8:25am in the timetable. This involved with running 4 trains doing their shifts in about 30 minutes. When doing this I tweaked another 4 or so locos with start voltage and headlight changes. So next session will start at that time, with about 6 or 7 trains out in the layout. Not part of the Ops Session, I found three joiners that needed a bit of a solder to make them work. These were in Acacia Ridge Yard on the dual gauge trackage. I also ground down some instances where there was different code track next to each other, e.g. Code 75 and code 100.
I have plans for the beginning of this week. This includes to look at the headset power supply. Put up some more shelves above the light pelmets, as I was given a light box for Christmas so I need somewhere to store it. I was also given a Bunnings voucher and purchased some stuff there today along with my Powerpass card discount for being an NMRA member. You get up to 5% off on some items with Powerpass. I have some clothesline to make along with some plastering and painting to do around Rocla Sleeper Siding and then some work on Kyogle Station Building.
Plenty to do while still on holidays and start off the new year. Happy New Year everyone.
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