Ops Session Preparation

Friday this week was the start of my holidays.  I went to the shed and started to tick off all the items on my 'To Do' list in preparation for next week's Operations Session.  I had three trains to complete the previous timetable, that was started a couple of years back.  These trains were run to completion.  Once that was done, I identified the various electrical maintenance changes that I needed to make around the layout.  The control panel at Murwillumbah had a wire off one of the buttons.  The control panel at Cassino also had the power supply wire off.  Both of these were reconnected.  I also reconnected the incinerator wire at Border Loop.  I also found a cold solder joint in Cassino Up Yard.  That was fixed along with the Down end points at Cassino Meat Works. 

Once that was done, I identified the locos that are needed to run on the first 50 trains in the timetable.  Each loco was tested up and back to ensure that it was working correctly.  Three locos needed a bit of a heart bypass.  Twenty nine locos were tested.  Nine other locos were also tested and these are classified at spare locos.  So if I have an issue on Wednesday, I can do a 0-5-0 swap of locos with one of these ones.  I also identified a dodgy power connection in Clapham Yard on the points between tracks 2 and 3 at the Up end.  This cold solder joint was also fixed. 

On Saturday, I also identified that following the relaying of the track through Grafton Yard earlier this year, some of the wire jumpers between tracks one, two and three were removed.  So unless the points were set for tracks two and three, then there was no power to the tracks.  The same was encountered for the lead to tracks 8-13.  All these power issues have now been remedied.  While working under the layout at Grafton Yard adding these jumper wires, I also pulled a wire off the staff circuit for Grafton Yard to Rappville Loop.  That was also easily reconnected. 

I also needed to clear the track.  The XPT was out at Lismore taking up a track.  It had to get back into its hiding place at Grafton Yard.  So I tried to give it a run, but one the power cars refused to move.  I reset its address on the Powercab and I had to recreate the consist between the two XPT power cars.  A minute later and the train was running back to Grafton Yard.  It had a couple of hiccups on route.  I really need to work out why the bogies keep coming off the track when it goes around a curve.  

During the evening, I got the mobile Powercab test track out, and took it into the house and tried to resurrect the decoders in the three locos that needed a hear bypass.  First one, a 442 class loco would not run.  I put DC power (9V battery) direct to the motor and it ran.  So I did a full reset of the decoder, gave it its address again and voila.  It ran.  I cannot get my Auscision Paybus to acknowledge that it has an ESU stay alive inside it.  Either the ESU stay alive is dead, or there is a cold solder joint on the connection to the decoder.  The other locos I tried, was a 48 Class.  I’m not sure what brand it is.  Maybe a Trainorama.  But I let the smoke out.  Bugger.  I will pull it apart later tonight or early tomorrow and see what I can find.

Early on Saturday before it got too hot, the yard was mowed, then later that night a rather severe burst of weather came through and we got quite a lot of rain.  There were a few branches down up and down the street, but luckily no issues at my place. 

Today I went to the shed and placed the rail paybus and the 442 class back onto the layout ready for their part in the upcoming session.  The 'To Do' list is getting rather short now.  The last few things I needed to do, was to identify why the staff machines from Cassino to Fairy Hill were not working.  The first thing to check was to determine if they were getting power from the track.  The first power supply was converting the DCC to 12V DC.  I checked three staff machine locations and they were all good.  I got to the fourth and a wire was off the DPDT switch behind the panel.  So that was repaired and Voila, that section is now working.  Next task was to check the head set plug in points and their power supply.  All plug in points worked upon testing.  Brilliant!

Everything is basically set before the Ops Session next week.  I'm sure I can find some things to do on the layout before then over the holiday period.