The End of the Pallet Line

This last Tuesday we all went over to Garry’s place for our regular fortnightly Tuesday meeting.  His US outline shunting layout is progressing very well.  I was amazed that he only had two wires connected to his room sized layout with no other jumper wires, but yet every piece of track was currently live and working.  The points used were the new Peco unifrogs.  That is the first time I’ve actually seen them in use.  Pretty amazing.  We ran a loco around all sorts of locations in his train room, and changed points after it, and everything was working very well.  We could not fault it.

I had Thursday and Friday off this week and ended up painting up 220 pallets.  These have now been rehomed as of yesterday morning.  However, I now have another 80 built as of today and with my existing 20 plus of unpainted pallets, that means I will be painting another 100 pallets next Friday and Saturday.  These will also go to a good home - maybe next Saturday.  I still have styrene for another 50 of so left.  But I think I am taking a break.

While I have been palletting away, I have not been doing anything else.  I really need to get back into completing my Kyogle Station building and doing some plastering around the Rocla Sleeper Siding. I will hopefully get back into these tasks next weekend.

I also have been looking at booking flights down to this year’s Sydney Model train show in May.  Some of the airlines don’t miss you for fares.  Ouch!  But they have now been booked.  I just need to book my accommodation for the weekend and all will be set.

I did get up early this morning to watch NMRA-X, but it got cancelled at the last minute and re-scheduled for next Sunday at 9:00am local time.  I've put that in the diary already.

MMR Update

This week I continued plodding along building strings of pallets.  I have completed 8 strings for a total of 215 pallets.  I also had PK pick up some more styrene for me from a local hobby shop.  He dropped that over to my place on Saturday on our way to the NMRA meeting.  I now have enough styrene to complete another approximately 185 pallets.   However, I’m pretty much all 'palletted' out and I do not want to build another one for well over a month or more.  I do have to start cutting these up and then getting the paints out to do about 30 pallets each of about 7 different colours.  That is potentially next Thursday, Friday and Saturday’s job.

Yesterday PK and Kyle came to my place and I then drove them to the NMRA meeting down at Pimpama, at the local model railway Club’s clubrooms.  It was a well attended meeting (about 45 there) and a few more line, as we stream our meetings and presentations to the rest of the region around the state.  The home Club also put on a sausage sizzle, had cold drinks on hand, and had the urn on for tea and coffee.  What more could you ask for?  Well they even had airconditioning in the meeting area.  Put on the day before.  Talk about well organised!

At the meeting, we had Bob talk about his home made servo controllers.  Then we had Paul talk about the 'Paul and Bob epic tour (part 1)' to Amherst in the US in January.  This is the world’s biggest model railway exhibition held over 2 days.   A number of the Queensland contingent went to the show and also Rob from NSW (current Pacific Director) went as well.  We saw plenty of photos of them.  After lunch we had Paul and Duncan catch up with Divisional and Regional NMRA business.  Then Arthur took the floor and spoke about the Achievement Program.  He covered how many AP Certificates were achieved in our Region this last year and how many were achieved worldwide.  We had 9 AP Certificates.  That was a pretty low number.  Arthur then presented me with my Master Builder of Cars Certificate.  This AP made me qualify for MMR.  Arthur then presented me the AP certificate for MMR.  Paul then presented me with the Australian Plaque for MMR.  Duncan then presented me with the National (worldwide) plaque for MMR.  I needed a few extra hands.

My aim is to now try and get a few of my mates to journey down the road to completing some more AP certificates.

During our Show and Tell part of the meeting, I also showed off about 5 seconds of video that showed my level crossing lights working in my pergola.  I was trying to drum up interest in other members getting their lights flashing and I offered assistance.

When we got back to my place from the NMRA meeting, PK and Kyle came down to the shed and PK started crawling around under all the decks, taking photos to give him some research on how my layout was built.  He is going in very deep with his planning of his various decks in his shed.  Soon, we he will have his builder resource available, to install his clothesline outside the shed, complete the insulation installation and sheet the internal walls in the shed.  Who knows he might even start building benchwork by mid year.  It has taken him about 7 years (maybe more) of sitting on his backside so far and do nothing much.  Something lit the fire under his tail.

Today I hung all my paraphernalia up inside the shed.  I am also following through on an enhancement for the North Coast Control during an Ops session.

What to do Next?

I have lots of things I need to do, but I can’t decide what to do next?  This morning I made a list of things to do.  I have a magazine or two to catch up on reading – I’m starting to fall behind.  I have a loco and wagon in the shed that have unmatched coupler heights.  I have my model of the Kyogle Station building, and then the Kyogle platform, and also some plastering around the Rocla Sleeper Siding to complete.  I also have to build about 300 pallets.  I have started down the path to building the first 75.  With a bit of luck they might be completed by later tonight.  I’m also trying to get a young member started in scratch building in styrene.

Anyway this arvo I went down to the shed to find the loco and wagon that un-matched couplers.  I had forgotten which pair it was.  However, I found two couplers where the KD jaw spring had disappeared.  So I replaced those two.  I eventually found the two troublesome wagons – or actually a loc and wagon.  I checked the loco on the height gauge.  Perfect.  I checked the wagon, one end good, and the outer end where it connects to the loco and it was a bit high.  So I need to drop it slightly.  I will do this next week by filing the underside of the wagon bogie mount for about 0.5mm.

I also got stuck into the pallets.  The first string of 27 was quite quick to knock over.  I’ve almost completed the second string of 26 standard pallets and one undersize one.  The third string of 27 has been started and definitely be completed tonight about 8:30pm.  I will try and do the next 25 maybe Monday or Tuesday, and then I will try and do another 100 pallets next weekend.  The hard part is doing the various painting on these pallets with about 5 or 6 different colours, and this is the weekend after.

When in the shed, I found a couple of other jobs I need to complete, for example an outhouse that I need to put together and connect up the sound and some sort of fascia switch.

Yesterday I went to the Club and caught up with the guys at the Club.  The live steam sidings have been completed.  They look great.  Some fencing still needs to be completed.  The recent extension of the rear Clubrooms, near the live steam, is ready for insulation and ply walls to be started soon.  Bit by bit, the upgrades are progressing and they all look very good.

Nothing Specific

So it appears that the Australian guys who get the hard copy NMRA magazines were getting their magazines on Friday.  Geoff and PK got theirs and commented about an article (really a BIO) on me in the back.  It was about me getting my MMR and the journey to get there.  On Tuesday night a few of us got together online and had a natter.  On Thursday I was speaking to Tyler in Taswegialand for a while as well.  I also did the same with Tyler on Saturday evening.  Saturday morning I went to Modellers Warehouse and did some transactions over clotheslines.  When I came home, I decided to install my jiffy box for my level crossing flasher.  This box will house my Arduino controller and all the electrical components.  It keeps everything out of the weather.  I gave the crossing flasher another test and it still works.

On Friday I finished reading the latest AMRM and saw the notes about the new Auscision 40 containers.  I am very interested to supplement my existing container collection with some tarped beauties.  My partner in crime, PK, has put his hand up to take the second of the ones I am after.

Today I started to build the frame for my shade awning outside my shed entrance.  I am currently building the two main - front and back beams of the frame box.  I broke a drill bit yesterday so I went to Bunnings and bought a new one today.  I have now built the front and rear beams.  I just need to work out how I join the front and rear beams to the ones running 90 degrees to them front to back.  I also need to determine how far apart I need to space these beams apart – 600mm or 900mm.  More work next week.

I’m also starting to plan how I will come up with the dollar to allow me to attend the Sydney (Rosehill) Exhibition this year and the Armidale convention.  Basically I will need to put $50 away each pay, in order to pay for everything – travel, accommodation, entry, food, etc.  I can’t seem to save for anything at the moment as more stuff keeps popping up that I need to procure.  Like the containers from Auscision.  I also do want a string of QR SX cars in the near future.  That is going to break the bank.