Styrene Building and Planning for Some More Styrene Building

After borrowing a packet of Styrene from PK on last Sunday afternoon, I got started cutting it up on Monday.  Initially I put together 4 frames and the packet was gone.  These frames were for my 1:10 scale models of the modules for my future layout.  On Tuesday afternoon I received a text that my styrene order had come in.  That meant that Wednesday morning was a drive to Corinda station followed by a train trip to Ipswich. 

Previously at Ipswich station there was this strange signal on platform 2 that I had talked about before. 

The signal on the left has a weird route indicator on it.

When I was coming home from Ipswich, I saw a "Special" come into platform 2 at Ipswich and sit there.  Platforms 1 and 2 were closed as they were painting the platform, so we were on platforms 3 and 4 for our trains.  I saw the signal in question on platform 2 light up, with the route indicator first, then it went from red to yellow to green.

The 'Special' train was going from platform 2 to the Down Main.

While I was at Ipswich I picked up 5 packets of styrene and when I got home, I made up another 6 scale model modules.  Attention now must turn for my non-standard modules.  So at this point in time, I have assembled everything except the last module for the branch line around to the stabling/staging.

Today was the day that I added legs to all my scale model modules for my new exhibition layout.  They look quite good.  I still need to build the last module.

I received an email from Brad in Lismore on Monday afternoon helping me with the size of the extension on the Old Casino station building.  He said that there were 18 sheets of iron on the roof on that section of the building.  That was a great start.  With each sheet being 760mm when overlapped, that made the station building extension about 12.16m long.  In HO scale that is 139.6mm.  With 2 doors and three windows to include in the front of the building extension, I can now try and guess the actual size of each item and the spaces between them all to fit into my 139.6mm.  My initial calculations with a few tweaks, has the building coming out to 140mm in size.  I will draw that up this coming week and see how it looks compared to the photos I have and see if I need to adjust anything, before I commit to cutting up a piece of styrene.

Thursday I had to ring Anthony and pull out of his Saturday Afternoon Ops session due to my persistent cough.  I suggested that Darren could fill my place, if he was so inclined.  After some new medication on Thursday night and Friday and Saturday, I still ventured over to the Bayside Exhibition on Saturday morning where I ran into Darren and Brendon on their way to the Ops Session.  I also had a nice chat to numerous people at the Exhibition, some Bayside club members, Logan Club people, Action Club people, some mates I ran into people walking around and a number of various shop owners at the Exhibition.

There is a Point!

I took the easy way out this week by trying to adjust the trackwork on my dodgy dual gauge point.  I ran wagons through it and they all worked.  I waited a couple of days and brought out the power pack on Wednesday and successfully ran 12mm and 16.5mm locos through the straight track.  I tried to run a couple of 12mm locos through the point through the diverging path and they all derailed.  They could travel from the diverging end to the toe, but not the other way.  Bugger!  So I did need to get PK’s point jig out and build a new one.  I cut up the sleepers and gapped them on Wednesday afternoon.  I then cut off the various lengths of rail and just placed them in the jig.  Later in the day I went down to the shed and used my grinding stone to chamfer the two point V’s and then cut out the stock rails where the point blades meshed with them.  I then reduced the point rails to fit into the stock rails.  At this point I lost interest and went onto other activities.

On Thursday after picking up my Railway Digest from the local newsagency I soldered up the various V’s and attached them and the stock rails to the sleepers in my dual gauge point.  Bit by bit I soldered everything else together.  Everything seemed good with the point.  I could not run locos as the insulation gaps were not cut.  But wagons went via all routes.

On Friday I spent some time rummaging through the shed for items to sell at the Buy and Sell and put all this aside. 

Saturday was NMRA AGM day for both the Australasian Region and our Division.  We knew the outcomes before we started, as all positions had either one, or no nominations.  I got there early as I had to help get the Div 1 FreeMo modules out of the container and put them up in the garage for viewing.  I then transformed into a parking controller, ensuring everything attending got a good park.  The meeting was a good civil, organised event, with a Div 1 Show and Tell, then the Special General Meeting for the AR up first, followed by the AGM for the AR.  Then the Div 1 AGM.  At the Show and Tell, PK cut the insulated gaps in my dual gauge point.  The day’s activities were all streamed to the region and our division.  That was followed by some presentations, with one presentation, done so remotely by Aaron from Newcastle, on the topic of remote operations.  We had Tyler in Tasmania, as Controller and Anthony and Geoff at the meeting running trains on Aaron’s layout, on the large screen at the meeting.  The day ended it all with a tour of the inside of Paul’s FAM coach in his back yard.  When I got home I had to resolder a couple of rails to sleepers, and in doing so, I bridged one of these micro cuts that PK did – Bugger!

Sunday was another early start with our Buy and Sell on.  I sold a couple of items, but that bad man Barnacle Bob was selling some unbelievably good books for cheap prices, and I had to assist with rehoming some of these.  That was fine until I found someone selling a stack of code 83 points for fantastic prices and I had to also rehome them for my future exhibition layout.  I also received some order for some styrene steel loads.  I have not built these for a while, but I will build a few of these to be ready for the upcoming AMRA Exhibition in July, where one guy will pick them up from me.  On the way home, I detoured by PK’s and had a beer, and he recut an insulating gap in one of the rails of my dual gauge point.  PK also loaned me a packet of styrene to tide me over before I pick up my delivery this week.  When home I started on the task of reading all the new books I picked up today from Barnacle.

This coming week I will pick up the styrene that I need for a building project, and put one packet aside to give back to PK.

Not Doing Much This Last Week

Not much was happening this week.  However, I decided to create a model of my future model railway.  I was using a 10:1 scale, and cut up a number of 3mm styrene sheets to represent the top of a number of modules for my future layout.  The sheets of styrene were 6cm wide and 24cm long.  This will represent the 2.4m x 600mm modules.  I also propose to cut up some 2.5mm x 2.5mm styrene strip to simulate the 25.4mm aluminium square tube that the modules will be made out of.  A check of my styrene supply reveals that there is only one strip left in a packet that I have.  I was thinking that I needed to buy at least 3 packets, maybe 4 packets to provide enough styrene.  I then may have to get some more in the future if I model the legs and other components on the modules, like back boards etc.

The other activity was rounding up all my dual gauge pieces of track and connection flex track to each end and then connecting them to a DC power supply.  I then ran narrow gauge and standard gauge locos through the various routes.  Some of the points had a short.  But a quick look at the sleepers, or using an Ohmmeter on the sleepers I quickly found all the issues and remedied them.  So the locos went all the pieces of track quite well, except for one.  On that piece of track the diverging route kept derailing the narrow gauge locos.  So I thought I would have to build a replacement piece of track.  That would entail a trip to PK’s and borrowing his dual gauge jig again.

I made a trip to the Club on Saturday for the early morning meeting about the Clubroom HO layout.  Who books meetings at 9:00am on a Saturday?  I took my two DH’s to the Club.  I ran one back and forth on the 12mm upper deck while the layout meeting was on for a bit of a laugh.  It ran reasonably well.  The second DH was waiting for a chip.  PK provided that to me on Saturday morning.  I quickly removed the two wires from the motor to the bogie pickups, and wired in the decoder.  I placed it on the DC test track and it ran back and forth.  I switched the track to DCC and fired up the programming track.  I set its address to long address 40.  I then fired up the loco and after a few second, a few puffs of smoke came out of the decoder.  I ran it again on DC and it worked.  A couple more times it ran on DCC and then large puffs of smoke and sparks came from the decoder.  The motor still turns on DC.  It has got me stumped.

I know that the mech in the DH loco is a K&M and will draw quite some amps.  That is why we got a 1 Amp continuous and 2 Amp peak N scale decoder.  So I think this week I will pull the loco apart again and rewire it for DC and install an ammeter between the DC controller and the motor to determine how much amperage the loco is pulling.  Then I will try and work out if anything on the loco frame is live, and if so I will have to insulate it and give the DCC conversion a second go.

While I was working on my loco in the Club workshop area, Warren was showing off a 3D printed Corrugated iron roller.  He demonstrated it and the output was pretty damn good.  I put an order in for one.  Hopefully I will see him either next Saturday or Sunday at the Club Buy and Sell and procure one.  I can keep one very well employed creating corrugated iron sheets for my scratch build buildings.

On the way home on Saturday I diverted to PK’s place and he gave me a beer.  I borrowed the required jig and acquire a couple of lengths of code 83 rail.  This arvo I got out the soldering iron out and started to adjust the rail gauge on the diverging route.  So I have re-tested hand pushing bogies and various wagons through the point and it is a lot better then before I started.  Later this week I will get the DC power supply back out and test it with a loco.  Hopefully I do not have to rebuild a new point, but I might just do it for practice.

More Layout Work

Between the rain showers on Monday this week I went to the shed and pottered around.  I found out that the Timetable card for the Gold Coast Motor Rail in the next Ops Session was already sitting in the pile of trains already run, when it was still sitting in track 3 at Grafton Yard, yet to carry a passenger.  So the timetable card was repositioned in the yet to be run pile.  A review of the next 7 timetable cards show that there are large number of trains starting at either 10:00 am, 10:10 am or 10:20 am, so I guess we know that the fast clock will kick off at 9:50am next Ops Session.  I ran the Gold Coast Motor Rail from Grafton to Cassino back platform road where it also departs at 10:10am.  So I will need at least a crew of 8 to all be running trains soon after kick off during the next session.  Boy is North Coast Control going to have his hands full.

I also took the opportunity to run my QR SX set from the southern end of Clapham Yard through the yard and stopped it in Yeerongpilly station.  On Tuesday it ran all the way through to South Brisbane Station.  It had some issues in some spots but it made it.  So Wednesday was fixing day.  I needed to adjust the track at a couple of track joins which were under and over gauge.  I also had to pack the track in a couple of spots.  The packing was used to reduce the steepness of gradient change.  Before I did this, the cowcatcher on my 1460 class loco bottomed out in a couple of spots.  That is not good when it occurs and it gets stuck behind a piece of track at a join.  Now it runs very smoothly.  On Wednesday I also took the opportunity to lengthen the platforms at Park Road Station so a 7 car SX set will fit in the platforms.  These platforms are on a bit of a curve, so I used a jig saw to help curve the platform around the track.

I couple of years back I added more cement wagons to my Grafton to Murwillumbah Cement train with these four wagons being offloaded at Old Cassino.  They were placed in the Timber Siding, which I didn’t really have.  I placed them in the lead to the Loop line at Old Cassino.  This caused considerable discomfort to many train operators when trying to push wagons into the Dairy Siding at the opposite end of the yard at Old Cassino, or just trying to cross trains when both trains were considerable long.  So on Monday I bit the bullet and investigated the installation of a true Timber Siding at Old Cassino.  There was space between the Construction siding and the Loop track.  So I replaced a RH point with a 3 way point from the Loop.  I sprayed the track area with water on Monday to loosen up the ballast and used a putty knife to get under the ballast under the point.  On Tuesday I dremelled the track joiners at the northern end and slid out the point.  After a bit of clean up of the area, I then added the 3-way point and everything was good.  I then laid the Timber Siding and then added ballast and secured it with white glue from a dropper.  This was left to dry.  The wagons in the Lead for the Loop were moved to the Timber Siding.  I also put another Cement wagon into service on the train, so now the Timber Siding at Old Cassino has 5 wagons.  The shunt list documents were updated as was the timetable card’s instructions for the two Cement Trains – the Up and Down ones which run through Old Cassino.

I have also started work on scratch building the station building at Old Cassino.  I should also complete the station platform as well when I finish the station building.  I found an old photo of the Old Casino Station Building, and it looks just like a standard A5 building.  However, after looking at the photos I had on hand from the various trips down there, the station building looks like a mirror image to the A5 station building plan.  Subsequently a rather large extension room was built onto the western end of the station building, maybe a signal cabin?  At this stage I have no confirmation of any dimensions of this building, but that does not stop me starting to scratch building that building. 

The reversed A5 building.  The waiting room with seats on the left has been boarded up, so that is how I modelled it.

The starting of the additional room on the western end of the building.

Saturday was another working bee on the Div 1 FreeMo modules.  We had a guest appearance from PK and his magic spray gun, and he sprayed all the track a very nice rust colour.  Once dry I then got into teaching the troops how to ballast.  We just ran out of ballast after finishing the last module we were working on.  They are starting to look pretty good.

Operations Session Clean Up

Following last Sunday's Operations Session on Cassino, I took the opportunity to look at enhancing some things around the layout and then looked at a couple of locos that might have had issues.

My Tillig dual gauge point at the northern end of Acacia Ridge Yard always causes locos to stutter heading through it.  When running a consist this did not cause any issues, but when there is only a single loco this can cause a complete stall.  I cleaned the point blades with methylated spirits and a cotton bud and soldered a joiner at the toe end of the point to assist with electrical flow.  The other end is made up of all insulated joiners as this is the start of the next power district.  I have since run a couple of standard gauge locos through it in all directions and they all now performed well.  I also ran a couple of narrow gauge locos through the straight track and they also ran well.  Maybe I have fixed the issue.

Next stop was a point at the other end of Acacia Ridge Yard in track 1.  That particular point had bad electrical connectivity from the point blades so I added a permanent jumper from the diverging rail to the straight rail and now that works so much better after my tests.

Late on last Sunday I was testing the SX set hauled by the Golden Holden and it just stopped short of the section where the mainline from Acacia Ridge, the branch from Sunnybank and the lead into Rocklea Sidings all diverge.  A length of track that I installed for Sunnybank was second hand and was as dirty as sin.  So on Monday it was given a cleaning and then I ran my SX set forward and back through this junction in all directions and performance was satisfactory.  That train has not travelled too much farther as the set is sitting in Clapham Yard.

I then tried to check out an Auscision loco - number 44236.  It stopped dead while Arthur was running No 19A on last Sunday.  I could not get it to move.  But I did not try checking CV19 so see if it magically joined a consist.  I checked that later and that was not the cause.  So it left me with the only thing to do was to pull it apart and check the wires to the motor.  It looks like the motor is stuffed.  I removed the motor and applied DC direct to the motor and it does not spin.  I will have to try and get a replacement motor from Auscision.

A scan of South Brisbane Interstate (SBI) Station on Monday showed that it was in a complete mess.  OMG!  It was a complete cluster …  I had no idea where to start fixing up what was wrong.  Well the Sugar wagons should have been in Acacia Ridge Yard road 3, but were in SBI road 10.  So I ran them back.  The three wagons that should have been in SBI road 10 were in SBI road 3.  So I moved them into road 10.  Next step was to move the rest of the wagons in SBI road 3 into Park Road Siding road 2.  I noticed on Sunday that something was wrong with Park Road station, as I was supposed to do a shunt there and there was nothing in the yard.  I was supposed to add my train’s container wagons with those wagons in road 2 at Park Road Yard, but they were not there.  I think this was a left over from the last iteration of the timetable and I did not pick this up earlier.  But because of this train being at South Brisbane, the driver of the Brisbane Limited could not put that train in road 3 at SBI.  So they put it in road 2.  That was going to cause all sorts of issues as SBI road 2 is used to run around all incoming trains in SBI and that wasn’t going to occur with a train sitting in it.

So this took me about 3 hours to do, but I had fun.  I have since added quite a lot of detail to a number of Shunt Lists, to assist crews in the future.  I will spend some timeethis coming week working out where we are in the timetable for the next session.  I might back track some trains.

One item that I forgot about from the Ops Session and it probably caused us one of the most troublesome issues from the Ops Session was that the point from the Main to the Yard in Cassino near the signal box had failed.  I forgot to look at this until late on Tuesday night when I remembered about the issue.  On Wednesday morning, I used my PROCAB-R handheld to throw the points in that region individually.  They all belong to a single DS64 point controller.  I started at address 421, 422 and 423 and they all worked.  Address 424 did not.  Additionally, when I tried to enter this address the DS64 did not respond.  So it looked like that the DS64 had lost its address in output 4.  So I had to re-enter the addresses from 421 to 424 into the DS64.  Once done, I entered 424 as the accessory number on the PROCAB-R and sure enough it worked.  This is one of the very, very few times that I had lost an address in a DS64 point controller.

I have circled back to the Cassino Station Building.  I had previously found two SPDT switch to use in the controlling of the lights in Cassino Station Building and the Refreshment Rooms.  A third switch found lying around will allow me to separately control the station master office lights.  This was wired up and tested and looks good.

The other week I put my 3D printed DH, that I got from Barnacle, next to the Far North Model DH.  The 3D printed version with a motor chassis that I put together had the DH shell sitting very high.  I set about working on the chassis and removing some styrene.  After a short work period, the 3D version has come down by close to 5mm in height.  It is just a bit high, but so much better.  I really need to get around in making my other Far North Hobbies DH that I purchased a few years back now, as I have a real working DH template to work from.

Saturday involved a trip to Anthony’s place to act as the Station Master at Tatiara Downs for his Operations Session.  I worked with Alan as my shunter and Iain as West End.  I have not been the so called ‘Sheriff’ since the first few sessions I worked at Tatiara Downs.  That is about 25 sessions ago.  This is a stressful position.  I think I struggled by and everything got done.  I forgot to swap a Guards van wagon card on one train, and 'The Real Sheriff' (Brendan – who was out on the mainline running trains for a change) chastised me as his train cards were in the wrong order.  I just had it arranged back to front instead of front to back.  We had a great time in a operating session lasting about 3 hr 10 minutes.  I needed a rest after that session.

More Layout Progress and Ops Session

So I went to the shed on Monday afternoon and continued wiring the track power bus on the Sunnybank branch.  At one point I thought I would turn the power to the layout on, and you guessed it, I had a short somewhere in the power district I was wiring up.  Surely I could not have wired a dropper to the wrong side of the track power bus.  I surveyed the whole power district and found a loco sitting on a set of points, that got thrown in the layout start up sequence.  So I changed the points back and tested the power district again.  Still a short.  I was pulling a full 1.5 Amps in that power district.  I had another glance at the work I had just done, and there it was, right in front of me, I had wired one jumper to the wrong rail.  Bugger!

So on Tuesday morning I unsoldered the wrongly connected power jumper, and reconnected it to the correct rail.  I could not resist the temptation to give the power district a test and sure enough it no longer had a short.  I then continued on with the laying of the bus wire for the track power to the end of the Sunnybank branch.  After lunch I then added the jumper wires from the bus to the track in about 7 places.  I then ran my scratch built 2050 QR railmotor up and down the siding at Sunnybank.  I also tested another 2000 class railmotor on the siding and it ran well.  My other 2000 class railmotor would not run.  Maybe I forgot its number, but I thought I numbered them after the birth years of my kids.  I did get around to checking the address later in the week and it was one year from the number I thought as this railmotor had a van, so it was an odd number.  I then put a sound equipped 1460 on the track and backed it onto my SX set in Sunnybank platform.  It sounds good.  My plan was for running that from Sunnybank to South Brisbane later this week but when I did, it stopped just short of the crossovers near Rocklea Siding.  I will check that out next week.

Tuesday evening we went to Glen’s place for our fortnightly meeting.  Numbers were good.  I think we had 14 in attendance and after all piling into Glen’s Shed to watch a couple of trains circulate around the layout, we sat in his outdoor deck in the cool air and had a very nice supper.  Plenty of conversations were occurring.  PK picked up a QR DH from Barnacle.  This transaction caught my eye.

With my house being vacated by the boss, I put a roll of paper on the kitchen floor again and corrected last week’s issue with the point layout in the sidings on the future exhibition layout.  I did two iterations to get the correct flow on the standard gauge crossover.

This is the correct layout of the sidings.

I have worked out my next job on the layout.  I am revisiting the Cassino Station building.  I am installing the internal lighting.  So on Thursday arvo, I drilled two holes through the baseboard and wired these to a power supply via an on/off switch on the fascia.  This power supply runs all the lighting effects in the Cassino region, platform lights, street lights and car lights.  The other end was connected up through the holes and into the two wire runs I have in my station building.  I tested with a single LED and it worked from the power supply.  So I went ahead and wired up 10 LEDs which will appear under the platform awning in the station building.  I have also installed wires which will go to the refreshment rooms next to the station building and have these controlled from a separate on/off switch on the fascia.  I moved the roof of the station building to the platform, and turned the lights on, and you can see them through the roof.  I need to paint it next week.

Saturday was a trip with a car full of north side people to the NMRA meeting west of Ipswich.  There were three good presentations and a viewing of Greg’s layout.  The engine shed had operating doors.  I received a phone call from Barnacle a couple of days earlier and he asked if I wanted to buy a QR DH.  I said yes and Saturday was the day when the transaction took place.  When I got home from the meeting, I took it to the shed and tested it on DC.  It ran very well.  I placed it next to my 3D printed DH and Bob's version sits a lot lower on the track.  So it looks like I will spend time next week lowering my 3D printed DH to the same height as the one I picked up from Barnacle.  I also found one of my spare decoders, so after I pulled the new DH apart, I realised that the decoder will not fit inside.  I will need a very small N scale decoder, or a Z scale decoder.  

Saturday night I joined the people on the British Region 'Brew and Natter' for a couple hours of interesting discussion.

Today I had an Ops Session on the layout and we had Shelton join us.  He had not been there running trains for 5 years and 4 months.  He did a good job and provided us with some photos below.  We had a new operator as well.  Paul on Div 1 Super was here.  He found an error in the timetable, which has gone unnoticed for quite some time, so I have fixed that already.  I fixed a couple of other things and I have a task list for next week to fix up.  Everyone enjoyed themselves and they all performed very well.  Pity for one of my trains in particular - the Brisbane Limited which must have driven Bob mad, and we had issues with a couple of locos as well - which Arthur copped.

The CPH was running ready to depart South Brisbane Interstate Station on an ARHS tour to Kyogle

The Pay bus doing what it does at Border Loop.

The ARHS Tour has made it to Kyogle.

The Brisbane Limited heading north through The Risk.

These four photos by Shelton D'Cruz.

More Layout Planning and Runnings a Couple of Trains

There was a working bee on the FreeMo modules of the Division on Monday.  We had a few attendees and work progressed well.  I think all the planned changes that I had listed on one module were implemented, and that modules look good.  We just need to connect up the track bus on the module, and then do the ballasting.  Did I say that the module looks good?  The second module was also tarted up quite well, although from my point of view, I feel it was let down with some very poor scenicing around a house.  The scenic material that was applied is too green and too thick.  But that is just me.  I will check this out again next time we work on it.  This module also needs the track bus wired up and then ballast added.  But before the ballasting, we first need to paint the rails.  I need to put the hard word on PK to do that as he is the resident expert in this technique.

I had solo access to the house on Wednesday as the boss went out.  So I unrolled a few of my track planning sheets on the floor of the kitchen/family room.  I then started laying pieces of track on the already laid out track lines on those sheets.  I then went and looked at how the new pieces of dual gauge track that I built last week were going to fit into the current plan.  So it turned out quite easily.  Although later on in the afternoon, I pulled up my aerial photos of the location I am modelling.  When rechecking my track plan it turned out that I had a couple of sidings feeding into the wrong tracks,  I just needed to move a set of points from the first siding track to the second siding track and then move the location of one of the new dual gauge points back about 450mm and all should be good.   

This is the northern end of the sidings, looking south.  The track at the bottom left is the standard gauge lead in.  The next two tracks to the right are the narrow gauge main lines, UP on the left and DOWN on the right.  Not shown here is the dual gauge mainline further to the right.

The next shot shows the end of the sidings.  I did not layout all the track in the sidings.  The right most track is the branch line.

On Thursday night I got an order for 3 of my Incinerators.  So I made up another 4 on Friday.  They tested OK.  I will deliver these next Tuesday evening.  Next job was to visit the local hobby shop for a browse.  Later in the arvo, I went to the Shed and ran two trains to progress thew timetable by about 45 minutes.  These two trains were not completed last Ops Session, as there were not enough crew to keep up with the clock.  The first train was the steel shunt from Acacia Ridge Yard to Clapham Yard followed by a propel back into Salisbury Siding.  Part of running this train is to do the various end of train activities associated with it.  This involves unloading the wire coils from the coil carrier wagon and placing them into the coil container.  I also had to unload the 5 steel coils from the cradles on the train.  Because this train did not start last session and thus did not complete, the coils of wire were not in the Steel container under the layout when the empty steel train travelled back from Acacia Ridge Yard to Grafton Yard.  So when this train gets to Grafton yard, the operator needs to re-stock this empty train and make a loaded steel train.  But with no wire coils in the steel container, this could not be done.  So I also did this task.  The second train was a light engine movement from Loco Pilly to Park Road Siding.  This is a positioning movement to have the locos on the train for the following shunt movement from Park Road Siding to Clapham Yard.  So this shunt movement is the first train to run following the resumption of the Ops Session next Sunday.  I was most impressed by the smooth running of both these trains around the layout.

I went to the Club on Saturday and caught up with the great unwashed and PK and Greg.  I had some good discussions with various people through the day.

Today I went down the shed after lunch and continued work installing the track bus on the Sunnybank Branch.  I’ve only got about 10 feet so far today.  I hope to continue this on Monday afternoon with the next 10 feet or so to be done.  I did a test and I do now have track power in Sunnybank as I ran my QR railmotor up and down the siding at this location. Who knows, if this bus install is complete by the weekend, I might have to inject a railmotor or passenger train into the timetable on next Sunday.  I also did a bit of work securing the coil steel cradles to the flat cars they are installed on.  These cradles float about on the wagons a bit.  So it is about time to make them permanent.  I used white glue for this purpose...

Building Track for the New Layout

I got online a couple of Tuesday nights back with some of the Tuesday Nighters and Tyler from Taswegia.  Tyler was showing me detail photos from the QLD QImagery site from the 90’s.  We got online again on the Wednesday evening and a very detailed photo that Tyler provided me, blew we away and caused me to revisit my future exhibition layout track design.  My previous design of my future layout was from published photos and articles on the topic.   I had wrongfully designed the narrow gauge trackage in my layout siding area to have a large narrow gauge loop.  I guess these diagrams were correct at a point in time and not when I was setting my layout date.  The QImagery shots are more timely and thus more accurate.  A closer look at the photo shows that there was another section of dual gauge trackage in the yard.  I was planning on making the sidings through a large building on the layout - narrow gauge.  They were in fact both standard gauge tracks with one of those being dual gauge.  Out the back of the building, there was a crossover and two dead end tracks not both tracks coming into a single track section as I had planned it.  So I now needed to borrow PK’s dual gauge jigs again and build at least 3 more dual gauge points.  While that will be fun, it complicates the trackwork immensely, but it will also look very interesting.  I went down to the shed on Thursday of the previous week lunch time and went through my collection of previously made dual gauge trackage.  At that time I thought it turned out that two of the three pieces of track have already been made.  I have gone through a number of iterations of trackage on Cassino in a number of areas (well actually around Acacia Ridge Yard, Clapham Yard and Fisherman Islands).  So, these old points get taken out and replaced from time to time as I make changes to the trackwork, etc.  So I joined two of these pieces of track up to some narrow, standard and dual gauge flex track and ran some wagons through the track.  I’m quite happy that the already existing pieces of track all seem to run quite well.  So I only now have to build one set of dual gate points.

But I need to get my paper track layout diagrams out and re-design things to ensure that everything still fits.  I could not be bothered last week to do that.  So it looks like this Wednesday is when I will do this.

On Tuesday evening this week, I picked up the FastTrack Jigs from PK at our fortnightly Tuesday Nighter's in person meeting.  This jig will allow me to build my first point in the sequence from the siding.  I easily built that on Wednesday morning. This point was not actually a point.  It could have been built just as a splitter piece of track with the narrow gauge going straight and standard gauge coming in from the right.  However, the shared rail is on the right.  I did not need a moving point blade, as I could have just guided the wheels on the standard gauge around that angle.  But I put the moving point rail in this version of the track.  That might change in the future.  In the afternoon, I went down to the shed to put this new piece of track next to the point that goes next to it.  Then I went DOH!  The piece that I had reserved for this location, was in fact only a splitter track, and not a left hand narrow gauge track with dual gauge and a common right hand rail.  Bugger.  I had two of these pieces of track.  So I could have half demolished this piece of track and add in the narrow gauge point component, but I’m thinking that it will be far easier just building the new piece of track.  Luckily, this piece of track that I now have to make, is the other piece of track in the current Jig that I borrowed off PK on Tuesday night.  Sometimes you can get lucky.

The first point I built on Wednesday this week was the one on the left above.  But when it came time to check it with the one I already had previously built, (the one on the right above) my original one was just a splitter, instead of a point.  So I needed to make the one on the right.

This was an existing point that will go on the layout and form a standard gauge crossover outside a shed (which will be on the left of the point) to enable a run around movement on the standard gauge locos.

So this new point was built on Wednesday afternoon and finished off on Thursday morning.  While not perfect, I can successfully run narrow gauge and standard gauge wagons through the trackage.  I have also joined everything up in a test arrangement and can run trains the combination of all their pieces of track now.  PK may get his jig back next Saturday.  But it depends on how many photos he published of me over the coming week.

On Saturday I participated in a planning day for our NMRA Division to help identify some of the things we need to accomplish over the next 12 months.

Ops Session Follow-up, Another Ops Session and Helping Poor Marty

On Monday I was cleaning all the point blades on entry to Acacia Ridge Yard from the south with a cotton bud dipped in Metho.  I then tested all the points with the front four all working, but the 4 rear points were not.  On Tuesday when I started tracing the wires to find their DS64 point controller, I had summised that the whole DS64 had lost power.  When I found it, sure enough, a wire had been pulled out of the DCC input to the DS64.  So that wire was restored and the DS64 checked and all four rear points were confirmed as working again.  In my testing, I noticed that I had no power to Acacia Ridge Track 4.  So that was put onto the list to be fixed later.

Feedback from the Ops Session last weekend from my North Coast Control Dispatcher, was my phone system needed a piezo buzzer to attract the attention of the North Coast Control when Grafton or Acacia Ridge is calling.  So I found that I had one sitting in my Arduino Starter kit, so I tested it on Tuesday.  It was installed into the phone circuit and eventually I got it working well.  I had to change the value of a resistor within my phone system, so I could provide at least 3V DC to the Peizo buzzer to make it work.  I went to my local Jaycar to pick up another Peizo buzzer on Tuesday arvo, but they did not have any – the shelves were bare.  They advised that the next closest Jaycar had one.  On Wednesday morning I went there and picked it up and tried to install it in the arvo.  This version of the Peizo forces you to use the third terminal on it.  It has some other electronics on the board and is different to the first one I used.  But I just wired the V and S pins to my positive power supply and the Base pin to the negative/ground terminal.  It only took about 15 minutes and I had the call switch working from North Coast Control to Grafton Yard and Acacia Ridge Yard.

Tuesday arvo I did some testing of the Rocklea Siding area.  I made up a list of things to attack.   I needed to re-solder some cold solder joins and also cleaned the point blades.  I got around to this on Thursday afternoon.  I had a set of points that was not supplying power properly through the point blades, so I attached a jumper between the rails of the point.  That solved the problem.  But running a loco through the blades caused issues on one route.  I could not work out the cause.  So I packed the rails on one side and that solved the problem.  I found out the reason why I had no power on track 4 of Acacia Ridge Yard.  It was the perennial problem where I installed a set of points and never jumpered around the points.  So I added jumpers and now trains run there as well.  I have ticked off most of my to do list items, except that I had not run trains through the 12mm trackage at Rocklea Sidings.  Maybe this coming week.

Also earlier in the week, I noticed that three above track point motors in Rocklea Siding had their actuator come adrift from the point.  So I added a dab of super glue to the actuator and the side knob of the point.  When I went back on the next day, the points had stuck hard with the super glue.  Within a few minutes on using a knife on the point, I had freed up the actuators.  All three point are now working from the various control panels.

On Friday I went to Jaycar again to pick up some wire so I was laying a track bus for the Sunnybank branch.  I have started laying the bus, but as yet I have not soldered any jumpers to the track.  Plenty of time this coming week for that.

Darren and I car pooled to Anthony’s place on Saturday for Operations Session number 69 on his layout.  It was a blast with 9 people in attendance.

My first train was a hightop T.  It ran well and I enjoyed the train.

I love the detail of the diesel fuel tanks

I ran this steamer running this passenger as one of my 6 trains during the session.

A blunder by the west end not setting the points correctly, and the Fast Freight came almost to a catastrophe, instead of going through road 2. 

This is a great scene where the grain is being loaded into grain wagons via the Aagur.

On Sunday Darren and I, but this time joined by Glen, car pooled down to the Gold Coast to help Marty work on his layout.  Again we had a ball.  Marty put on some snags on bread with onions for lunch.  Although I'm not sure how much work Marty did.  He spent most of the morning looking for his cutoff blade knife.  We joked about Harper having it.  Sure enough she did.

Harper with the missing tool.

Marty was at it again, splitting the points with his VR coach on some of the newly laid trackage.  Glen was looking on.

Darren advising Marty what he needs to do over the next few weeks, so we can continue work on his Plywood Central layout.

Ops Session Update

On Monday I was going through my list of tests for the layout prior to the Ops Session.  After adding a power jumper in Grafton Yard between two tracks, I tested two locos which ran well on the test track, but had some issues on the layout.  I am thinking that I need a snubber added to my return loops at Grafton Yard to clean up the signal and this might help these two locos on the layout.  I did some checking on three trains to ensure that their wagons were in the correct order so the operators had a smooth run on the weekend.  They basically were all OK.  However, I could not find the timetable cards for one of the trains, No. 11 and its return No. 12.  The North Coast Control list had those timetable cards in it, but the main layout timetable card box was missing both these trains.  I remember that this train may not have run in the last iteration of the timetable.  The shunt lists for both trains was also missing from the shunt list box on the layout fascia, but again a copy was in the North Coast Control Box.  Maybe the cards were missing at the last session.  So it appears that I must have removed the cards in the distant past to do something, and I did not return the cards back to their rightful place.  Whoops!  So I printed a new copy.  I also did a small run of NL1 (the Brisbane Limited) out of Grafton Yard and I found out that the express goods wagon and the railmotor wagon were at the wrong end of the train.  That was my fault, as I can remember that I supervised the return of this train in the past session, I must have told the driver to do something wrong.  So I shunted these two wagons back to the front of the train, and parked that train back up in Grafton Yard. 

So I printed up the two missing Timetable cards, and the two missing shunt lists.  I inserted them into the correct position in the timetable sequence and noticed that another card seemed to be missing.  As I was going back upstairs and sitting down in the office to print the missing timetable card, I noticed buried under my multimeter, some timetable cards.  Wouldn’t you know it.  Cards for No. 11 and 12 were found along with the shunt lists.  Underneath them were 4 more timetable cards.  One was the missing one I was about to print.  So an audit was undertaken so see if there are anymore missing. All four of these cards were missing from the shed.  I found another 6 cards on my desk.  But these existed in the shed, as I reprinted new cards for the last session.

On Tuesday about 9 of us met at Cliff’s place for our fortnightly gathering.  It was another good night of great discussion.

On Wednesday after the boss left, I got my track plans out along with paper and track and continued on the design process.  I had read during the week in the AMRM magazine that a NSW Railway Club had 900mm wide modules and I think 2400mm long.  So I took a step back to see if that was possible on my potential layout.

I went down to the shed and tested the headsets and the phone system on Friday morning.  Headsets were all OK, but the phone between the main layout yards and North Coast Control did not work at the Grafton Yard/Acacia Ridge Yard end.  I pulled the control box apart and found a couple of broken solder joints.  So these were fixed and all was good again.  I then added some lettering to the control boxes and the phones, advising how to use them.  I then decided to give my Signal Panel a test before I released it for the Saturday crew and I found out that a few panel switches were not working.  I traced it back to two wires that had come loose from opening and closing the panel.  So they were also fixed.  I then noticed that two signals on the Branch B1 and B3 were playing up.  It took me a while but I dabbled with the Arduino code and got everything working again.  It has me perplexed, as I thought that I had tested the Branch logic and had everything working properly.  Anyway, it is all good now.

When Saturday dawned, I took the signal panel outside into the pergola for the guys to view later in the arvo, and with all the ambient infrared light from the sun, every IR detector lit up.  That was a real bummer.  So it could not be used.  Anyway at a few minutes before the appointed kick off time of the Operations Session, I turned on track power and I had a short on Power District 4.  That means I had an issue somewhere between Cougal Spiral and the far end of Acacia Ridge Yard.  Acacia Ridge Yard includes the auto reversing section of 4 tracks for trains that terminate there and return south to Grafton Yard.  I was stumped.  I could hear the auto reverser in that section chattering away, but it did not click.  I could not find a loco sitting over a set of points – which is the usual cause of a short.  It took me about 30 minutes, but the steel train that sits on one of the reversing tracks had a wheel of its last wagon sitting directly over the joint that is the boundary of the reversing section.  It bridged the isolated section with the wheel across both sections.  I moved the wagon 1cm and the short was removed.  What a waste of 30 minutes!  I had moved that train only on Monday when I tested each loco.  I guess I did that and then shut the layout down.

Photo by Darren Lee.  This is me trying to work out where the short was.  I was pulling out what hair I have left.

Anyway the Ops Session brought back some memories.  I was going to increase the output voltage from my NCE 5 Amp DCC system after the previous Ops Session, but I never got around to it.  Trains run very slowly in the Grafton Yard district.  It had the lowest track voltage output of any of the power districts.  During the session 8047 and 4848 on the steel train ended up being a total failure.  It turned up that 4848 while originally running, was eventually failed for being dragged around by 8047.  Then 8047 developed a straight short within power district 4, but it took us a minute to work out that this loco was causing the short.  So we removed those two locos and replaced them with a 44 class and that train got going again.  Apart from that we had a few trains separate, but once we got started most things worked.  Loco 44236 had working lights and sound but could not or would not move in Grafton Yard.  So we replaced that loco as its train prepared to get under way, i.e. the operator talking to Control and awaiting line clear to take the staff for the section Grafton Yard to Rappville Loop.  I took 44236 to the programming track, ran it on DC and it sprung into life.  I have no idea what caused it.  So we quickly swapped 44236 back onto the train, as the train was still within Grafton Yard just about to leave.  We had problems with the tracks into Acacia Ridge Yard not consistently providing power to the frogs of the points.  I will clean all the points this week.  Anyway we ran 16 trains with our reduced crew complement.  The main reason for today’s session was to give Darren 2 hours as Dispatcher on the layout, to complete his 10 hour requirement to help finalise his Dispatcher AP.  We ran for 2 and a half hours.  It would have been 3 if not for the initial short.  Also with most of the guys having fun in Bundaberg at their train show, those left back in Brisbane wanted to have fun as well.  So we scheduled this rival session.

The Rail Train traversing Cougal Spiral heading towards Kyogle

Jeff and his son Cooper were a 2 person crew today.  Cooper was talking to North Coast Control for permission and advising where they were.  They are running the Oil Train with only the gas tanker to be placed into the unloading track.

Two first timers in this shot.  Dean and Kevin handled the situation admirably.

Darren Lee took this selfie of himself at North Coast Control.

Darren Lee captures the crew after the session finished.

Today I went down to the shed and bit the bullet and wound the power output from the NCE 5 Amp dcc system to 16V.  Because I provide two levels of current measuring on the layout , the actual voltage at the rail is much less.  The first stage is the complete layout current draw and the second is current draw by Power District.  These two processes reduce the layout power.  I’ am now getting between 14 and 14.5V to the track in each power district.  Now that this change has occurred, I went to the point motor that was controlling the standard gauge point at Dutton Park that directs trains to either South Brisbane Interstate, or Fisherman Islands Yard.  This point was only operating in one direction, so had to be manually reset back the other way by a signal crew after a train goes to Fisherman Islands.  It had been on my ‘To Do’ list for many months to adjust this point.  I was planning on increasing the capacitance on one output of the NCE point motor controller, but never got around to it.  Alternatively I could adjust the alignment of the point motor to the point.  However, after testing today after increasing the layout track voltage, that point now works.  I give up!

While on my Mr Fix-It run today, I re-soldered a wire in the Glenapp to The Risk staff machine power supply as this went out late in the session.  I noticed while shunting some trains in Grafton Yard that a KD spring had caused a Steel Slab Tilt wagon to uncouple from its brother.  I added the KD spring and that was now working.  I looked at 4848 which had stopped running.  I opened it up and the wire had come off the Powerline 48’s motor.  That was quickly fixed and 4848 was working again.  8047 was another issue.  I put it on the track and got a direct short.  I took off the shell.  Nothing obvious.  I put it on my DC test track and it sprang into life.  It then ran on DCC again.  I put it back on the layout and it was running.  I give up Again!  So I moved these back onto the steel train that was sitting on Grafton Yard.  I checked the timetable card box and worked out that two timetable cards were in the wrong timetable sequence order.  I had their sequence numbers wrong.  So I fixed them up in the EXCEL Spreadsheet that is my timetable.  So I am now ready for the next Ops Session.  Maybe I will have the next session on the Sunday of the Sydney RPM weekend for those staying in Brisbane.  Oh to be a disrupter!

Layout Testing on Two Fronts

Early on during the week I cut up some styrene 'I' beam that I use to simulate lengths of rail.  I use this for fence posts made from rail.  I painted a few lengths and also cut up some fence rails from styrene strip.  This is ready for the next working bee on the Div 1 modules.  I also found a sheet of some laser scribed wood planks.  This was stained and is also ready to be taken to the next working bee.

Wednesday this week I again unrolled paper onto the floor in the kitchen/family room and threw down some track to continue the planning of the future exhibition layout.  I am trying to confirm the size of each layout module and the exact location of various items (particularly track) within the module.  This layout is then transcribed onto some small paper templates for each module.  These templates are 10 times smaller than the real modules.  It is pretty easy when you have a floor with 30cm tiles, as it is very easy to draw where everything is located on these small diagrams with a 3cm square grid drawn on them representing the 30cm x 30cm floor tile. 

Bit by bit some modules are shortened in length and width and the module edges are initially adjusted to allow for the position for a set of points that does not get positioned over a module join.  After next week I might have a completed 'version 1' of the complete front of the layout before I implement selective compression.  The layout is too long at the moment.  I am also using Google Maps to help with the location of road over rail bridges, level crossings and creeks, as well as some buildings.

On my way to the Club on Saturday I stopped off and bought some styrene as I had basically run out of 0.060" 'I' beam.  While at the Club on Saturday I took some measurements of the Club trailers that the Club layouts get carted around in.  I will use these to help design my future trailer for carting my future exhibition layout around in.  I think once I finalise the layout size, i will build a 1:10 scale copy of it in styrene and also look at how they will fit into a scale 1:10 trailer.  If only I had the funds allocated and approved to start building it.  I might win the lotto soon.

I spent a couple of hours down the shed after lunch today preparing for the Operations Session on my layout next weekend.  Next weekend is also the date of the Bundaberg Model Railway Exhibition.  A lot of people are heading up there, but quite a few are not.  So I thought I would give those not attending Bundy something to do back in Bris Vegas.  I’m still awaiting a few RSVPs to the session, but we have about 5 days before the Ops Session is run yet, so it is not really an issue.  I went through all the timetable cards and then gave each loco a simple test.  I found two locos that are not working for some reason.  They have been replaced in the timetable and I will spend some time next week pulling them apart and investigating them.  It has me perplexed what causes them to have issues.  I am also going through my loco fleet and updating a Loco card for each powered vehicle on the layout with a decoder in it with what each function does for that loco.  These cards will be located in a card holder on the fascia next to the timetable cards.  These cards will be in numerical order.  Layout operators can pick up a timetable card, and then find a loco card for their loco so they know what functions are available on that loco.  That is the plan.

Planning the New Layout, and Scenic Work on the FreeMo Modules

On Monday I visited a local Hobby Shop and it helped me plan for what track I will need to procure for my future layout.  On Tuesday I got the vacuum out and gave the shed a once over.  I had daddy long legs spiders everywhere, but now they and their cobwebs are now in the garden via the vacuum cleaner.  I had 12 guys come over and when they left the pergola they thanked me for the light show of the moon changing colour throughout the night.  PK was caught putting signs up on the layout.  I'll have to do something about him.  I ran the XPT from Cassino to Grafton and still some swear that it did not run.  A number of attendees where watching it run.  Others purposely ignored it so they could deny the truth.  It is sometimes hard to get good help.  I also had my signal panel out for the group to peruse and when I was demonstrating it, at least one switch did not acknowledge its throwing.  I knew I had a wire off.  This was the switch for signal D2.  So I could not run any shunt movements because of that wire issue, as I could not turn off the Down automatic signalling. 

On Wednesday I open up the signal panel and the wire providing powering to D2, D2Shunt, D1 and SS2 (for shunting out of the narrow gauge siding) had come adrift, so it could not provide feedback to the Arduino and thus these switches could not be set.  So a quick solder and everything was as good as new.  Maybe I should have tested the panel on Tuesday afternoon as I could have quickly soldered that wire back on and had it working 100% for Tuesday night’s show.

Also on Wednesday when the boss was out I took over the kitchen and family room floors and started layout out paper and then track to work on the future layout's track plan.  I am getting there.  Maybe I need a box or two of track to lay down on the floor as I am quite short of lengths of flex track and dual gauge track.

We had a working bee on the NMRA Division 1 FreeMo modules on Saturday and two corner modules received some treatment.  I think they look a lot better than they did before we did the work on them.  We also came up with a plan of attach on these modules to add some more detail at the next such session.  It is amazing how a small amount of effort can bring a module to life.  We built a bridge with supports, added dirts to the painted baseboard, and then added some fencing and then coloured scatters.  A few telegraph poles were also added.    We also blended dirt around some items that were glued down on the module, and were sitting quite proud of the baseboard.  So we added quite a bit of dirt and they now look quite natural in the scene.  We even added some static grass from a static grass machine to one section on a module and that looks good.

Today with all the rain I started working through the list of items that I need to build for the FreeMo modules.  I have built some roadway - stained balsa that will be cut up and glued on a module.  I have put together a small section of fencing, and made a few gates for one property.  But the gates need to be painted yet, as does the fencing.

One of the modules that was being worked on.

Track Plan Develops

On last Sunday evening I realised that I needed to make some logic enhancements for my Dual Gauge operation of my panel switches.  Most of that was done that evening.  The next morning I made the small changes to signal DG4 and it now seems to allow normal operation of the signals as train on the UP Dual Gauge travel past it, instead of that signal just sitting on a red signal aspect and never changing.  I also found and fixed a number of issues with Signal DG4 and its shunt into the sidings aspect.  It now clears after other switches on the panel are reset, the points are changed or a train passes the IR detector for signal DG4.  So I now think that is working well.

I also implemented a small change, that if I select the self-test switch while the panel is in normal operation, it will clear the LCD screen and its memory of what is where in its message queue.  So I don’t have to restart the panel to reset the display when it gets orphaned lines that won’t scroll off the LCD screen  It will be just a quick flick of a switch and everything resets.  So that is working brilliantly.  I am also looking at another special panel based reset process, (basically my own Ctrl-Alt-Del feature) if my Dual Gauge logic gets out of whack somehow.  My Dual Gauge has 4 UP signals, and 4 DOWN signals.  It also tracks if there is an UP train or a DOWN train, or there is nothing on the track.  If I get into a jam, I was thinking that if I set all the Siding Signals to Depart, I would force a reset of all the logic on the Dual Gauge Track.  This is very easy to do, but I may not have to do it, if everything operates as designed.  This will be in my back pocket as a possible solution if things go haywire.

So after a few hours sleeping on it, on Tuesday afternoon I decided to go ahead and implement a special reset of the Dual Gauge signalling as a 'just in case' scenario.  I tested it and all was good.  So as it currently stands the panel is 99% complete and I do not think there are any issues with my currently tested logic.  So that allowed me to move onto my next task, the actual physical track design.

Tuesday night we car pooled down to Sparkles place.  We had about 10 or so people there.  I was able to pick up a roll of paper from Sparkles, which will assist with layout planning of the baseboards.  On Wednesday arvo I tried to do some more layout planning, and it dawned on me that I probably need more then 2.4m, maybe 2.7m or even 3m between my signals on the future layout.  That might mean that the layout could end up being up to 9 to 10m long before I include my returns to the back of the layout.  I think I will need to do a lot more planning with pieces of track thrown on the paper baseboards.

Thursday I got out into the garage and rolled out some paper and a few pieces of track trying to get a better understanding of the layout on the future layout.  I have a feeling that the northern end of the layout will wrap around the side of the display.  That way the first signals will be on the side of the layout and give me a decent distance between the signals.  I think I have made a good effort of the first two modules.  It dawned on me that I still need a huge amount of track to purchase, particularly for the dual gauge.  I have come to the realisation that the standard gauge track will probably be code 83 track.  I will have to purchase everything from scratch.

The second module where the branch comes off on the left.  The first of the sidings on the right.

Shown from the other end

Saturday we went to Paul’s place to continue the teaching of the students in various NMRA disciplines.  The white plastered 30cm x 20cm modules, were painted, had various dirts and sands added with a covering of glue, and then they were covered in some ground foams and scatters.  The track was then added, and then ballast was applied from a plastic honey jar with the twist lid.  This allows the flow of ballast to be regulated.  This was then set in place with diluted aquadhere with a touch of dishwashing detergent from a pipette.  Some attendees then added some split post fencing that we made a few weeks before and then added a telegraph pole or two, again put together at the last session.  QED!  The module was then put aside and after lunch the attendees were then split between the styrene and trees clinics again.   What a great day.  You should have seen some of the little dioramas – they were pretty good.  A great place to take a photo of a model on.

It seems that the most of the attendees on the day were getting a bit over excited about the upcoming NMRA elections for Div 1.

Today I did a bit of a tidy up for this coming Tuesday.  The disturbance in the force is being rectified with the correct Tuesday nights returning into equilibrium with the guys coming to my place.  Next Wednesday I will continue track planning activities for the next module.