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.