Well at the last update I was getting ready for the Basingstoke show held on 10th & 11th March.

So I was busy wheel cleaning and checking the wheels back to backs as well as fixing the broken buffers from the Southampton show and other repairs.

I want to thank Western Star of this parish and his team for putting a great show. I think that we were in one of the “Hot†rooms. We had the little windows open to get some air in there.

We had quite a few kind comments about the layout. I do get a great of pleasure being involved in what I think is a good crowd pleaser. I also note that some people have just stood and watched the trains go by for almost the whole sequence. That takes about 50 minutes! We also had a guest operator joining us for the first time, Alan Durham former chair of the Basingstoke club. He took a few shots and placed them on YouTube and the EMGS website.

The first is of

.

I quite like this film for two reasons. The first is the shot into the light. I think that is quite effective and really this is the direction the light should be coming from on the model as the public side would be looking south. Do you think that we should move the lighting to the back of the layout? The second reason why I like this short film is that shows that I have finally managed to build a locomotive and get it to run! Hurrah for me. I will take this as another step closer to ‘making it as a modeller’

 

Alan has also posted some other shots of the layout. I like the sound effects and the photography in a charming sequence called

. I guess from the comments that I have read about Swaynton is what people enjoy most about it...just watching the trains go by.

 

 

The layout and stock ran faultlessly with exception of my M7 that had a test run and jumped off the rails and the ongoing problem with the Alex Jackson couplings. I am not sure what to do about the M7 obviously the new bogie isn’t behaving itself and needs more attention. However I have now made some progress with the AJ’s.

Our thinking was that they may not be uncoupling because the electro magnet was not pulling the coupling down. There can only be two reasons for this;

1. The dropper or armature isn’t working because either
   

• It isn’t magnetic.
  
• It isn’t close enough to the magnet (1mm above track height)
  
• It isn’t at least 1mm in diameter.
  

2. The electro magnet isn’t strong enough.

 

To prove the first point, I had already started a programme of replacing the armatures on my wagons with paperclips and made a little jig that set the height correctly. The only problem is that modern paperclips are slightly thinner than 1mm. As the problem persisted I wondered if the smaller diameter really made the difference.

I decided to add to my test track a small permanent magnet. I found that it would attract the armature but when set up (flush with the top of the sleeper) it still didn’t work.

Figuring that a thicker wire might work I glued a second strip of paperclip to the armature. Sometimes this worked but not always.

Hmmmm, maybe it is the second reason and my little magnet was not man enough for the job either?

So I took off the magnets from the fridge. There are a number of magnets to be found here all at different strengths. I picked a nice big strong magnet and placed some track over it.

And here gentle reader is the eureka moment....I put the wagon onto the track and started to roll it towards the magnet. Then I noticed that the wagon lurched toward the magnet and stayed fixed over it held by the magnetic pull of the steel tyres. So this means that you can have a too strong magnet. But the coupling still refused to move!

So The Eureka moment is that the spring is too strong!

 

So I re-read the instructions and found that I had overlooked the bit were it said that the coupling had to just rest against the stop. I guess that I was so worried about the coupling drooping that I over looked this point. So I have set up on my test track a small magnet (A bead from some magnetic jewellery). It is on a curved track (5 foot radius to check off set problems) and is set at sleeper height. Hopefully I have fixed it. But I can’t be sure until we get the layout set up again and we can try them out in the yard.

 

With all this activity 76010 has taken a back seat. So the chances of getting it ready for Chatham are now nil. I have started to prepare the body and will do a later blog entry showing progress.

 

Progress on other projects has also been halted by a new task that I have volunteered to take on for April and May and for I think that this will be quite exciting. It will come in kit form and there are eight of them! I haven’t been given the kit(s) yet so I am not sure what I taking on.

The first time I was given a “kit†for Swaynton, it turned out to be a set of plans for the station buildings. The last “kit†I got was the basis of the signal box. That one arrived in the post with some drawings and a couple of distant photos. There were also some nice window etches and the start of the base. There was also a note attached saying that the base was wrong!

 

So what are they? Well have a look at the videos and have a guess at what is missing. Oh and keep watching the blogs.

Ah well, it will be an adventure.

 

Got to go, my train’s about to leave.