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About this blog

When ignorance is not always bliss and improvisation has its cost

Entries in this blog

Starting afresh

I have been silent for some time since: after an exchange of opinions on the Forum way back in February concerning dead spots, in the light of the comments made and of the fact that these comments allowed me to identify the cause of one such dead spot, I came to the conclusion that my layout had very many more potential candidates for producing dead spots. It was originally designed and built for analogue DC operation and had been converted to dcc by adding some droppers, but retaining the power
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Adventure with Kadees

Recently I have had some success. I had commented on the Forum that I had a runaway problem with one locomotive which the recommended solutions did not solve. I had also had a problem with the lights of another locomotive, i.e., the front headlight came on at power-up and did not go out irrespective of the direction in which the locomotive was running. Both had Zimo MX632 chips which I had bought on-line from the U.K. I took the matter up directly with Zimo and, after an exchange of e-mail corre
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Some success at last

Recently I have had some success. I had commented on the Forum that I had a runaway problem with one locomotive which the recommended solutions did not solve. I had also had a problem with the lights of another locomotive, i.e., the front headlight came on at power-up and did not go out irrespective of the direction in which the locomotive was running. Both had Zimo MX632 chips which I had bought on-line from the U.K. I took the matter up directly with Zimo and, after an exchange of e-mail corre
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Some success

Hi all: Have I come too confident? daring? or downright rash? with altering RTR stock? After having rake splitting problems both with U.K. tension lock couplers and my modern HO couplers, I went on the Forum and requested information concerning Kadees. As a result, I decided to go ahead and purchased several envelopes of two different types and a height gauge. As far as the coaches and one of my locomotives were concerned, it was a simple matter of unplugging the old and plugging in the new. Th
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Showing some scenic progress

I have mentioned in previous posts certain advances made in the scenic decoration of my layout and would now show a few photographs. In June I posted some photographs and requested suggestions for filling in the bare spots, but none were forthcoming. So I went ahead on my own initiative. First, there was this bare corner: Which has now become this and to which I may add a few cows. Then there was this space at the other end, thus. Which has now become this after lifting the last track
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Gradually getting there

Good evening all. I have been hesitating about a new post for a whle but after yesterday's events, I think I can add a bit. Tuesday was my wife's birthday and yesterday we had a family gathering (limited with two members being absent abroad and two working) with the grandchildren included. One boy got out all the mobile scenic material, i.e. buses, cars, trucks etc. and we got two trains running at the same time. The purists would have objected: there was a French locomotive hauling a motley ra
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Filling the blanks

I have been doing some card modelling in recent times. I have decided that I must fill in the blank spaces on the layout soon. Like Maggie Smith in that Hotel film who did not buy green bananas because she didn't know whether she was going to live long enough to see them ripen, I have got the same feeling about the layout. So, I purchased several Metcalfe card kits: subway accesses, wooden pavilion, platform benches (two packs) and park benches. I have already assembled all the kits except one
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Sill nowhere near finishing

The 8th anniversary of my layout is coming up any day now and the scenic work is not much nearer to being finished than it was two years ago. I have added a second signal box that the original plan required and I have a phone booth and two pillar boxes to install. Modifications have been under way on the frequently mentioned Wrenn City Class loco. At one time it seemed that it was about ready, the only thing left being to add a coupling to the tender, the original one having been removed. I hav
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Still plodding on

Things seem to be moving forward again in the direction of getting back to the situation prior to the accident. Last Sunday we had a family visit and with the aid of my son-in-law (a Jack-of-all-trades for my wife and me) I managed to get the layout tipped edge on again to be able to work on the underside since, at my age, my body is no longer supple enough to do contortions to work underneath. I reconnected a couple of point motors and then started testing them all. I found that one was not wor
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Still repairing in the aftermath of the earthquake

In DCC Questions I raised a query concerning a possible PCB failure in my Class 108 DMU. As a result of the fall the decoder had developed faults, so I removed it and inserted a blanking plug and tried the vehicle with an analogue controller, with no success. I assumed that the PCB might be damaged and dismantled the power car to the extent of even removing the motor from its support. When tested it worked so a number of further tests as recommended on the Forum led me to suspect that the blanki
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Assessing the "earthquake" damage

In my last post I said that my layout had suffered something comparable to an earthquake. Yesterday I managed to have it lifted off the floor and placed on its trestles and set about assessing the damage. One street lamp damaged, the station platform illumination does not come on, one station building had lost a chimney pot, some of the columns supporting the ramp up to the bridge had broken away from their bases, two under floor point motors had become disengaged from the track and one track jo
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Untitled

I have not written a specific tite because what I have got to say this time is only partly connected with modelling. I have just come back from a fortnight in Portugal and had intended to have a ‘drive’ on my layout to try and approach a finish (those of you approaching my age may remember the G.P.O. drives post-war to install as many telephones as possible, party lines included). While away, I had seen and purchased in Lidl a digital caliper, so I decided to try it out on my problem DMU Class
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Posible movements

I have been quiet for a while because my layout is at a standstill, mainly due to my not having been able to replace the hoisting pulleys I wanted to change way back last November and also due to the fact that it is cold in the garage where the layout is suspended. With a bit of luck, there may be some new movement the weekend of Feb. 28-Mar. 1 and the new pulleys installed. I also have to replace a burnt-out point motor. That will leave a few blank places to be filled with appropriate scenery a
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Christmas Greetings

Nothing new on the modelling front. Just to send my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year to all members and particularly to those who have the patience and good will to respond to my questions on the Forums. I hope to be able to make some positive progress in the New Year.
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Just expressing my feelings

Hi all again! Since I can’t make any positive movement forward on my layout, I feel I must let off steam with this note. I have a list of jobs to be done: 1. Improve the lighting in the garage, not only for better illumination of the layout, but also for all uses of the garage. 2. I have to replace four pulleys of the hoisting system which do not rotate when the baseboard is being lowered or raised. Fortunately the cords used are Kevlar mountaineering cord which seems to resist the friction a
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Same old story

Hi all! Finished remaking all the connections, put my baseboard level again and then found that a different point motor was out of service although it seemed to work. I could hear the movement of the solenoid but the turnout did not move. I thought at first that the actuating lever could have separated from the turnout drawbar, but no. The motor had burnt out but I don't know why, since it was wired up with a capacitor. Anyway, with the system I used for connecting the motors, it will not be to
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Just plodding along

I sometimes wonder if what I post is of interest to anybody but me. Some people are building kits, others are making attractive dioramas, etc. but I am doing nothing of that. When I think I am getting somewhere another hitch occurs. At the beginning of summer, after a couple of weeks of hectic work to install the new operating system for my point motors I found that one of them did not switch, Since prior to doing the final wiring I had tested the motors one by one and they had worked, my conclu
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Some joy at last

Hi all! As mentioned on previous occasions, have a lot of old (30/40 years) Lima H0 rolling stock incompatible with my modern locomotives because of a difference in coupling height. I also have two old Lima H0 locomotives which I had previously unsuccessfully tried to digitize (one was returned to the analogue state and the other is still disassembled). I have read a lot of forum entries on remotoring Lima locos, with the differing opinions and recurrent comments and, in view of the complicatio
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Getting nearer to a workable layout

Hi all! As mentioned in a previous post I replaced my 14 Vac point motor control for 12 Vdc and purchased a new controller to replace the old Piko start kit. This meant that the 14V transformer became available to power the new controller. Since, as can be seen from the enclosed images, the transformer is relatively large and was previously mounted on the baseboard, I decided that I did not want either the transformer or the controller to be permanently attached to the baseboard. So, I installe
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Some positive movement

In a previous installment I mentioned that, among other problems I had a defective turnout. The replacement turnout arrived this week and was duly fitted. Since I had two spare underfloor motors, I decided to replace the surface mounted motor with an underfloor one which this turnout originally had and reserve the surface one as a spare. It was wired up and worked, albeit the wrong way round. However I am not going to bother about this for the time being. Since I had fiddled around with the CVs
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An update

Just an update on my circumstances. I can’t get my point control desk to work properly. When mounted for the first time, after everything appeared to work O.K, I discovered that one turnout wasn’t working. This was due to a faulty contact between the capacitor and the point motor, easily solved by tightening up the screw. Then I discovered that another two motors weren’t working. Here it turned out that the fault was inside the box and there was no alternative than to undo all the connections, o
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Playing trains

Hi all! As stated in my last post, after nearly seven years of messing about with my layout (and messing it up), I have now reached the state where I can seriously think about “playing trains” So I got various models out of their boxes and, after cleaning the track with IPA (which, to my surprise, is sold at chemists here) I started trying them. The result is that my Bachmann DMUs (Class 108 and 156) performed reasonably well although the 156 derailed two or three times at the same turnout in
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Hallelujah

Hi all! I think to-day that I can safely say, after nearly seven years, that work on the underside of my baseboard is finished. There is one detail that I cannot finish for the time being. It is a motor that requires AC and, since I have converted everything else to DC, it will not work. Perhaps when I can purchase a new, more complete controller than my current start set. The turnouts all work and the lights also. Since I had reformed the dropper wiring I tested a locomotive, which also worked
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Last minute snag

Evening all: This morning I had high hopes that to-day would see the finish of work on the underside of the baseboard. But there is still one problem bugging me. I can't get the station lights to work properly. My street lighting works, the yard lights work, but not the station lights. The funny thing is that if I apply the current from what should be the head end of the wiring there is no response, but if I apply current from the tail end, then they do light up. So, the obvious solution is to
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Another one rewiring

Since my last post I have been renovating elements of infrastructure and reorganizing the wiring under the baseboard. As indicated in previous posts I have had problems with my point motor control. The Hornby passing lever switches worked O.K, but were not suitable for the present state of my fingers. The pushbutton switches used in their place were not designed for working with Hornby motors and both LEDs remained alight, whereby there was no indication of point direction. Finally, as I browse
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