Matthew Cousins' Blog

By the way, the reference to Fracking is about Balcombe (where the protest over drilling is going on) being only a few miles from here

"is going on" and on and on and on ... and on.

Actually, their numbers looked to be dwindling as I passed thiem this morning, although the filmc crews are still there. Actually if all the TV crews went home the protestors would hopefully give up because nobody was paying any attention anymore; what worries more is the proximity of the drilling to the Brighton mainline. But enough of that!

It's good to see trains passing on the bridge... something I hope to pop round and see sometime before summer is out. Glad the p'way was sorted too... good to see that you were able to stop trains to sort this all out because not all railways seem to do this ;-)

"is going on" and on and on and on ... and on.

Actually, their numbers looked to be dwindling as I passed thiem this morning, although the filmc crews are still there. Actually if all the TV crews went home the protestors would hopefully give up because nobody was paying any attention anymore; what worries more is the proximity of the drilling to the Brighton mainline. But enough of that!

It's good to see trains passing on the bridge... something I hope to pop round and see sometime before summer is out. Glad the p'way was sorted too... good to see that you were able to stop trains to sort this all out because not all railways seem to do this ;-)

I tend to agree that the protesters would go home if the media left, they just like being on TV! You will have to make some time for a visit, as the line is just about workable, in fact I set Tracery + Pullmans on 50 and just left it going round without incident, which is progress!

The main problem that I'm left with is that in some places the resin has expanded more that I expected and therefore the track has some fair amount of undulations, which are now difficult to resolve.

Every track fixing method seems to have its drawbacks and whilst this is proving very weatherproof, getting the levels right will take quite a bit of effort. It has also shown the shortcomings with rigid chassis locos - I reckon that all those will have to be rebuilt - 9 locos!! - unless I try and get away with the four coupled locos and re-spring the Chinese and Korean locos with far softer springs.

By the way the N2 and B1 were both built by Mike Russell of DMR models, who did a fantastic job of them and I'm looking forward to receiving my DMR B17 soon.

It is a pity that because of some bad comments from one individual, Mikes B1 is not available for others to build, as it is a lovely loco!

Sorry to hear of your problems Matthew with prolong wet weather followed by a dry spell and high temperatures  it is not too surprising. It is rather late in the day for you but one of my friends Dick Dimmock advised puttung some heaving galvanised wire under the track in concrete subbases. The idea being it the concrete shrinks and cracks the wire tends to hold the pieces in line so the crack can just be filled if the alignment either side shifts it is much harder to fix.

Don

Sorry to hear of your problems Matthew with prolong wet weather followed by a dry spell and high temperatures  it is not too surprising. It is rather late in the day for you but one of my friends Dick Dimmock advised puttung some heaving galvanised wire under the track in concrete subbases. The idea being it the concrete shrinks and cracks the wire tends to hold the pieces in line so the crack can just be filled if the alignment either side shifts it is much harder to fix.

Don

Thanks, Don, in the main I've had very few problems with the sub base and now I've gone for a plastic base under the ballast there should be no rot but there is the odd bit of movement, but not bad after nearly 4 years! My main problem has been the uneven expansion of the resin holding the ballast and it acting adversely if curing in hot weather. Matthew