Grayling was right: Electrification sucks...
There's a title I bet you never thought you'd read, but after installing OHLE to the layout today, I've gone right off electrification and am happy to wait for pixie-fart or bionic unicorn dung powered trains to de-carbonise the railway.
Don't get me wrong, once you've worked out how to clip the wires onto the masts and their correct spacing, the Dapol system is pretty good, it's just the fiddle of getting the wires onto the masts, when you are 57, with sausage fingers and reaching over 20" of 9mm ply that meant I only managed five feet before I lost the will to live. Fortunately I'm only stringing knitting over the scenic bits, Wombourne and the Fiddle Yard (that well known Australian blue-grass fiddle band) will be wireless so tomorrow should see me complete the main line, I've then got to do the bay but I need a new batch of masts and wires to complete that, so I should be able to spend the rest of the day gunking up the track with the airbrush, but next time I decide to do proper OHLE, I think I'll just have a quiet word with myself and go model something diseasel.
The Dapol wires look clunkier in the photo than in real life. I'm pretty impressed with them to be honest, I just wish they had persevered with their planned portal frame gantries as plain line masts are of limited use. I still need to install concrete troughing and then fill in the bare wood with ballast.
Pretty sure you wouldn't be allowed to have advertising hoardings that close to 25kV. It's one possible explanation for the fact the adverts all seem stuck in a late 60s time warp, no one has been able to replace them for fear of getting an AC jolt to the behind.
Despite my frustrations I'm pleased I decided to add OHLE to the scenic bits, it's surprising just what a difference it makes even if it is Mk3 catenary which seems to have appeared in Wednesford ten years before it was used north of Weaver Junction. My excuse? IMFR, bite me.
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