RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted August 14, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 14, 2019 12 minutes ago, pirouets said: They will have to figure out which green pasture he is wandering around wondering where his golf ball is hiding i suspect. From past posts i suspect in summer this takes over when time permits fun to be had. Gordon seems to think that chasing a little white ball around a field is fun! I suppose it takes all sorts. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew P Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 2 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said: Gordon seems to think that chasing a little white ball around a field is fun! I suppose it takes all sorts. In this rain and at night? haha Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Rowsley17D Posted September 30, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 30, 2019 I wonder whether with all this weather about, Gordon is still chasing little white balls about? 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted October 9, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 9, 2019 Evening all......Hope one and all are well and still enjoying modelling. No doubt some will have built several new layouts in the last year. Played my last Senior Open event of the year on Monday and with all the wind and rain about, tinkering around upstairs on ET is suddenly becoming strangely attractive. Even started doodling on bits of paper and the sight of trains on the London to Portsmouth main line adjacent to Liphook Golf Club reminded me of my other passion. If it hadn’t been a competition, I could easily have stopped play and watched trains instead. Give it a few more wet days and I may do some more..... I have nearly finished another shed though...,and I don’t mean a 66.... 25 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted October 12, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 12, 2019 (edited) Morning all... Thanks for your thumbs up and hearts. Glad to know some of you still have staying power after all these years.... My summer sabbatical is now officially over. It's peeing down with rain outside and bless my socks, I've gone down with a chest infection. Nothing too serious as a quick course of anti biotics will sort it out, but with my immune condition, these things can quickly get out of hand. Golf is a strange game for a competitive being. When you are playing well it's wonderful, but a period of playing badly can make you suicidal. Not literally, but thoughts of packing the whole thing in, constantly cross your mind. I wish I could be more laid back about it and just accept it's only a game, but as soon as the next competitive match comes around, the juices flow. I must have a leak somewhere as they seem to flow out very quickly... I cannot lie, I have sat down with sheets of paper and said to myself start again, but a few secret visits to RMweb and my own video of something running last year, won over, so saints alive, I wandered upstairs yesterday to see where it all left off months ago. I had broken down sections to do the ballasting and wiring, so nothing can run until it's all bolted together again. The wiring is 90% complete, but there are a few dead points and one short that can easily be solved by a few droppers and a few minutes with a volt meter to find the errant wire that is causing the problem. Wiring issues are fairly straight forward to deal with. It's the tiny sliver of copper causing a short that can take hours to find. I still haven't really got my head around this latest version of RMweb. It must be an age thing as I used to steam around the forum on a set of well worn routes, many of which I could do in my sleep. I find now I almost feel out of my depth and can't really see beyond View New Content, so I very much doubt I'm getting the best from it. All of that is my problem as I'm sure those on here every day won't understand my trepidation. Anyway back to ET. I know it wasn't that long ago page wise that I stuck up this video, but I thought I'd post it again, for newcomers who may wonder what on earth is this guy rambling on about. It will also serve to kick me up the backside and to keep going and not get side-tracked into drawing outrageous track plans that will never work and can't be physically built..... So that's the end game, but where am I today. Spent an hour or so this morning back on the station approach board ballasting once again to the accompaniment of LBC and callers determined to get their cause to the front of the queue. Whether is was leave, remain or climate change, people seem to have their view and God help you if you disagree. It's almost a religion to them. I'm so glad that type of tribal war doesn't exist in railway modelling.... The bottom 15" or so was completed in an hour this morning. Soul destroying at times, but it has to be done. Hopefully I can get this board ballasted, wired and finished in the next few weeks and then it's move onto the next one. Thanks again for all your warmth and support over the years. I owe it to all of you to finish this darned thing.... Edited October 12, 2019 by gordon s 29 1 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium St Enodoc Posted October 12, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2019 8 minutes ago, gordon s said: I'm so glad that type of tribal war doesn't exist in railway modelling.... Yeah, right... Good to see you back in action. 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Rowsley17D Posted October 12, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2019 Welcome back to modelling, Gordon. I hope it's a l o n g w i n t e r . 1 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium SHerr Posted October 12, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 12, 2019 Your philosophy is the same as mine. Play golf when it’s nice and build the model railway when it’s not! great looking layout as well 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 5BarVT Posted October 12, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2019 3 hours ago, gordon s said: I still haven't really got my head around this latest version of RMweb. It must be an age thing as I used to steam around the forum on a set of well worn routes, many of which I could do in my sleep. I find now I almost feel out of my depth and can't really see beyond View New Content, so I very much doubt I'm getting the best from it. All of that is my problem as I'm sure those on here every day won't understand my trepidation. It does take a bit of getting used to. I was ‘sure’ I didn’t like it and it couldn’t do what I wanted at first. I’ve now got it set up so as I can follow all the topics I used to and showing the same way but it took a bit of getting it right. If you say what you want to do I’ll try to help. PM if you want to do it privately. Paul. 1 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Barry O Posted October 13, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 13, 2019 Nice to see you back Gordon. I find ballasting to be faorly therapeutic when you do it when you feel like doing it. No ballasting required as yet on my new layout but, when the time comes to do it I won't set a specific end date for it. Hope you have sorted out the short Baz 2 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold chris p bacon Posted October 13, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 13, 2019 20 hours ago, gordon s said: I still haven't really got my head around this latest version of RMweb. And yet Templot is a walk in the park for you... 2 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jukebox Posted October 13, 2019 Share Posted October 13, 2019 Wonderful to see you back here Gordon. Take your time, and build up your momentum and enthusiasm. The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. An as I've counselled before, variety remains the spice of life. Looking forward to seeing your progress when it happens. Regards Scott 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold pirouets Posted October 13, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 13, 2019 Quote Golf is a strange game for a competitive being. When you are playing well it's wonderful, but a period of playing badly can make you suicidal. Not literally, but thoughts of packing the whole thing in So true. I haven't picked my clubs up now since August and lost all desire even to the point I have let my membership lapse for now. Listening to LBC as you mention later in the post may drive you to that point as well by the sound of it :-) Quote Give it a few more wet days and I may do some more..... Had you actually checked the weather forecast before writing that post given what has fallen from the skies in the last few days? Look forward to seeing how this evolves over the winter. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted October 13, 2019 Author Share Posted October 13, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, chris p bacon said: And yet Templot is a walk in the park for you... ........ Not quite, Dave. It took numerous times of picking it up and giving up in total frustration until the penny dropped. Nothing wrong with Templot at all, I hasten to add. My problem is that I'm not a manual guy and prefer just to dive in, get started as soon as possible and then deal with each issue as it arises. Once I discovered numerous short cuts that suited my mentality, it allowed me to get so far and then the superb support from Martin, got me further and further. The problem I now find is the same as RMweb. If you're here every day, you discover things and methods that work. Put it down for months and then most of what you learned before has been filed away and often forgotten. I haven't touched Templot in months, so I'm sure it will take me a day or two to get back to the speed I was at before. Thanks for your offer of help, Paul. I may well take you up on it, but before taking up your time, I'll give it a few more days as I'm sure once I get back in the swing of things, it will start to make sense. Went back over your thread, Barry and glad to see you and your support crew are making good progress. It's an interesting project on so many levels. The loft conversion has many parallels to my own with the same windows, access doors and roof elevation all kicking in to complicate things. Add to that the steam/diesel cross over period and gradients and I'm hooked.... It's still raining out there, so it could be along winter, but another hour of ballasting this morning and all is well in the world. This is what kept me busy in the summer, in between playing golf... Still a bit to do, but it's getting there. The main body is housing the koi filtration system and the smaller section will be Jackie's potting shed. Once the roof is finished, I'll measure up to fit windows in all the sections and then order the UPVC frames to match the rest of the house. It took a while, but it is designed to fit the space and worked out less than half the cost of having one built, plus the quality and thickness of the timber is considerably better. Last job will be to trim all the overhanging foliage from the golf course boundary as that really is a mess right now. The water butt is my bit to save the planet. All waste water is now pumped out into the water butt and used to water the garden. It may be some months before it's needed. Glad to be back amongst old friends.... Edited October 13, 2019 by gordon s 12 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ray H Posted October 13, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 13, 2019 I can't see the supports for the garden railway in that last picture Gordon. Glad to see you're back. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted October 13, 2019 Author Share Posted October 13, 2019 47 minutes ago, pirouets said: So true. I haven't picked my clubs up now since August and lost all desire even to the point I have let my membership lapse for now. Listening to LBC as you mention later in the post may drive you to that point as well by the sound of it :-) Had you actually checked the weather forecast before writing that post given what has fallen from the skies in the last few days? Look forward to seeing how this evolves over the winter. I play off 17 and last week just about summed it up. Had a mare Monday and Tuesday and then went down with this blooming' infection. Could have happily called it a day at that point, but had to play in our annual competition against the Ladies. They play off the reds plus three more shots and we're back on the yellows but playing off the Ladies indices. This really is a one off match with bragging rights for the year and God help you if you lose. So there we are giving away 20 shots and thankfully the infection held off for 24 hours. Blow me I par four of the first five holes, drop one on 6 and then par 7,8 and 9. We ran out easy winners and I could go home to bed. I have no idea what had changed and if I knew I wouldn't be playing off 17...... Apologies for the rain. I had no idea it was going to continue for so long. Attractive as it sounds, there is no chance of a garden railway. Hell would freeze over first or a divorce would be on the cards and then I couldn't stay here anyway. Good to hear from you Scott. Sadly there are no winners in a divorce and it always gets messy once the legal teams get involved. You can agree things between you and everything is quite fair and amicable and then a friend suggests that your wife talks to a solicitor and everything then takes three times as long, the costs go through the roof and it becomes hard to stay on friendly terms. In the end you go full circle and back to where you started all those months ago, but it's cost you both thousands of pounds and a year or two out of your life. Been there.... 1 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted October 13, 2019 Share Posted October 13, 2019 5 hours ago, gordon s said: I play off 17 and last week just about summed it up. Had a mare Monday and Tuesday and then went down with this blooming' infection. Could have happily called it a day at that point, but had to play in our annual competition against the Ladies. They play off the reds plus three more shots and we're back on the yellows but playing off the Ladies indices. This really is a one off match with bragging rights for the year and God help you if you lose. So there we are giving away 20 shots and thankfully the infection held off for 24 hours. Blow me I par four of the first five holes, drop one on 6 and then par 7,8 and 9. We ran out easy winners and I could go home to bed. I have no idea what had changed and if I knew I wouldn't be playing off 17...... At my first golf club most board competitions were won by someone in the foxes section (12-18 handicap) simply because their golf was erratic, every now and then they could shoot ten under but most weeks well over their handicap, lower handicap golfers tend to play far more consistently, also most board competitions had a maximum handicap of 18 which clipped the wings of Rabbits(high handicappers). 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted October 16, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 16, 2019 (edited) Evening one and all..... A week or so ago, I had an email from Facebook which surprised me. Firstly, because I rarely if ever use the programme and only signed up to keep family members happy and secondly it came with a memory of the past from 2006..... All of this pre dates the latest versions of RMweb and takes me back a bit. At that time I was consumed by multi layer layouts as I had no idea whatsoever what difficulties they could pose in terms of track cleaning and maintenance. Then you have gradients between the layers with all their challenges for steam locos and finally hidden storage roads where you haven't got a clue which one is full and which one empty. I even dallied with computer control hence the track numbers and sections hoping that would provide all I wanted at that time. Needless to say, the light suddenly dawned on me that this great pile of plywood, track and electronics may just be a step too far and like many others it went in the bin. The track at that time was Tillig as it certainly pre dates 00-SF in the ET world and I have an idea it probably pre dates hand built pointwork. Anyway, here's my version of Spaghetti Junction complete with two aerial reverse loops and umpteen storage sidings, none of which could be seen once the top went on. It even had a through station and blow me, that's Glasgow Highlander that was ceremoniously dumped on the floor yesterday. Have a good laugh..... I'm reminded of Sunday School. "Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing".....Nothing's changed.... Edited October 16, 2019 by gordon s 17 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted October 16, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 16, 2019 Gordon, That would have been some monster of a layout, if you had continued with it and we wouldn't have had the ups and downs of the ET saga on here, not to mention the down time whilst you chase little white balls around the odd field or two. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted November 3, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 3, 2019 (edited) The English Language is such a strange thing as sometimes the smallest of words can have extraordinary consequences. Take the word 'short'. It has numerous meanings, but the one that strikes fear in my head is not being 'caught short', embarrassing as it may be, but the small five letter word that prefixes 'circuit'.... My last update was a few weeks back, October the 12th to be precise. I mentioned the dreaded short and at that time I thought it would be sorted in an hour or so. Since then there have been numerous hours on many days where I have found myself trying everything I possibly knew to locate the problem. When wiring ET, I hook up a short circuit tester to the two bus wires and this is left permanently on whilst soldering droppers, so the slightest crossover in polarities is picked up immediately. Everything checked out and all was fine, so onto the next stage, wiring up the Tortoise motors and live frogs and once again all was OK. I was enjoying test runs and then at the beginning of the month this short suddenly cropped up out of nowhere. Faced with a couple of hundred wires and fourteen turnouts plus numerous insulation breaks, you have to step back and apply some sort of logic plus a massive dose of common sense. I guess that's where I failed as numerous wires were unsoldered and resoldered as one day ran into the next. I found myself laying in bed trying to get my head round what had happened and several hour sessions over numerous days found me close to tearing out what little hair I have left. Eventually I thought it was a faulty Tortoise motor so that was taken apart several times and tested, but still no sign of what was wrong, but I was getting nearer as it appeared to be in the live frog switching. Like a lot of septuagenarians, my eyesight has deteriorated, so the strength of lenses for close up work has got higher and higher. Today after hours and hours of testing and wracking my brains, I found the tiniest sliver of metal in the frog area of one turnout. It had wedged itself between an adjacent rail and the live switched section. I'd even painted it over with track paint, whilst doing some cosmetic work... The red dot shows where it was. The upper rail is part of the live frog and the lower rail continually live. Of course this pic is greatly magnified, but the gap between the sleepers at that point is only a fraction of a mm. This is part of a crossover and with both turnouts set correctly everything is fine, which is why it never came to light when testing, but throwing one turnout in isolation caused the short and of course everything shut down. Before anyone asks why I don't fill the sleeper slots, there are numerous reasons. Life is too short, the pic is magnified and the slot is offset behind the rail and can't be seen when viewing the layout from the inside...... I know it would be better filled, but there is just too much track to do and Jeez, it's hard enough building this blooming' thing on my own anyway... So happy days ahead. A Winter League match tomorrow at Hadden Hill Didcot and then golf starts to tail off for the winter, so the rads will be back on, the mess cleared up and progress will be made. Another week or so without finding the short and it would have been down the tip, so things could have been worse. I'll be back..... Edited November 3, 2019 by gordon s 5 1 27 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Alister_G Posted November 3, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 3, 2019 Given that you'd already painted over it, I'm amazed and pleased that you found it at all, well done. As mentioned above with the golf, it is exactly this sort of frustration which can cause even the most ardent modeller to consider chucking the lot in the bin. I'm glad you resisted the urge, Al. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted November 3, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 3, 2019 1 hour ago, gordon s said: Another week or so without finding the short and it would have been down the tip Hi Gordon, Next time: Disconnect the track supply -- connect a car battery across the tracks -- switch the lights off and wait for your eyes to accustom. After a while you will either see some sparking, glowing, or smell burning. Follow your nose. There may be a little damage to the track, but nothing you can't fix. cheers, Martin. 2 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted November 3, 2019 Author Share Posted November 3, 2019 I had heard that before, but wondered if was genuine........more than that, I doubted my house insurance would cover the fire...... 3 2 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trustytrev Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 Hello Gordon, I think your post will help me and others whom encounter issues such as this because if it can happen to you it can happen to anyone. It also highlights a consequence of using copperclad sleepers that many of us would not even have thought of. Look forward to seeing more of your endeavours. trustytrev. 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Barry O Posted November 3, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 3, 2019 Gordon Glad to hear you have sorted the short. Now gods speed with the rest of the layout build Baz 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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