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Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00


St Enodoc
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I received an email from Kernow overnight to say that my red Bachmann  45 ton crane is on its way. Assuming that the travelling gear has been disconnected, it should be here early in the New Year.

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3 hours ago, chesterfield said:

has the crane been built into the new sequence-breakdown train or major derailment?

Ha ha, as you well know there are no major derailments on the MCL, so it will sit in a siding, awaiting the call that never comes...

 

See you soon.

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Well, as predicted the noble Earl reappeared this morning. He has already been reeducated to respond to 5058 Earl of Clancarty, although his name and number plates haven't been changed yet.

 

Reprogamming was "interesting" as DecoderPro3 didn't recognise the Hornby TTS decoder. After one false start I chose the Sapphire R8245 version, which allowed me to change the long address. I think I need to update my decoder definitions but that will mean loading JMRI and Sprog II onto the Windows 10 computer, which will in turn mean new drivers and all sorts of fun. If the Earl works well enough on the layout I'll leave all that for another time.

 

Separately, Santa brought me the Haynes Workshop Manual for the HST - I'll enjoy reading that as a reminder of my Craigentinny days.

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9 minutes ago, sandwich station said:

 

I thought the HST's were a bit later than the years you are modelling. ;)

Of course! However, one fine day in the future an East Coast 2+8 TRUB set might appear mysteriously west of the Tamar...

 

All the best to you and yours.

Edited by St Enodoc
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3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Well, as predicted the noble Earl reappeared this morning. He has already been reeducated to respond to 5058 Earl of Clancarty, although his name and number plates haven't been changed yet.

 

Reprogamming was "interesting" as DecoderPro3 didn't recognise the Hornby TTS decoder. After one false start I chose the Sapphire R8245 version, which allowed me to change the long address. I think I need to update my decoder definitions but that will mean loading JMRI and Sprog II onto the Windows 10 computer, which will in turn mean new drivers and all sorts of fun. If the Earl works well enough on the layout I'll leave all that for another time.

 

Separately, Santa brought me the Haynes Workshop Manual for the HST - I'll enjoy reading that as a reminder of my Craigentinny days.

All sounds very complicated for a toy train at Christmas. I hope you had a good day.

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42 minutes ago, Barry O said:

And will the Mk2  push pull set (plus cow) reappear???

H says that V has a great sense of humour bby the way.

 

And get that software loaded.. stop wussing!!

Baz

Oh yes, that's ready to be unboxed too. Won't need the Evo-Stik traction tyres on a level layout.

 

Software - yes I know. I need to find the right drivers and then JFDI.

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On 23/12/2019 at 20:32, St Enodoc said:

I received an email from Kernow overnight to say that my red Bachmann  45 ton crane is on its way. Assuming that the travelling gear has been disconnected, it should be here early in the New Year.

 

My black (early crest) one arrived from Sheffield yesterday... a lovely detailed model but it requires very delicate handling!  I can see a lot of them just sitting in a siding looking pretty, rather than regularly running round a layout.

 

Maybe you could introduce ‘random events’ into your sequence that might see it make an appearance occasionally?

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2 minutes ago, Chamby said:

 

My black (early crest) one arrived from Sheffield yesterday... a lovely detailed model but it requires very delicate handling!  I can see a lot of them just sitting in a siding looking pretty, rather than regularly running round a layout.

 

Maybe you could introduce ‘random events’ into your sequence that might see it make an appearance occasionally?

Phil, I think it's going to sit in a siding, as you suggest. When I was at Brighton Depot in the 1980s we had one of these so I couldn't resist buying a Bachmann one - however, the SR one is in black from an earlier period and the red one is a GWR one with a number of differences. In the end, I decided to go for the red GWR one rather than repaint the Southern one.

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4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I think I need to update my decoder definitions but that will mean loading JMRI and Sprog II onto the Windows 10 computer, which will in turn mean new drivers and all sorts of fun. If the Earl works well enough on the layout I'll leave all that for another time.

I think that you can download new decider definitions without new JMRI (I think I did that earlier this year). However, I have JMRI and Sprog on Win 10 and it wasn’t difficult. 

Happy Christmas (what’s left of it),

Paul.

P.S. Clive’s comment on the issue was so wonderfully restrained!

:-)

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7 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

I think that you can download new decider definitions without new JMRI (I think I did that earlier this year). However, I have JMRI and Sprog on Win 10 and it wasn’t difficult. 

Happy Christmas (what’s left of it),

Paul.

P.S. Clive’s comment on the issue was so wonderfully restrained!

:-)

Thanks Paul and the same to you. The problem, I think, is because the computer on which I run Sprog II and JMRI is no longer internet-connected, as it runs Windows XP which is no longer supported by MS or Norton, among others. All my online work is done on the Win 10 computer I bought a year ago. I plan to ask Andrew Crosland whether there is an easy way for non-IT people like me to move over to Win 10 but haven't got round to doing so yet. In the meantime, as long as the new loco works I'll be happy.

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4 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Just download the latest JMRI and it picks up everything else  (remember to save a copy of your current JMRI loco list first)

Baz

Thanks Baz. I think I understand that for JMRI and I should be able to copy my roster over from the other computer. It's the Sprog stuff that I'm a bit less sure about (it's a pretty ancient Sprog with only slightly less ancient firmware). I've dropped a note to Andrew C anyway so we'll see what he says.

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23 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Thanks Baz. I think I understand that for JMRI and I should be able to copy my roster over from the other computer. It's the Sprog stuff that I'm a bit less sure about (it's a pretty ancient Sprog with only slightly less ancient firmware). I've dropped a note to Andrew C anyway so we'll see what he says.

I've downloaded JMRI so that's the easy bit done (haven't copied the roster across yet though). I suppose I could connect up the Sprog and just see what happens. Any reason why this might be a bad idea?

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10 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I've downloaded JMRI so that's the easy bit done (haven't copied the roster across yet though). I suppose I could connect up the Sprog and just see what happens. Any reason why this might be a bad idea?

 

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

Not a lot

I connected the Sprog and tried to follow the instructions on "Installing Sprog Drivers on Windows 8/8.1/10" on the Sprog website. I got as far as section 4 and downloaded the drivers but when I opened the Settings menu it looked nothing like that in the installation guide and I can't find any way of progressing further to update the drivers and get the computer to recognise the Sprog.

 

One piece of promising news though is that the latest version of JMRI that I installed last night includes the definition for the Hornby TTS Castle.

 

Enough time wasted for now - I'll await Andrew's response before I try anything else.

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6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

 

I connected the Sprog and tried to follow the instructions on "Installing Sprog Drivers on Windows 8/8.1/10" on the Sprog website. I got as far as section 4 and downloaded the drivers but when I opened the Settings menu it looked nothing like that in the installation guide and I can't find any way of progressing further to update the drivers and get the computer to recognise the Sprog.

 

One piece of promising news though is that the latest version of JMRI that I installed last night includes the definition for the Hornby TTS Castle.

 

Enough time wasted for now - I'll await Andrew's response before I try anything else.

I actually did waste a little more time. I found a screen that looked very similar to that in the instructions by going through Control Panel to Device Manager but the Sprog didn't show up in the list of Ports and there was nothing listed for Other Devices.

 

That's definitely it for now.

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I spent quite a lot of time in the railway room today, mostly attaching the set numbers to the bulk of the stock on the layout while listening to the first day of the Melbourne Boxing Day Test. Those sets that remain to be numbered are either those that are not yet ready to use because some or all of the stock is in the kit pile or those that are confined to the Pentowan branch and so won't come into use for some time yet.

 

Doing this threw up a few flaws in the sequence, as I knew it would. I'll try to iron these out over the next day or so then do some more work on track occupation with the Post-It notes.

 

I'm fairly confident that we will have a viable, albeit not perfect, sequence for the January running session and will be able to work around any oddities that pop up when we actually run the trains.

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A relaxing evening with the two Earls and also Kilgerran Castle. It only took a few minutes to swap the loco chassis over between the two Airfix locos, so 4099 can now go back on to the layout and, when it goes along, the driving wheels might actually go round now. I took the couplings, numberplates and nameplates off the old 5058 ready to fit them to the Hornby version. I discovered that the Hornby nameplates are integral with the middle splasher front, which came away easily once I broke the glue seal. I've trimmed back the Hornby nameplates to leave just enough metal to give a good bond to the replacements - which are so old I can't remember who made them. Probably CGW, which shows how long ago it was.

 

I fitted a rear DG coupling too, so next time (which may or may not be tomorrow) I can put everything back together, add the bits from the Hornby detailing pack, add a crew, add some coal and add some lamps. Since 5058 will only work Class A trains the lamps will be fixed in place permanently. Also, it isn't rostered for any double-headed trains so there is no need for a DG coupling at the front.

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Here's the replacement Earl of Clancarty - new name/number plates and rear coupling, with brake gear, front coupling, lamps, crew and coal added.

 

378204920_20191228001ex-GWRCastle5058EarlofClancarty(new).JPG.c0a8ad62467ef4c78af695716c8fc95c.JPG

 

263990407_20191228002ex-GWRCastle5058EarlofClancarty(new).JPG.be5e763f3a372d67abaefbb4e5df65e0.JPG

Ready for its first duty, hauling the 0530 Paddington - Penzance express passenger.

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