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Black Country Blues


Indomitable026
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I have just spent the last 2 hours in the workshop (garage and garden). All of the tressels now have the hinges mounted inside the 'A' frame so that the barrel of the hinge does not stick up and get in the way of the beams that support the boards. I have also produced 12 steel straps which will form rigid gauge setters for each tressel to maintain gauge. To date we have used a single central chain which is fine once erected however whilst setting up and manoeuvring they tend to close and risk falling over. The solid strap was introduced for the fiddle boards in time for DEMU at Burton and worked well, this is just a logical extension.

 

 

 

Andy

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Yes, still need to paint the vents(?) above each door droplight blue and renumber at some point; but after the battle I had with the bogies, I'm just gald it's on its wheels.  Changing the buffer heads (these ones borrow from a Bachmann OBA!) makes a big difference to the "face".

 

Yes, that WR Duff will be useful; releases my green Duff for the steel coil working

I think Andy's 47 is green as well...

 

 

Andy

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I think Andy's 47 is green as well...

Bits of it may have been once.

 

More crucially his is a WR allocated machine whereas mine is more local (Bescot) so makes sense to swap them between the oil and the steel workings (although mine would actually probably be more at home on MGRs to Ironbridge power station)

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Bits of it may have been once.

 

More crucially his is a WR allocated machine whereas mine is more local (Bescot) so makes sense to swap them between the oil and the steel workings (although mine would actually probably be more at home on MGRs to Ironbridge power station)

The steel coils are down to four wagons... Two. BBA's and two BAA's, the other two BAA's were sub contracted and won't show.

 

Does that mean that the four would be mixed in with another steel trip working? I know the box on the front has to be air braked, presumably so does anything else in the rake?

 

I am fitting aj's to either end of the BAA and BBA's

 

Andy

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The steel coils are down to four wagons... Two. BBA's and two BAA's, the other two BAA's were sub contracted and won't show.

 

Does that mean that the four would be mixed in with another steel trip working? I know the box on the front has to be air braked, presumably so does anything else in the rake?

 

 

That's a shame, was looking like it would build up to be quite an impressive rake when we saw them on your dining room table last week.  Maybe we'll get there for Warley?

 

We can either run them as a short air braked rake, or mix them in with one of the other trips.  If we mix them with vac braked stock (or unfitted) we'll need a brake van as only one braking system will be operational so the wagons which aren't next to the loco will be as running unfitted.

 

Some of the early BAAs were actually BABs as they had a through vac pipe for this very reason.  BBAs were air only as far as I'm aware.

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Arkwright (played by Ronnie Barker in 'Open All Hours') would have a heck of a job describing these trains you know!

 

"Well son, there's B-B-B-B-B-BAA's and then B-B-B-B-B-BAB's and that one there that's a B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B - oh B-B-B-B***er it, it's gone!"  

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Andy Y - do you have a large box in your garage with all of the loco body retaining screws for every loco which you've ever owned in it?  Just dropped half a 47 on my foot while fitting the couplings!

 

:sarcastichand:

 

They're in a box marked "Geoff".

 

I thought the Bachy 47 was just a push-fit body as I looked underneath and saw a screw at each end but the body just came off, it's a pig to put back on though. ;)

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Geoff has some electrical wizardry to complete

 

 

Andy

 

The latest addition to the electrics is to do with how we operate the two main line signals

 

Originally these were operated by two switches on the control panel, then at Doncaster this year their was a request to operate the signals from either end of the layout, so for DEMU at Burton new switches and cabling were added allowing them to be operated from either end, but not both ends at the same time, being that the switches were in parallel with the switches at the other end.

 

 

Keeping it simple seemed to confuse one operator, so for Expo EM alterations have been done,  more components added and more wires in the control panel, and the remote box also had a rewire

 

The existing switches have been replaced with SPDT centre off with bias (ON) OFF (ON) and these operate twin coil latching relays which allows us to set or reset each signal from either end so hopefully providing it works when all the layout is put together we won't get any confusion

 

A diagram is attached

 

Black Country Blues - main line signals.pdf

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Tonight is my last chance to get any modelling done before the show, so mainly focusing on putting stuff back together and finding things I had lost!

Chassis for 25102 is on the rollers - hasn't had the modifications to the chassis frame yet; waiting for the Klear to dry on the cab sides to give it some numbers.  Andy's 47091 is due on the rollers next, couplings were fitted last night.

 

Didn't get as far with wagons transfers as I had hoped to, but things are at least moving forwards.

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Have a good show chaps, looks like I will be working this weekend afterall. On the plus side it will stop me getting distracted by those small trains you all like playing with.

 

I'm still holding out for a long enough gap in proceedings to escape to the Ricoh show on Sunday but that's looking doubtful to.

Sorry, I wasn't paying full attention when we discussed running the layout with stock form a different era for part of this show; we agreed upon 1987, right?

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Are you expecting snow?

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All good to go. I have expended the route through the garage slightly (it's normally the size of an animal fatback through dense woodland). So that old gringo and me have a chance of loading without twisting our ankles.

 

Have I forgotten anything? We'll find out later.

 

Andy

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