Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, ian said:

Of course, now that you are retired you'll have plenty of time to build that Shackleton...

Hmm...

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

Last man working from our uni group.. 

Some didn't do much work at Uni either (present company excepted).

[BWsTrains]

19 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

what voltage do you run these at, please?

 

These being "what", might I ask.

 

Meanwhile, congrats on your retirement.

 

Colin

[St Enodoc]

27 minutes ago, BWsTrains said:

 

These being "what", might I ask.

 

Meanwhile, congrats on your retirement.

 

Colin

Thanks Colin. Following on from a previous post, the question was about the ex-H&M point motor coils when used as electromagnetic uncouplers. Sorry if that wasn't clear!

[BWsTrains]

Thx,

 

That is a clever use of them, I guess only on temporarily but can there be an issue of axle drag?  I'm guessing not if they ave barely enough field to pull the uncoupling pin.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, BWsTrains said:

Thx,

 

That is a clever use of them, I guess only on temporarily but can there be an issue of axle drag?  I'm guessing not if they ave barely enough field to pull the uncoupling pin.

 

 

Thanks Colin. Yes, they're activated by a biased toggle switch. DG couplings only need a stright up-and-down movement, unlike Kadees, and I've never experienced axle drag before.

 

The reason I'm using these is that making more of my own using enamelled copper wire and sewing machine bobbins has become impracticable as the wire is both expensive and very hard to find in sufficient length now.

[aardvark]

18 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Me too - officially as of today, final day at work last Thursday!

 

I'll add my congratulations to those of others.

 

For me, I retired 8 years ago at the ripe old age of 56, but rebounded 6 months later into casual employment after spending 24/7 with this stranger that I've been married to for 35 years.

 

[Chamby]

19 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

... I plan to do as little as possible until I get bored with it, after which I might well do some voluntary work. We shall see.

 

Tread carefully... the voluntary sector can be even more political than the work environment.  There are great volunteering opportunities out there, but you’ll find plenty of lemons too.

 

Congrats on your retirement, with a hobby like ours, you won’t look back!

 

[1466]

26 minutes ago, Chamby said:

 

Tread carefully... the voluntary sector can be even more political than the work environment.  There are great volunteering opportunities out there, but you’ll find plenty of lemons too.

 

Congrats on your retirement, with a hobby like ours, you won’t look back!

 

A cautionary tale .

A close but sadly  , late friend approached a local PHAB ( physically handicapped horse riding centre . My friend was one of the most intelligent and numerate people I know . He had retired from the post of Company Secretary of an international company . 
And what use of him did they make , you ask ? Hon. Treasurer, Senior Financial Adviser ?

Why no , they set him work shovelling horse manure . He quit after a week .

What a waste !
 

[Clive Mortimore]

2 hours ago, 1466 said:

A cautionary tale .

A close but sadly  , late friend approached a local PHAB ( physically handicapped horse riding centre . My friend was one of the most intelligent and numerate people I know . He had retired from the post of Company Secretary of an international company . 
And what use of him did they make , you ask ? Hon. Treasurer, Senior Financial Adviser ?

Why no , they set him work shovelling horse manure . He quit after a week .

What a waste !
 

Shovelling horse manure, since retiring I have become quite good at it. You should see the veggies Mrs M is growing these days.

Ferne and Lola

 

Cody, photos taken from the railway room.

 

Not only do they provide good compost but they do mean less need of that other hobby us retired people are supposed to take up, mowing the lawn.

[Clive Mortimore]

Yo Sainty, well done in finishing that thing called work.

 

 

[Nick Gough]

Congratulations on joining those of us that are retired.

Funny how there still never seems to be enough time though!

[16Brunel]

Congratulations on receiving your parole.  Does this mean that some... scenery might appear?

 

- Scott

[St Enodoc]

11 minutes ago, 16Brunel said:

Congratulations on receiving your parole.  Does this mean that some... scenery might appear?

 

- Scott

One fine day.

[LNER4479]

On 31/07/2023 at 14:18, St Enodoc said:

Me too - officially as of today, final day at work last Thursday!

Now where was I approx 2pm on Monday? Ah - here ...

 

Highly recommended this being retired lark 🤩

 

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Someone's gone over the top with his Pennine scenery !!!!!!!

 

manna

[Chamby]

19 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Now where was I approx 2pm on Monday? Ah - here ...

 

Highly recommended this being retired lark 🤩

 

Blimey, that’s a lot of snow disappeared since I was last there in mid-summer!

[St Enodoc]

The Wheal Veronica uncoupler is now fixed.

 

I realised that I'd been looking at the problem the wrong way. Originally, there was only one uncoupler, just on the St Enodoc side of the catch point. This location is still on the 670mm radius curve and also just on the vertical transition from the 1 in 50 round the curve to the level track at the works. So, as my dear old dad would have said, everything in our favour was against us. What was happening was that because the couplings on the wagons were at an angle, the latches seemed to be preventing each other from lifting enough to allow the loops to clear the hooks, no matter whether the uncoupler coil was passing 1, 1.5 or 2 amps. I didn't dare go higher with the voltage, so I decided to move the uncoupler to the straight track in the sidings just before the big shed.

 

Ah, you say, but wouldn't that need an extra coil? Yes and no - there was already another coil wired in, providing a dummy load from before I added the LM2596 voltage regulator to the circuit. So, I fitted both coils to the track, still in series, and retaining the single switch until the permanent switch panel gets built. Based on the earlier discussion, I did increase the voltage from the previous 6Vdc to 9Vdc, giving a nominal current of 1.5A.

 

Everything now seems to work and there is still room (just!) for all the uncoupling needed when shunting the sidings.

 

I'll tidy up the old hole in the track and conceal the two new uncoupler armatures next time I'm ballasting.

 

Another little job off The List.

[St Enodoc]

A pack of 1N5404 diodes arrived this morning, so I took the opportunity to finish the Pentowan uncouplers after lunch.

 

A white (+) and white/black (-) wire to a choccy block, which has a freewheel diode attached. Nice and simple.

 

I ended up making 23 in the end, as I think I miscounted before. I missed the extra one at Treloggan Junction, where the lead loco on a double-headed Down train will detach and run forward on to the triangle, leaving the other loco to draw the train into the station.

[St Enodoc]

A busy morning then the Bledisloe Cup on TV (played in daylight in Dunedin but with the roof closed and hence still under floodlights), so time only to change the wheels on 1419 using those from a (relatively) cheap second-hand Hornby model that I acquired fairly recently. It no longer has any grooved driving wheels, with or without traction tyres.

 

A slight head-scratching moment when I came to test it - I tried to launch DecoderPro, only to see a message "Java not detected". Sure enough, Java was missing from the Program Files folder on the PC. I don't remember uninstalling it but there we are. A quick download from cyberspace and all was well again.

 

Bl00dy computers...

[figworthy]

11 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Bl00dy computers...

 

They'll never catch on.

 

Adrian

[Tim Dubya]

1 hour ago, figworthy said:

 

They'll never catch on.

 

Adrian

 

Still waiting for the paperless office.

[The Stationmaster]

 John - Belated congratulations on your elevation to the ranks of unpaid domestic labouurers although it certainly has iyts good points as it comes with things like pensions and bad things like not excaping from the Income Tax club.

 

Voluntary work is indeed tending towards the political and all sorts of weird social conventions in the case of some organisations so I understand.  i got involved with the Leonard Cheshire Trust at one time but once I was given risk assessments to do it started to seem something like what I thought I'd left behind rather than something new and different so I gradually bowed out.   Just goes to show that there can sometimes be a bit too much of making use of skills carried over from  your employed years.

[BWsTrains]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 John - Belated congratulations on your elevation to the ranks of unpaid domestic labouurers although it certainly has iyts good points as it comes with things like pensions and bad things like not excaping from the Income Tax club.

 

Voluntary work is indeed tending towards the political and all sorts of weird social conventions in the case of some organisations so I understand.  i got involved with the Leonard Cheshire Trust at one time but once I was given risk assessments to do it started to seem something like what I thought I'd left behind rather than something new and different so I gradually bowed out.   Just goes to show that there can sometimes be a bit too much of making use of skills carried over from  your employed years.

 

Not true in Oz.

 

Private and State pension earnings and payments mostly are untaxed and there's a generous band of untaxed personal (non-pension) income as well.

 

PS just in case anyone over there is wondering about the merits of warmer climes, I believe that any foreign pension income is added to any personal income but then I'm not a tax advisor either.  😎

Edited August 6, 2023 by BWsTrains

[kingmender]

12 minutes ago, BWsTrains said:

 

Not true in Oz.

 

Private and State pension earnings and payments mostly are untaxed and there's a generous band of untaxed personal (non-pension) income as well.

 

PS just in case anyone over there is wondering about the merits of warmer climes, I believe that any foreign pension income is added to any personal income but then I'm not a tax advisor either.  😎

 I believe this to be the case. However the income tax free limit is $18,200 then 19% tax rate until $45,000, currently 32.5% from there to $120,000, but only 30% from next year all the way to $200,000. Oh what a problem to have!

Pensions (superannuation) here are taxed at input (15%) all returns (earnings) within the pension are tax free, as are payments.