young37215

If I was starting out again then I would do something like you suggest. As it is the eastern side is a much smaller area and it should be straightforward to align using a ruler or similar straight edged tool. Straightforward or not, I am still not happy with the area and will make further efforts to get it to feel right before dressing with scenic materials.

Your picture is the first I have seen of the replacement fuel tanks which have interested me for a while. I would love to hear how you get on with them and how the speaker compares with others you have used.

The 02xx ex Victoria to Ramsgate was 73 hauled in addition to the 0455 ex Faversham. For hard core desperados it was a move to score 2 x 73 which, prior to the Gatwick push pulls, were hard work to get for haulage. I only did the move a couple of times on all line rovers and clearly recall what a rancid environment the rolling stock was. Mind you after several days on the 1980's BR network, a rancid environment was about all that I would have been fit for.

I did'nt get as far as I had hoped with the eastern side at Garelochead because I could not get comfortable with the shape and contour of the area. What I want to achieve is the look of the line being cut into a ledge on the side of the mountain. To do this I need to get the angle of the embankment either side of the line aligned which I found challenging. Hopefully with a nights sleep and a fresh look this morning I can complete the 'groundworks' using some more Sculptamould. Painting and dressing with material is a much easier job once the base is sorted. 37033 is seen in charge of the 1605 Fort William to Mallaig mixed train which included the BDA's carrying steel for Mallaig. One of the BDA's is in Railfreight Red and will do for the single wagon and mobile crane engineers train I want to replicate. Fortunately I had not bought one of the Salmon's before the incorrect length error with the Flangeway offering was identified. Whatever the reasons for the errors, it's a great shame to see the problem and I hope that it does not stop other smaller players bringing models to market.

Hi Ian I think you will find that the Master/Slave setting is irrelevant when you are programming a Servo Controller. You programme the same way in either condition, the existence of a Multi Panel has no effect. Put another way, the Multi Panel drives the Servo Controller, it does'nt programme it. Rob

There are no lights, just 4 butons mimicing those on the Servo Controller. I have never thought about lights which would be a useful addition, when I use the tool I count the number of button presses to determine which number servo I want to adjust. A combination of this and the visual movement of a servo centreing on activation works for me.

I managed to dress the embankment with Woodland Scenics coarse grass materials yesterday. I ended up with an overall darker colour than elsewhere on the layout in an effort to replicate the damp environment typically found beneath trees and bushes. I will add further greenery by way of bushes but the main structural trees are all in place. The area to the west of Station Road was extended with basket liner and the Sculptamolded road was painted. Overall I am pleased with the effect but disappointed to not complete the scenery to the east of the track. For some reason my polystyrene cutter was very weak, cutting took what seemed like an age and it was only late in the day that I realised I had used the wrong power supply cable which had a lower output. With the correct supply in place I made light work of the remaining polystyrene and glued it all in place. Completing this will be todays activity. 37014 heads a test train through the area.

Occassionally I find that I have to re-set the servo limits which means I have to access the relevant servo controller. The link below takes you to a Megapoints piece of kit that has proved to be a godsend, rather than performing like a circus acrobat in attempting to get to the controllers under baseboards and view the movement of the servo at the same time, once connected to the servo controller the extension allows you to adjust whilst viewing servos with ease. https://megapointscontrollers.co.uk/product/servocontrollerremotebuttons/?v=79cba1185463

it’s clear that some books command high prices, simple economic supply and demand I guess. I am glad that I bought most of mine when they were first published and in plentiful supply. I made a little progress yesterday with Garelochead but still have a fair bit left to do. Still with the lockdown it’s not as if there’s a lot else to do so it will be back to this after dog walking duties are performed.

I am currently working on the scenic area to the south of Garelochead. I have managed to get down plaster cloth to create the embankment falling away from the track. If all is dry and looks right I hope to fininsh the 'structural' work today and maybe start on the scenery. 37049 had charge of 7Y33, 0952 Mossend to Mallaig Junction Yard seen passing through Garelochead. It is the area the right of the first picture that is proving challenging to develop.

Thanks to everyone for their input. It looks like I was incorrect and probably a tad wishful in thinking the wagon was a Salmon as the picture is something that I fancy modelling notwithstanding the lack of a model of a 45T Cowans Sheldon crane!. Having looked again I agree with those voting BDA, it is clearly not a Salmon. Ian's picture of a Salmon at Crianlarich works for me and I shall be 'investing' in one of the Flangeway Salmon's in the near future albeit in the earlier olive green which is more likely to have been seen in my early 1980's time window. Ouch, rrp was £30 back when it was published in 2007. Still it is an excellent book full of high quality pictures.

A request this morning to help me determine the colour/livery of what appears to be a Salmon wagon in the picture below. I am looking at adding one of the Flangeway Salmon wagons to WHL4 but can not work out the livery. My wife tells me that it is definitely not olive green which leaves me stumped. Can anyone clarify?

The afternoon Glasgow to Oban and reverse working from Oban passed at Crianlarich in 1985. 37012 arrives with 1Y13, 1220 ex Glasgow and 37017 with 1T28, 1300 ex Oban.

Search Flickr with 'Bridge of Orchy station' there are a few pictures showing the platform face

37 178 with 7D17, 1020 Corpach to Mossend through Crianlarich. 37178 is on the lengthy list of locos I want to weather, I renumbered it from 37284 and drilled out the bolier port to model the steam heat loco that arrived in Scotland from South Wales in 1982.

I have now had a week or so of using CC and am increasingly pleased with it. I have not altered the voltage, it is somewhere in the 17/18V region but the short issue on restarting track power has receded. It has not totally gone away but is 95% better than it was. Interestingly I can now usually restore track power after a short with all locos on the layout. The manual section 14.6 references Current Limit and states that CC auto detects power supply in use; from that I conclude that CC has worked out that my layout can have a high volatge draw at times and is no longer treating the sharp spikes arising on restarting the power as a short. I find the CC manual OK but there are questions I have that it does not answer. I have still to hear from ESU about getting access to their forum, I shall give it another few days before I chase.

Several hours of running yesterday saw me get to the end of the day for the 1985 WTT. Although the number of trains is much the same as 1981, the changes make a real difference to how things work and where trains pass. For example in 1981 the Oban trains all cross at Arrochar, by 1985 its 2 Arrochar and 1 Crianlarich. 2 of the southbound freights lay over in stations to pass 2 trains travelling north. All in all concentrating on a combination of the new controller and the change in operations meant I was knackered last night; at least I slept well. 37081 is seen at Fort William at the head of 1T34 1415 to Glasgow

My understanding is the colours of a TTA denoted the content of the wagon primarily for safety purposes so that people can tell from a distance what is in the wagon should an emergency ocur. In simple terms which is all I want to know, black is for heavy oils and grey for lighter ones. There are plenty of pictures around showing wagons in both colours at Mallaig so no need to think of re-painting. Given the nature of what they were carrying, the wagons were usually filthy and need plenty of weathering. I am sure someone more knowledgeable than me can provide greater detail on this, bottom line for me is we can run wagons of either colour and be prototypically accurate!

I think the simple answer will be wood and wood pulp. There were several major freight flows on the WHL during the early 80's but, to the best of my knowledge, no whisky! Northbound trains primarily carried: wood and wood pulp for the paper mill at Corpach China clay for the paper mill Oil for the storage terminals at Oban, Connell Ferry, Fort William and Mallaig Bulk alumina for the aluminum smelter at Fort William Coal for the distribution centres at Oban, Crianlarich and Fort William Southbound trains comprised: finished paper and paper product from Corpach Ingots from the smelter at Fort William Timber from numerous locations along the line As Ian highlights, most of the freight carried in open wagons was covered in tarpaulin and I suspect that the wood and wood pulp make up the bulk of this. I have a variety of loads to imitate these but am not totally satisfied with them and have a plan to produce some of my own on the to do list. There are a couple of old threads on the subject of WHL freight but none in my view are any more definitive than the list above. Loads were relatively light because of the steeply graded line, from memory a single class 37 was restricted to a maximum trailing load of 400 tons which translated to less than 20 wagons. Even then there are plenty of pictures around showing short freights of only a few wagons. I can manage consists of up to 10 wagons on WHL 4, 37108 is seen below at Garelochead with a typical TTA/OCA/OBA and OTA mix of wagons heading for Oban with the 1330 from Mossend.

Anything that simplifies the Ebay business model and therby reduces their costs quickly finds favour at Ebay and this mechanical 'the computer says' approach fits the bill perfectly. It is important that sellers sell with their eyes wide open to the inherrent Ebay risks.

It's good to have some balance, all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. I like the rocks, a combination of your carving and the latest painting means that you have captured the feel of the location very effectively.

Yesterday Cab Control performed faultlessly for about 2 hours. Whenever I had need to restart track power, CC did so instantly with the need to remove any locos. Strange but pleasing, I wonder if CC has some form of smart capability that enables it to learn about the layout on which it is working? I managed to get to about halfway through the days operations of the 1985 WTT. When run in practice the operations are noticeably different to 1981 which is good news because it creates a different set of challenges to the Operator. I am grateful to Ian and Doug for their counsel. As far as I can tell my issue is not really one of excessive shorts, fortunately these are relatively few and invariably due to operator error with incorrectly set points or derailments. Rather it is one of restarting track power where, in some circumstances, CC refuses to restart because it is sensing a non existent short. The manual is silent on what CC uses to determine a short and I am not yet registered on the ESU User forum to ask the question. I am guessing at voltage drop which happens when a short occurs. It also arises and spikes on start up as the DCC chips all grab power to wake themselves up which is why splitting the layout into separate districts with one section capable of being switched off is a potential solution. By switching off 50% of the layout so that it isolates half of the loco fleet would reduce the power spike. Switch on 5 seconds later and the power spike is effectively halved. Will this work? I have no idea until I try and until I know what CC is using to determine shorts, I am not minded to undertake the work involved. 37022 headed the first southbound train 1T18, 0840 Fort William to Glasgow seen at Crianlarich

One of the most notable changes that arises from the change to Cab Control from Prodigy is the increased sensitivity to shorts. Fortunately I don't get too many and those more knowledgeable than me advise that increased sensitivty to shorts is an advance in the technology and should, in general, be a good thing as it provides greater protection for DCC chips. These cause CC track power to cut out and requires the power to be turned on again to recommence running. Turning power on or off is a simple button press but the systems sensitivity is such that with my 20 locos situated at various points around the layout, CC usually determines that there is still a short and refuses to restart power. I don't have a definitive answer but am guessing that CC determines shorts by voltage drop and the power draw of the initial start up exceeds the short parameters built into CC. Only by physically reducing the number of locos on the layout to 12 or 13 does CC allow track power to be restored. Once restarted there are no issues with having all locos on track again but having to lift several locos off and back on to the track is a pain in the rear. The solution appears to be the division of the layout in to several, independent power sections which are switched on in stages although the issue and solution remain work in progress for now. 37011 follows the sleeper north with 7Y31 0510 Mossend to Mallaig Junction Yard.

Hi Keith Thank you very much for the information, it is much appreciated. Slowly but surely with you and Nigel's guidance I seem to be getting my head around the CC and how it works. It might not look like it but I have read the instruction manual several times and use it as a reference source before posting my problems. Whilst informative, the manual is far from perfect for a person with little electrical knowledge or instinct. I doubt what I am facing is anything new and I hope that when/if ESU get around to giving me access to their forumn, I will be able to find a lot of answers there. regards Rob

Just spotted this reply which answers several of the points in my last post. My comment earlier on using the Lokporogrammer was poorly worded, as you both rightly say, I can (and have) amended CV's using my controller. Thanks for the clarification on the CV's, I will adjust one or two locos in an effort to enable Rail Com. It is turned on in my ICU and works, several of my chips must have the Railcom setting enabled because they registered immediately when the loco was placed on the rail. I was hoping that power districts would not be a potential solution although I suspected they might be. I dont understand them at present and need to read up. Given that my running line totals in excess of 50m, I have read that I should install power districts.