young37215

37022 heading south with 1T16 and 37178 on 1B10, the delayed 0837 Glasgow to Mallaig, cross at Garelochead. I have just about finished the recently removed freight dock siding which is beginning to show signs of becoming overgrown.

I agree with the sentiment but the click is a useful audible check that the servo has actually changed the direction of the point! I speak from experience when I say the servos (or more probably the servo controller) can change their range of movement without any apparent intervention on the users part. I value the click because it reduces my chances of derailments.

Dirty wheels and track that needs cleaning and running did not spoil yesterdays running. 37017 heads the first Glasgow to Oban service through Garelochead.

Looking good, I particularly like the railtour rake. I spent some time last night trying to overlay the 60's station layout you are modelling on the 80's layout I remember. My Glasgow Stations book indicates that the number of platforms was reduced from 9 to 7 but I stuggled to reconcile the platform layout to any great degree. I then found the Urban Glasgow website which made everything much clearer. I am sure that you are familiar with this, there are numerous photographs from all eras that chart the evolution of the station. https://urbanglasgow.co.uk/queen-street-station-t2757.html

Trains are off and running, first movement today was 37022 on the first Oban to Glasgow service of the day seen arriving at Crianlarich. Of all the 37's on WHL4, 37022 or 37608 as it has become, is the only one I need for haulage. It is an old East Anglian boilered loco which is where I had most of the 37's that migrated to the WHL. I have had over 200 37's for haulage but obviously I have missed out on 022 to date. Whilst it remains intact the chance remains that I will have it somewhere.

I can see how you could use Fort William station as a substitute to a fiddle yard for passenger rolling stock, it would just need a couple of hidden sidings for freight and engineers rolling stock. The rebuilt Fort WIlliam station is simplistic and very functional reflecting its 1970's origins. Size wise, I do'nt think that a station would require any larger an area than a modest fiddle yard. My version covers an area that is 3000mm x 305mm and I can run load 6 coaches into the platform and still run the loco round. I shall watch your developments with interest.

I can't say I wanted to do it but it was necessary to make things work. Hopefully the pain will pay a dividend of reliable operation. 37033 and 37081 await their heavily delayed departures from Fort William, they have been sat there for a week whilst I re-fitted the servos!

Have a look at Everard Junction's youtube video where he cleans his rolling stock using LA Totally Awesome. I used the Totally Awesome to clean off a lot of old weathering on rolling stock and was delighted with the results. Have a look at some of the photos on the bottom half of page 18 of my attached thread and you can see the results.

Much better I am sure! Am looking forward to seeing the platforms emerge, the difference between the 60's layout you are building and the 80's I remember is much greater than I had realised

Finally managed to sort the point automation at Mallaig Junction Yard. All 10 servos have been reinstalled using aluminium brackets from RK Education which provide greater certainty with servo alignment and all now work as required. The bracket used is a new one for me found by a friend, my preferred Alurailtech ones have regretably gone out of production. The new brackets do not have provision for a micro switch but because all of the MJY points are old, insulfrog ones, I do'nt need any polarity switching. The wooden brackets will be used for semaphores once I get around to automating them. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, now I can get back to running trains...... wooden bracket servo installation was unreliable Mallaig Junction Yard back on the workbench New servo brackets Installed servo fits neatly into the RK Education bracket Mallaig Junction Yard restored to the layout, 37011 awaits departure with a Glasgow bound freight Sidings to the eastern end of MJY reinstated.

Andy I recently bought TVP's loco hauled memories dvd which amongst various goodies advertised class 37's on the WHL to Mallaig. Whilst the dvd is pretty good, the actual WHL footage is limited to a 30 second clip of a 37 departing Mallaig in 1988 and another 20 seconds of a 37 on the line between Glenfinnan and Beasdale. However he camera used at Mallaig was sighted to the south of the station, probably on the then new road which results in the oil facility appearing in 75% of the footage as the camera pans around. I think this might be the closest thing you will get to your desired album, although it is the rationalised track layout I will be using the footage as one of my main reference sources when I get to building my version of Mallaig station. I am sorry to hear about the fried chip, whilst I have been lucky so far and managed to avoid the same experience, it is clear that this is something many others have suffered. Do'nt assume that it is just down to you, some locos can cause a short which I have seen first hand when attempting to get a chip fitted in Laud and Butler's Cardiff shop several years ago. They managed to destroy 2 chips before deciding it was a problem with the loco! Rob

For a more definitve answer you should tell us what type of sound chips you have in each loco. e.g Loksound, Zimo, Hornby etc and the chip version. You also need to clarify what controller you have because this may or may not be able to make the changes to the chips that you probably need to make to achieve what you seek. If the chips are all the same pin (and your locos are all relatively new so presumably 21 pin) then changing them around is straightforward plug and play. I am making an educated guess based on you saying sounds are Legoman when I say the chips are probably Loksound V4 or V5. If so then in terms of operational performance the sound files in the chip are largely an irrelevance because acceleration, deceleration, maximum speed etc are determined by the CV's settings in the individual chip which are independent of the sound files. If you want to run as T&T with similar performance from each loco you should match the CV's in both locos which is easiest to achieve with the same version of chip, e.g 2 x V4 or 2 x V5. CV's are easily changed and even more easily messed up by the inexperienced! My preference is to use my friends Lokprogrammer to make setting changes to my Loksound chips although you can use a controller if it has programming capability. If you know what you are doing, changing CV's are straightforward but if you are not familiar then I recommend you seek experienced, professional assistance. Be aware that even with matched CV's, performance will never be identical because you have individual differences in the mechanical elements of each loco. I have the same CV's settings across a fleet of 37's but can see differences in performance and know that I need to avoid certain double headed pairings. In summary what I think you want is achievable but take care when working with chips because any mistakes can quickly become very expensive. A few pounds spent on professional assistance more then covers the potential cost of a replacement sound chip.

Installing an EM2 is well beyond my technical competence, the speaker was installed by Richard Croft of Road and Rails who milled the chassis to create the space for the speaker. I must confess that I have not got around to stripping the loco down to look at the finished job, partly because I am afraid of what I might see and partly becuase I am more interested in listening to the loco! For me there is no question that the EM2 gives fantastic sound in a class 37, the best that I have heard. Where I am more open to discussion is the cost/benefit of other speakers that fit either in the fuel tank or unmodified bodyshell and cost 20% of the fitted EM2 with perhaps 75% of the sound quality. At the end of the day it is a personal choice, I am delighted with my EM2 fitted locos but would not upgrade the entire fleet to EM2's.

I could not resist attempting a video of 37026, it is not perfect but it does give a flavour of the superior quality sound that the EM2 creates. Lets hope that the Accurascale 37 delivers something similar.

37026 in charge of 7B02 heads north at Crianlarich. Loco is the MMRG limited edition with an EM2 fitted with Legoman WHL loaded V4 chip and sounds awesome. More video is required to showcase the racket made!

I don’t clean the track that often, when I do I use a combination of a Peco track rubber and vacuum cleaner to pick up the debris or IPA on a cloth. I have a Dapol track cleaning car which is ok but far from perfect. I think it fair to say that I have yet to find the perfect solution to cleaning. I should increase the frequency of cleaning of both track and wheels but it’s such a painful activity, it invariably gets put off. Judging by the numerous threads on the subject I think most people share my view. Todays pictures show 37081 on the 0700 Mallaig to Glasgow at Fort William. 37033 substituting for the booked steam loco on the green rake. 37081 runs round, 37108 awaits release having brought the ECS for the steam set into the platform A busy screen at Fort William with 37’s 033, 081 and 264. 264 sits at the head of the stock for the 1630 to Mallaig

37051 heads the bulk alumina hoppers north through Garelochead

Hi Ian You wil be pleased to learn that the cables are all neatly secured to the underside of the baseboard. Unfortunately this will be a PITA given I need to revisit and re-locate half of the servos! Following the sleeper yesterday was the annual weedkilling train seen departing Crianlarich for Fort William. Newly acquired coaches from Invicta are in a livery applied following the Fisons trains sale to Schering Agrochemicals in 1986 which is just outside my timescales but close enough for me not to worry. The train needs weathering and I want a better solution for the spray coach than my old Trix inspection salon. To the best of my knowledge, there is no available model of the class 100 Derby Lightweight that was used as the spray coach at this time. 27041 was the weedkilling train loco

I was a frequent user of the Portsmouth Cardiff services around the Bristol area in the late 70's and early 8o's as a desperate youthful haulage basher. I am in no position to challenge the above assertion but the late 70's, early 80's Pompey trains were ETH and the Cardiff Crewe were steam heat. If the Canton Mk1 stock was dual heat then no issues with it being interchangeable but I don't recall the Cardiff Crewe stock being dual heat until the 33's took over in the early 80's. From memory the Cardiff Crewe stock was particularly dilapidated and usually on its last legs which suggests to me that it would likely have been steam heat only.

On Tuesday I motorised 10 points in Mallaig Junction Yard and by the end of the day I had them all working from the control panel. This morning in anticipation of a friends visit I thought I would just test them again prior to returning the baseboard to the layout and was most annoyed to find several of the servos were no longer funtioning properly. The problems are most likeley down to my poor alignment of the servo brackets on the underside of the baseboard. To enable some running, we managed to return the baseboard to its rightful position but even this proved more challenging than I had expected. My baseboard construction has a gap of about 20mm between boards to enable Mallaig Junction Yard to be removable but even with this space, it was a right pain. Finally we managed to connect everything up and start running. As anticipated a couple of months inactivity has resulted in dust on the line and a several spiders having moving in which meant that running was less smooth than normal. We also found that I had over tightened the bogies on several coaches during my refurbishment programme which caused several derailments. All in all running was less satisfying than usual but still fun and it was great to catch up with Doug to put the world to rights. Mallaig Junction Yard baseboard on the workbench. It will be back on here again soon. 37012 had charge of the down sleeper and is seen passing though Crianlarich

Alternatively you could use one of the lower holes on the servo arm which would widen the arc of the throw. I spent yesterday fitting 8 servos all of which have the wire attached to the 4th hole down from the top. I reduce the range of servo movement to just a little more than the minimum required to change the point using a Megapoints Controller.

Guys Dave Fenton's videos on Youtube have been a constant source of reference for me and I find them an invaluable resource when faced with a problem. My experience is that it takes a while but once you find a way that works, you should keep using it. In my case my baseboard is 12mm thick chipboard. With the point in situ I mark the centre point of the tie/stretcher bar hole. The point is then removed and a 2mm hole drilled. The actuating piano wire is threaded through the baseboard from underneath and the bracket is screwed in place and then removed again to allow for a larger 6mm hole to be drilled. The bracket is reattached using the same screw holes which should align the actuating wire in the correct place to pass through the tie bar. There is sufficent flexibility from the 0.6mm piano wire I use as an actuator for less than perfect alignment. Once secured I adjust the rotation of the servo using my Megapoints controller which reduces the angle of movement but still changes the point. I use the 4th hole down on the servo arm for the piano wire which I cut to 90mm lengths. When I am happy that all is well I trim back the piano wire to avoid contact with coupling/loco undersides etc. Bottom line in my opinion for Richard's issue is twofold: 1. you need to adjust/reduce the range of servo motion to stop the piano wire protruding higher than the rail head. 2. You need the to increase the distance between point and servo bracket to the 12 to 15mm range as you describe Good luck! Rob

I have used Screwfix earth blocks as a means of connecting my droppers to the BUS. The BUS wire is bared back, threaded through the block and screwed down to make a connection thus avoiding any break in the BUS wire. Located in the areas where I have several wires to attach, I can get in excess of a dozen droppers from each block which are then soldered to the underside of the track as required. A picture of the underside of a baseboard shows the yellow and orange wires feeding out of two earth blocks. I have over 20 of these on my layout and have not encoutered any problems. https://www.screwfix.com/p/4-way-earth-block/12386?tc=PA7&ds_kid=92700055281954475&ds_rl=1249401&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4o_D26DP6wIVWeN3Ch0KDA6yEAQYASABEgKhMvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

You have time to model as well as keeping 26043 running? I am impressed! I saw 043 in Toddington yard yesterday with her newly repainted ends and thought how good she looked. Its such a shame that there is so little opportunity for her to do any work at present

Looking good. Based on the picture below, you might want to think about weathering the platform faces a little more prior to adding the platform surface. I recommend the Everard Junction inspired approach of splashing on some thinned acrylic paint and sponging it down using a damp sponge.