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My thanks to Barry O for bringing you to Warley so that we could meet face to face rather than by words and photos or Zooming. Was good to put the railway world to rights with you and The Stationmaster. And good that The Stationmaster Gen2 passed by while I was there as I now have an invite to Great Cockrow Railway to inspect the signalling once they open up next summer. Paul.

Hello all, I’m sad to announce that I’ll be taking a short break from RMWeb. I will be back. In the mean time, I will be happy to respond to friends via PM. There should be updates on this topic too - when I have something to show! Paul.

Just a note to say that, sadly, I’ll have to sign out of this topic. I had been puzzled why there had been plenty of criticism but a deathly silence when requests for specific help had been made. For reasons specific to my (self confessed) weird use of automation, I don’t think I will become an iTrains user and it would not be reasonable to change iTrains just for me. Without being an iTrains user myself and able to test out theories and do experiments with it I won’t be competent in its capabilities. I don’t feel it is my place to advise others on what can and can’t be done (or should and shouldn’t) when I am not a competent user. Apologies for stringing you along and giving the impression that I would be able to help. Paul.

Knowing how thin the wire is on a 12” machine, just looking at a 1:76 wire should break it! Paul.

The hotspot of Signalling Awards - you were opposite Newhaven Harbour who got the Norman Cadge award from SRS. Both worthy recipients. Paul.

I suspected that, like me, you would have no fear of death itself. It’s just the wretched process of dying and the impact on those left behind that causes the pain. I look forward to joining you at some unspecified time in the future. Paul. P.S. I like your new signature line.

DAY OUT I happened to notice an unusual train on the Wirral lines today (this was later) so rushed out to the station. (2Z04, not the Merseyrail unit waiting to set off back from Ellesmere Port.) Not fast enough, I was on the bridge so saw it but no photos. After lunch, I took a trip to Crewe A reminder of old times (1993) in an LMS (BR?) saloon. And on the front much more like it. Typical saloon power for a West Highland trip back then. Timings weren’t quite right as the Chester and both Liverpool trains had departed shortly before Caroline’s arrival. Head over to platform 12 for a 40 min wait and look what wanted a drink en route from Southall to Carnforth. Fire hydrants aren’t as quick as a 6” pipe with a good head on it so it sat there for best part of 30 mins. Paul.

“Sod it paint” (typex) had a similar derivation in reading Signal Works. Paul.

Hopefully you won’t need them. They can be bought separately I think. When I first bought Kadees those springs came in a tiny plastic capsule so you wouldn’t lose them if they fell out. Times change. Paul.

It’s a laptop running Traincontroller Gold. This is just a side project that I did within it ‘cos I can’! Paul.

THE CLEVER STUFF The DCC cut out is now installed on my power box (open construction, but will fit in a 12 litre Really Useful Box for transport). On the back of the vertical ply is the 240V power block - deliberately designed with separate 240 and low voltage sides. Red arrow points to 3 DCC cut outs (note all three green LEDs are on); space for a fourth on the left. Connections at the top are to my interface board (blue arrow) (Alarm input and “Off” output). Ribbon cable to loconet interface (black arrow). Normally these would be hidden by the DCS51 which is why it is flipped over out of the way. On my control screen I have: four power districts, all turned on. Now imagine that there is a fault on the yellow district: the yellow input from the DCO turns off to say that a short has been detected. The input is programmed to turn off the control output above (red). (This is a transitory state so is actually just simulated; and please ignore the dotted square round it - it just shows where the cursor is/was.) The green led on the LH DCO is now off because the DCO has operated (the red LED at the top should also be on but transitory is too difficult to photograph!). When the control output was turned off a loconet message was sent out and it is only during the transmission delay that transitory state exists. Once the off command is received the DCO no longer detects a fault as no current is flowing, but the auto reset on the DCO doesn’t operate because the output is turned off. Off I go and find/fix what I think is causing the fault. Then press the DCO Reset (the ‘button’ next to O, but also operated by pressing ‘O’ on the keyboard). That button is programmed to turn on all the DCO districts. And then we are back to the view at the top. Now press the button again: The red flag is programmed to follow the button, but only if all four districts are on at the time the button is pressed (hence it didn’t come on last time). And when it turns off, it is programmed to turn all four districts off. Press again and all four districts will turn on. If you’re wondering how I turn things off if there is a short that I haven’t fixed: each output can be operated by the cursor, or, as the purpose of turning everything off is just to avoid the alarm sounders going off while the DCC signal decays, I can just put up with the noise. Paul.

Quite understand, but for me Pre-83 would be important ‘cos that’s the bit I used regularly. Although I can’t be sure, I imagine that the 83 changes would just have been recoveries of the connections to 1, 2, 3 (and docks), (and 4, 5, 6?). Poking around on SRS for you, I discovered (for the first time) that Manors station was split between Benton and Newcastle boxes. I hadn’t appreciated that despite travelling through on many occasions. Thank you for prompting it. Paul.

And I can confirm that after my one and only pub crawl (drinking said cider) while I was waiting on Partick station for the train home the signal went: 2 reds 2 yellows 4 yellows 2 greens. x-) Paul.

Early in my career I shared lodgings with other youngsters from Torbay. They regaled me with stories of tourists (they did say which northern english county they were from but I’ll keep that quiet) who thought cider was weak watery stuff . . . until they stood up (briefly!). Paul.

Devon and Summerzet (and Cornwall?) pubs are always good for me and I’ve never drunk a pint of ale/beer/bitter etc in my life. l be a zider drinkerr. Paul.

I’ve previously found his photos of Paddington and Temple Meads very useful (via Geograph). His is an excellent resource. Paul.

Beg to differ! Oils etc attract dirt because they have some stickiness. Graphite works in a different manner I thought. Hence why advice for lubricating locks is avoid liquid lubricant as they attract dirt thus adding to the problem but instead use powdered graphite as it lubricates without attracting dirt. I may be wrong! Paul.

Not heard of that before so I’ll take a look. Have you thought of /tried graphite? I have a 9B graphite stick that I rub on after cleaning that seems to work well. Paul.

Poor you - I’ll be with Newhaven Harbour for part of Sat and they’re D19 I think! See you there. Paul.

That’s cos RRTB doesn’t need any! :-) Paul.

Of course you will have standing out controls. They’re such fun to get working right. Or there’s the Newcastle Central solution: as well as the main route out, there was a shunt route which didn’t have track controls (at least at the start) with a local instruction that said something along the lines that if you had added something to the front of the train such that it was standing beyond the signal and the main route could not be used, then the shunt route was authorised in its place (including passenger trains). No significant risk as Central Station was well provided with signals so it would have been immediately obvious if there was still a train in section ahead. Paul.

FAULT FINDING Or finding out whose fault it is . . . mine (always). Two years ago I built two MERG DCC cut out boards. Successfully. Their method of operation is to keep trying to reset - when coupled with an audible sounder this is annoying as well as potentially damaging for track/system/locos. They have an interface and the plan was always to integrate their control into the layout operation so that they showed up on the control panel and they could be switched on and off manually. And plan B was to have the system detect the operated input and automatically send back a turn off signal then they would be manually reset once the short was sorted. But the interface never worked, despite it being identical to all my others that worked fine. So . . . last Saturday I built the third cut out board and I have been using it to check the interface slowly bit by bit. First fault was the 10 way ribbon cable - one IDC connector was on backwards so ground was +5V and all the data lines were crossed. Second was that the interface board (a special) was wired slightly differently to all my others but the i/o programming had not taken that into account. The interface was never going to work! But it does now. Onto the clever bits now. Paul.

Photos of my copies PMd. They should have most of the info you need. Paul.

Thank you for that information . . . I think! Thats what got my Dad, so medics have been keen to make sure it’s not genetic with me. Two examinations thus far 10ish years ago so you have my sympathies for the preparations. Paul.

Apologies, I wasn’t terribly clear! I was meaning if you describe the position of the signal I’ll try and read the number. So if you want ‘all’ of them I’ll have a go. Do you need shunt signals as well as main signals? And how far out - just the signals reading into the platforms or further back as well? Paul.