AndrueC

Given that I've been working with my IFA to plan for a possible retirement next march (at age 57) it's heartening to know that my £24k is a good target. He reckons I could aim higher if I needed to so perhaps it's time I stopped dithering and just pulled the 'shute cord :) On the other hand my biggest concern is a poor social life. I play golf but that's about all I do. From everything I've read living a solitary existence is not healthy and boredom is a concern especially during the shorter days and poor weather of winter.

What a tangled web we weave :) I took delivery of some signal lights recently so have finally got around to installing one of them. It's not wired up yet but I think it looks quite good. The light comes from The Model Railshop and is a good price I think. What I'm going to do is not prototypical but it'll look nice and will serve a purpose. Basically every turnout will have a signal on both divergent routes. They will indicate which route is live (so in the above image that light would be red if it was powered because the turnout is routing to the left track). So as well as looking nice they will tell the operator which way a turnout is set avoiding the need to wander over and peer at the blades. They also do a ground signal that I think I can mount in a gantry for the Interchange. The Interchange is going to have two gantries with three lights on each - two facing out, one facing back. Whilst on the subject of the Interchange I needed to finish it off because at present I can only run trains on the inner loops and I'd like to do some running on the outer loops: It's a double slip and I reckoned that one controller (two outputs) could control each pair of turnouts. I still think that's possible but there is a gotcha that I decided to avoid. Basically for each diagonal pair the frogs have opposite polarities. The DCC Concepts turnouts only provide a single frog power out but there is a spare SPDT switch provided. So one option would have been to use this to power the opposite frog by feeding it track power with reversed polarity. But I also intend to use the SPDT to power the signal lights and I decided that I was just causing potential confusion. So I chickened out and ordered another controller so that now each turnout is operated separately with the diagonal turnouts responding to the same address. It works but the wiring underneath is not especially tidy: And it's not complete yet. The unconnected purple wires are frog feeders and I don't connect those until it proves necessary :)

I taught my budgie(*) to say 'ploppy bottom'. It saved me the bother. He could also say 'Good morning' although he was prone to say it at night which just proves what a waste of time it was me trying to teach him that. (*)Fun fact: There is no species of animal called 'parrot'. It's a category and comprises nearly 400 species of bird including budgerigars. Budgerigars are the best mimics in the family (and possibly the best in the world). So there.

I used to think I was schizophrenic but now I'm in two minds about it.

At my club we have a layout that is nearly 20 years old. The card models look a bit 'dusty' but otherwise they are fine. We intend exhibiting the layout this year with only a superficial sprucing up.

Not a lot going on over summer but last night I built one of my platform covers. There will eventually be eight of these (four on each platform) with a bridge in the middle. In other news I now have my North Yard (visible through the windows here) fully accessible to the first loop. All turnouts are operating (some have had their frogs powered). So I can run any of the three trains currently parked there (Queen Elizabeth, Miss Behaviour and The Blue Horror).

For my first layout I laid the track then dripped diluted PVA (with some washing up liquid mixed in) down the the centre line and put the track on top and weighted it down until dry. The washing up liquid meant that it seeped under the sleepers. Removing it was easy - just spray a bit of water then glare at it until it lifted itself :) Seriously though: spray water, wait half a minute then just lift it. Eventually when I got round to ballasting I used the classic wet-water, diluted PVA mix. No problems laying it and when I had to lift some track it was just as easy apart from the ballast being messy. After lifting there is a slight residue of PVA (you can see the pattern of the sleepers) but not ever enough to interfere with relaying (and I work in N so fairly tight tolerance) but you can remove it by rubbing with a wet rag before relaying if it bugs you. For my current layout I've used Gaugemaster foam underlay and switched to Copydex to glue the track to the underlay and underlay to the baseboard. That's resulted in a major noise reduction but I have some concerns about lifting the track (which I will be wanting to do at some point). I suspect it will destroy the foam underlay but I think the track will be fine. If laid on the baseboard with Copydex I'd imagine a pallet knife would be needed but don't know.

..and production quality dropped (eg; the loudness wars) to where it becomes fairly moot. A lot of modern pop/rock recordings are compressed more than is required by the CD. It's a crying shame. More recently the trend to listen mostly through earbuds or while driving further reduces the need for quality. I wonder what percentage of 'modern music' being played through a receiver with dedicated stereo speakers? Probably not that much I'd wager.

I think that you and others are confusing transmission media with protocol functionality. Bluetooth is media (as are rails). Both are independent of the protocol they carry. You can transmit DCC packets over BT or over the rails. Or (albeit slowly and requiring very clever decoders) using semaphore flags. You could even use carrier pigeons. Personally I think that DCC over BT has little to offer us. You could achieve the same advantages by having a BT controller that communicates back to a fixed base station. But BT is range limited by design so frankly a better idea would be DCC over wifi with the base station being a WAP (Wireless Access Point). Such systems already exist. What I'd also like to see is a system where you connect the base station to a LAN and the controller using Wifi. That avoids the need for running a second router in your house at least though you'd still need a router for exhibitions. Where BT might have some advantages is for layouts that don't use rail supply (eg; battery powered locos). But that still only seems useful for outdoor layouts where getting power to all areas might be problematic. And even then it isn't an either/or situation. It's just DCC over BT instead of DCC over rail.

Some interesting comments here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/loss-of-pop3-access-for-btconnectcom-email/a9c902fc-a432-420a-ab7c-9f994a5fd3d8 So it sounds like BT had their own front-end servers which they have decided to switch off. You do get slightly better security this way because OWA (the protocol MS would prefer you to use) supports MFA (multi-factor authentication). But as long as your email client is only accessed from a computer that has MFA enabled on user login that doesn't make much difference. Also some email clients support MFA (This article shows how to configure later versions Thunderbird). It's unclear why IMAP or POP3 can't be enabled on the MS server product behind this service (Exchange most certainly supports them and likely always will) but that there is an OWA plugin for Thunderbird if that helps. All in all it sounds like BT have pulled the plug on a service to save money and just thrown you to the kerb with no help. My advice would be for you to buy own domain and switch to a better email provider. It's going to be a nuisance but to be honest @<my company name>.co.uk looks more professional than @btinternet.com and once you have your own domain you can switch hosts as/when you feel like it. If you already have your own domain and use it for email then just switch email providers. There's plenty to choose from. The only thing you'll need to do is archive any messages you want to keep.

Ouch. Interesting that it doesn't mention IMAP.

That seems an unlikely restriction - do you have a link to an article describing the change? It seems more likely that BT would be dropping unencrypted connections and they might also no longer support the older negotiated encryption method but I find it hard to believe that they are dropping either POP3 or IMAP completely. I suppose maybe they might drop POP3 due to its age and lack of modern features. IMAP is typically a better choice than POP3 since it supports instantaneous notification of incoming mail and the ability to access a mailbox from multiple devices without losing synchronisation. Dropping either POP3 or IMAP sounds like a lot of work for them and will only annoy and inconvenience people such as yourself. I find it hard to believe anyone sells an email server suite that doesn't support those two.

I used pluggable choc-blocks: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ID6F7GK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

One of the lines in my maintenance yard diorama is a programming track. It's easy enough to set up. Isolate the line, connecting it directly to the PowerCab then connect the rest of the layout to the main outputs of one of these: https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201656579-Auto-SW-Auto-Switch-for-Power-Cab https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/200551449/Auto-SW_Live_Program_Track.pdf When I put the PowerCab into programming track mode the relay cuts the power to main layout but that line in the yard remains connected.

Oh I don't think you're alone in that. I've always said that the reason I wanted a roundy-roundy was so that I could watch the trains without having to do anything myself. Eventually my layout will be fully computer controlled then I can watch a random/programmed timetable and occasionally insert my own choice. But I definitely get more fun and interest out of the construction side of things. The trains and rails are really just an excuse to create scenery for me :)

I once moaned to my boss at the time about the same thing while trying to unlock the office. He promptly treated me to a fifteen minute lecture on entropy.

I suppose it might be tempting to get careless with a cigarette or kick a wire loose but behind the loco is a fuel station so that might cause more trouble than it's worth :)

The end of the road? A class 33 sits in the maintenance yard after pushing two old wagons in for dismantling. Whether the class 33 avoids the attentions of the scrappers and is allowed to leave is looking uncertain.

Spot the difference :) One thing that's been bugging me recently is the black plastic guard rails on Streamline turnouts. I realise that they shouldn't be bright but they just look wrong as they are. So I bought a silver paint pen and went to work. Before: After: And part of the doorway intersection: When it's dried I might go back and try and add a bit of rust effect but for now it looks like a big improvement to my eyes.

I've always been very impressed by the detail and quality of your layout. It's something I can only aspire to. If I had a criticism (and really it isn't) it's that your ballast looks a little too clean. But in truth I can only hope that perhaps one or two areas of my layout might be as realistic as yours.

The last underlay in the country and an old girl struts her stuff. I'm starting to plan next Winter's jobs and one of them is going to be a major track re-route. I've mentioned before that I'm not happy with the doorway interchange. The main lines are fine but that inner loop is too close to the junction and doesn't leave enough space for scenery. So I'm going to tighten the curve and bring the track further in. I'll also use the opportunity to straighten the track where it crosses from the permanent board to the lift-out section. At some point I do want to make that lift-out section removable (currently it's a duck under) and an experiment has convinced me that foam alone is unlikely to hold the track in place if it's curved. On that subject the top line is going to be tricky. It's mounted on cork, then 50mm of polystyrene and one end of it is slightly curved. I've come up with a plan but it's going to be interesting. The plan is to drive long brad nails through the cork, through the polystyrene and into the baseboard in between the sleepers. I'm hoping that enough of these will keep the track aligned if/when it finally gets cut. In the image below you can see the problem curve and a brad nail along side. And below is an image of a rare artifact. After a great deal of internet searching I finally found a shop that had some grey N gauge Gaugemaster foam underlay in stock. It's more than I need just to relocate that section of track but a couple of sites actually list it as 'discontinued' so it seemed prudent to grab it now. So my apologies to anyone else who wanted it and my heartfelt thanks to Lendons of Cardiff :) The track immediately behind the box is the track I intend to move. That hillock hides two point motors but the orange wall is just a piece of card which is simply not good enough. I've also spent a bit of money and bought an extra coach for Wallarium's Sunday Special. This was the result of another mini-episode. Now that I have the North Yard done and populated I've been working on turnout motors and running stock. I wanted to run the Queen Elizabeth but discovered that one turnout wasn't moving. I eventually traced it to an apparently failed DCC Concepts extension lead. I eventually found that one of the pins was bent and was able to fix that and get the motor moving. As is typical the other motor at the opposite end of the siding moved happily throughout my diagnostics of the primary problem. Then as soon as I had the failing motor fixed that motor decided to play silly sods. I have yet to investigate that one but at least my fix of the extension cable meant that I could finally run the Sunday Special (now with an extra coach due to high demand!). P.S. This video has improved camera work and is hosted on YouTube so there shouldn't be a huge delay before it plays.

I have a Dapol N-Scale DMU that for the most part runs well. It's a trifle 'whiney' but it's new so will hopefully improve on that front. The problem is that it seems to have an aversion to a certain section of my track and I've run out of ideas. It will run at anything above speed level 2 (ie;practically a crawl) all the way around my inner loop. Other locos will crawl round at speed level 1. Other locos can be placed/stopped at the same point and happily restart. But this silly thing will stop at the lowest speed level and if placed there won't move off and by activating the lights it's obvious that it's not getting power. I've run out of ideas. The fact it always has a problem in the same location tells me it has to be the track. But I don't understand how other locos don't also have a problem. I can even crawl a 0-6-0 round there. I've lifted each of the bogeys in turn and thus confirmed that they are each providing power. The two end sections of track have their own droppers. The middle section is relying on soldered fishplates. The track has been scrubbed, treated with IPA and stared at jolly hard(*) but I can't fix the problem. The good news is that the DMU has no need to ever stop there and won't be run at a crawl so it's sort of a non-issue but if I've missed a step in my diagnostic process I'd love to know what it is. (*)Possibly while I mutter rude words under my breath :)

I've finished the motor disguises. The junction still needs a lot of work but that's a project for winter. By way of celebration I've set up a scene. That's shorter trains than I would normally run but my freight wagons are all packed away so three of each is the best I can do at the moment.

It's a tough call. I have two IP motors left on my layout and they seem to be working reliably. But fitting them was a pain in the bum. For sure it was not helped by my having to work under the boards rather than being able to turn them on their sides but as noted earlier it seemed like I was having to position multiple things: The motor, the turnout and the tracks the turnout connected to. You can fit an SS after you've laid the turnout and the track and most of mine have worked first time. But the SS motors are out of proportion for N. If I build another layout I think I might look at using distance rodding rather than relying on the linkages they provide out of the box. That way it becomes easy to hide the motor itself. And yes it would be easier if we could do as the manual says and remove the nipple so that we could pull the turnouts in a straight line. I did try this but ended up damaging the turnout. For my personal layout I'm happy but I don't think I would use SS for an exhibition layout unless I went 'full distant rodding' :)

Making the most of a poor deal. The problem with my previous solution was that I wanted removable scenery in case I had to tweak or replace the turnout motors. Ultimately that meant having three joints (top and sides) in an embankment. Now they could perhaps have been better disguised with bushes but it was still a poor solution and the bottom where the turnout rod emerges never looked good. So I decided to try a different approach. Instead of trying to hide the motor, make a feature of it. So I've build a small enclosure around the motor, making it look as though the embankment was cut out to make room for it then shored up with brick walls. I did originally intend to build a metal platform over the top of the motor and place a junction box on it to hide it further but haven't got that far this time. I already have a couple of exposed motors that don't look too bad to my eye. The enclosure is entirely hand built out of card, glue stick and brick artwork from Scalescenes. It might not be prototypical but it looks okay to my eye and adds interest to the embankment. There will be another of these on the right side of the junction eventually.