AndrueC

Can I have a sanity check, please?  I've spent the last week painting track but this morning I fitted a new turnout controller. During the process I noticed that the resistance track to track is not 'infinite' with the DCC power off. I could have sworn it used to be. My breaker isn't tripping with power on though so it would appear that all is good for practical purposes.

My MM is now reporting '1.445...' in continuity mode and in resistance mode appears to be measuring around .5MΩ.

I was about to start worrying but then realised that I have 10 locos on the track along with their (unlit) rolling stock. So am I correct in thinking that I'm just measuring the locos' electronics and/or motors?

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

That's why I keep a corded phone in a cupboard.

 

Looks like when VOIP's forced on me (which currently looks like involving losing either my current phone number or my email address, neither of which appeal, just to add to the fun) I'll just have to make do with no phone at all if the power goes down.

Of course it also depends where you live. I've lived in a small town in South Northamptonshire for 22 years and during that time I think there have been two or three short outages (like ten minutes or so) and one regional outage lasting nearly an hour in August 2019.

Granted if you live in a village or a remote part of the country cuts are probably more frequent and/or longer duration but apparently National Grid is achieving a very high reliability. Mind you whether that can continue to be the case as we rely more and more on renewable generation is an open question.

And because of the thread:

Due to a power outage, the house was very dark so the paramedic asked Kathleen, a 3-yr old girl to hold a flashlight high over her Mommy so he could see while he helped deliver the baby

... Little Connor was born. The paramedic lifted him by his feet and spanked him on his bottom And he began to cry. The paramedic then asked the wide-eyed 3-yr old what she thought about what she had just witnessed. She quickly responded 'He shouldn't have crawled in there in the first place, spank him again!'

1 minute ago, Ian J. said:

Simple answer is for the router to have a small UPS/battery in it to keep it connected to the network...?

Yes, although it's more complexity that those most at risk might have problems with.

Still Ofcom have given this a lot of thought and concluded that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

The problem for communication providers is that the kit needed to keep the old analogue telephone network operating is becoming increasingly hard to source and expensive. BT's national roll-out of fibre is not an attempt to increase profit. It's an attempt to get ahead of increasing costs.

55 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

As usual, the vulnerable and elderly are being sacrificed on the altar of technological "progress".  

When else do you want them to be sacrificed?

😝

So more track painting. Is it worth it?

I've been adjusting my technique. I've now ditched the idea of felt pens because the coverage just isn't good enough. My new technique is a bit more involved but not particularly tedious. Is it worth it? Well you can judge. Here's a picture showing some track - spot the one that hasn't been painted yet:

The new technique has several part. Firstly I paint the rail sides black with a fine brush. I'm using acrylic paint and don't prepare the track first.

Then wipe clean the top of the rails before the paint dries. It doesn't matter if the paint dries before you wipe it clean as it'll come off easily enough anyway.

Then get some 'burnt umber' Vallejo weathering powder and scatter it along the sides of the rail. The idea is to try and paint the rail sides and chairs with it but with N gauge track at least that's quite difficult. After you've covered the section take a larger brush (but still fairly thin) and 'sweep' the weathering powder along the rails trying to produce a fairly even coat.

The final (potentially wasteful) stage is to use a vacuum cleaner - I have one with a small nozzle - and attempt to sweep the centre of the tracks clear trying to push loose powder into the cleaner. You'll pick some of it up but really it just thins the colour out a bit down the centre. You can try and recover the powder from the cleaner afterwards if you want but it doesn't seem worth it to me.

And here's the 'after' image:

The colour looks okay to my eye but most importantly it's done a lot to hide the out-of-scale look of code 80 track.

2 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

As ever more of today's railway disappears under wires (but not tomorrow's if EWR plans are to be believed) so 'contemporary' models look to me ever less convincing on naked rails. Why spend so much on getting every detail right on the rolling stock if there is an elephant in the room with the missing catenary? While not every Japanese N gauge layout puts up the masts, many do, and even without wires which obstruct track-cleaning I would suggests that they look the better for it.

One of our club members produced The Viaduct. The locos don't actually have contact with the catenary but it shows that catenaries are possible even in N. The layout was on our stand at this year's Warley but here are some videos.

Sadly they are Facebook but if - like me - you don't have an account you can click through the banners.

https://www.facebook.com/LWMRS/videos/mike-plowmans-fabulous-layout-the-viaduct-on-public-show-for-the-very-first-time/419958859885135/

https://m.facebook.com/LWMRS/videos/the-viaduct-with-trains-running-across/631089942041481/

2 hours ago, MyRule1 said:

 Although I agree with most of what has been said above. One issue that has not come up is space. The prototypes for smaller layouts are now few in number. Yes there are some branch line terminus's around but in general who wants to model a DMU hourly service. Yes I am aware of a model of Cromer that has been featured in magazines.

 

In the main if you want to model the modern day you need space, in 00 a four car EMU is around 1metre long so you need a large space. With few customers with space for layouts that big there is less scope for profits. The problem is less in N gauge where many have the space to run 11 car sets.

I'd also suggest less operational interest. Modern era means less shunting and whilst some - like me - have no interest in shunting what does that leave? For a lot of railway modellers it leaves 'running a train round and round' or 'watching the same loco with a different head code arrive at the station'.

Maybe the manufacturers have noticed this and are avoiding the 'boring' modern era.

For my part I run what looks good. I don't care about liveries, regions or eras (though I am modern era). The only locos I am unable to get are a Princess Elizabeth in N for nostalgic reasons and an APT-E in N because it's the coolest looking loco I've ever seen.

I wouldn't blame the locos. It's more likely that one thing has gone wrong than that multiple things have all gone wrong in the same way at the same time. Have you changed anything recently?

You could always consider modelling in N which would give you double the room ;)

To paint or not to paint track. A short post this time. Whilst hunting through a box for something else entirely I found some fine tipped felt pens that I'd bought once. So I decided to spend ten minutes painting some track to see if it was worth the bother.

Well first off with a fine tipped felt pen it's very little bother. I can just run the pen along the sides of the rail. It jumps over the chairs a but unlike the Woodland Scenics paint pens I once tried the felt tip appears to suffer little damage. Anyway this is the first coat and took me ten minutes to apply to one metre of track (outside of one rail and inside of another). You see if you think it's worth it: 

Before:

After:

And yes, that's supposed to be grass growing along the middle of what's supposed to be a poorly maintained access line.

Another coat will help but I think that works and does a reasonable job of hiding the inherent ugliness of code 80 track.

Robbie's story..

After being threatened with replacement, Robbie is back. The problem with the Spine wagons was just intractable. They don't have enough vertical movement in the bogeys and there seems no way at present to improve them. So for now they go into my spares box for later consideration.

With that plan thwarted I looked at another way to maximise the length of goods trains I have. The South Yard is a through run ladder yard with four sidings so the outermost sidings are slightly longer than the inner two. I realised that if I swapped locos around and had the shorter Class 33 Ashford pulling the Cargowagons I could squeeze another Cargowagon in. Barely.

That meant a Class 68 would be pulling Robbie. As it turned out that presented two problems. The first was that Dapol's Class 68 DRS is a stunning model. And having it stuck at the front of a manky coal train seem to be a shame. The second problem came to light as I ran the train around. The 21T coal wagons were prone to derailing at turnouts. At first I thought it was the wagons or my track. Afterall they are very light wagons at 6g and with a long train there's a lot of sideways forces involved on curves.

But eventually I realised that the problem was the Class 68. The couplers are mounted on the front of the body rather than the bogeys and the front swung out quite a lot on curves. That's fine if it's pulling coaches or bogey wagons but the 21T wagons just kept being pulled off the track. The lack of weight was a factor but also their couplers have no lateral movement.

So in the end I decided to swap the locos back round. To be fair it's probably for the best anyway. The clearance with an extra Cargowagon in the rake was mere millimetres at either end.

I still have ideas about replacing Robbie but choice of alternatives seems sparse at the moment as does the budget, lol. So for now Wallarium will continue to operate Robbie Coal Train.

🙂

Just now, 30801 said:

 

Dunno about Toyotas but sensible EVs wake up every week or so to give the 12v a top-up. The Leaf even flashes the charge light to let you know it's happening.

That's interesting. I don't know if the Toyota BEV does or not but the hybrids don't. My guess is that they don't because it could (almost certainly would) result in the ICE running at some point to top up the traction battery.

One thing not mentioned there. EVs in common with hybrids only have small, low capacity 12v batteries. That's because neither of these types of vehicle require the 12v battery to start an ICE.

The issue is that these can easily be drained by the car's standby draw. During the Covid lockdowns Toyota advised hybrid owners to start their cars and leave them in ready mode for an hour every week.

There were tales of Corolla owners unable to get in their car after lockdown because the 12v battery had drained which prevented the keyless entry system from operating. We do of course have a spare physical key but it has an extremely small head and the locks are often frozen from lack of use.

Well in effort to keep you behind my posts I'm making a new one 😁

I was helped to recover from my slight depression by the arrival of the postman. Amongst other things he dropped off some Dapol Spine Wagons. These were to replace 'Robbie'(*). The wagons were proving to be a little too sensitive and prone to decoupling. Ordinarily I'd just fit Hunt couplers but that's a lot of wagons so would be expensive but also they don't have NEM pockets. The couplers are held in place by a very small spring and I really didn't fancy messing with that.

So I assembled the wagons, put them on the track and..then the problems started. The first few were fairly minor. The South Yard needed its hardstanding fettling and a few sections of track cleaning. Mildly annoying but not unexpected given that the hardstanding was only recently laid. So I sorted that out and continued running the train.

One of the wagons does not like the slight kink at a track join on one of my inclined curves. This is also the place where the coal wagons tended to decouple (as well as some turnouts). So I decided to investigate. At first I thought it was the kink causing the problem but when I looked closer I could see that the bogey jumped the rails just before the kink on what is perfectly decent and well laid track. So then I got my test bogey out and pushed it back and forth. It turns out that as well as the kink the next section of track after the join has a steeper incline and even has a bit of unintentional super elevation.

So what I think is happening is that the lead bogey tilts the spine and the rear bogey just doesn't have enough vertical play (there's practically none) and the wagon ends up 'cocking a leg'. Something similar might be happening with the coal wagons.

So what to do?

I intend to run four trains on that loop and I know that three of them (Silver Bullets and Cargowagons) are absolutely fine. My brother and I ran the Cargowagons for fifteen minutes without incident and I've done the same with the bullets previously. So relaying the track (which would be a serious pain in the bum) is not needed.

Interestingly it's only one bogey on one wagon that has this problem so I'm going to try and fix it. One thing I've noticed is that that wagon is very slightly warped. It's barely noticeable but that might be exacerbating the problem. In addition there is very little vertical movement in any of the bogeys so I might try and rectify that. The bogeys attach through a crude system of a peg extruded from the bottom of the chassis and you remove the bogey by squeezing the peg. I'll take a closer look tomorrow and see if I can shave either the bottom of the chassis or the top of the bogey to provide more vertical movement. I think doing that would reduce the 'leg cocking' and allow the wheel flanges to remain in contact with the rails.

And yes, those spring loaded connectors do seem like they would do the job, so thanks for that!

(*)My coal train. 😉

Today's mood: Frazzled.

My brother came down to see me (and Warley) on Friday so of course I demonstrated my layout to him. I got three trains running continuously and then I suggested we could try and get the fourth loop in play. This required me to operate the scissor crossing aka Doorway Interchange. Sadly this didn't go so well. The motors moved the turnouts but that introduced a short. I was a bit puzzled because of the four turnouts only one has power to its frog and I remember sorting that out a couple of months ago. Anyway I wasn't going to muck about so we just ignored it and watched the three trains trundling round. Thankfully they all did so with aplomb.

Then I decided to demonstrate my newly behaving class 08. For some reason I decided to run it on the loop we hadn't been using. That turned out to be a fateful decision because the track was a little dirty and the first dirty stretch my 08 found was inside Castle Tunnel. Still - at least it gave me the opportunity to demonstrate that it's possible to take the top off to gain access.

Back to today. I decided to tackle Doorway Interchange. I made the equally fateful decision that while I was sitting on the floor underneath the baseboard I might as well connect up all the frogs. Le Sigh.

I spent the first hour trying to work out which output of the controller was correct for each frog. This is made confusing by two things. Firstly in a scissors crossing the two connected turnouts have opposite phase/polarity. I've addressed this (mentioned in a previous post) by having each turnout on its own controller albeit each pair responds to the same DCC address. But for the life of me I just couldn't get it to make sense. I'd work it out then connect the wires and..it'd be wrong!

This is where the second thing comes into play.

The controllers have a slider (marked CW/CCW) that basically reverses the direction of the motor. I suppose it exists for when two controllers are sharing the same address but you want one motor to pull when the other pushes and vice versa. For some reason I'd flipped these switches even though it wasn't necessary - my paired motors can both operate in the same direction as they are mounted on the opposite sides of the track.

Now fair enough you might think that that just complicated controlling them, meaning I'd jut have to tell them to push when I'd expect them to be pulling. But it has another effect, one barely acknowledged by DCC Concepts (I've think I've seen a couple of off-hand comments on their forum). On earlier units if the slider is in the CCW position (which reverses the direction) the controller won't always remember its position after a power cycle. It turns out that the controllers I bought (likely sometime within the last three years) for the Doorway Interchange are early units. And that was why I spent the first hour this morning F-ing and blinding under my baseboard.

Is that why I'm frazzled? Only partly.

Once I'd sorted that out by flipping the controllers back to CW and moved onto the next pair of turnouts. Now one of these has a construction issue. Somehow I'd managed to fail to insert the main rail into the insulating joiner. I'd spotted it last year and made sure it was safe but now when I come to power up the frog it insists that it has a permanent connection to the main rail. So I got out the razor saw and re-did the gap. Then I got out my Xuron cutters and made the gap bigger. Still the frog claimed to be permanently powered. So then I began to assess the turnout to see what would be involved in lifting it. But frankly I didn't want to. It was a lot of work and it only affected that fourth loop. So I sighed and just spent a couple of minutes studying the turnout with a Maglight.

And then something caught my eye.

A small reflection near the frog dropper.

I took a closer look and realised that there was a loose strand of wire that hadn't been soldered to the frog. Instead it had managed to creep out and was touching the fixed rail. Not a problem in normal use when those turnouts were set to straight through but caused a short when the turnouts were set to cross..and also resulting in me getting cross.

Anyway with that resolved I'm pleased to say that..I can nearly demonstrate the Doorway Interchange. Unfortunately the controllers didn't have a connection to the track bus. I happened to find a spare red dropper I could connect but there's no spare black and frankly my tank was too empty at that point. I just didn't fancy spending another five minutes under the baseboard fitting a suitcase connector.

I'll post the example video later(TM). In the meantime I'm just going to sit quietly in my lounge and contemplate life.

🙂

I dunno. I'm still trying to see what any of these bring to the table beyond what my PowerCab does. With my layout I can see a need for a track diagram or a list of routes but I can come pretty close to the latter with the macros that the PowerCab provides.

Currently my PowerCab has two issues that (to a minor degree) impact me:

• Switching locos causes the state to reset. This can be avoided by using the Recall button but I haven't configured it yet.
• Remembering which turnouts need to be set for which routes. I just haven't programmed the macros yet.

Having a wireless controller would be nice but I currently have no real need.

Long term I'm already look at full computer control but I'm just struggling to see why these newer systems are being seen as so clever. They appear to a minor evolution over my PowerCab and considering how old that design is it's underwhelming.

What I want from my next controller is the ability to hand responsibility for locos and turnouts over to it. That way I can either tell it 'run timetable A' or just 'run random trains'. These controllers don't seem to offer either of those options so I'm feeling a lot of 'meh' at the moment.

13 hours ago, 298 said:

You'd have to have a pretty big home layout to trouble 2 amps, although it would help to divide it to decrease the initial current draw at start-up. The draw from sound decoders is one thing but I've found that it is a lot less for the new generation of sound chips than the old clunkers of 15 years ago.

I've been able to run three trains at the same time on my layout recently and the highest I've seen on my PowerCab is .45A. That's with three of the locos having their lights on as well albeit no sound. That's N scale with quite long trains (each almost a metre long) and a couple of curved inclines.

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

In terms of time to re-rail - don't derail and you never have to re-rail 🤣

Reminds me of the time I asked a golf coach for tips because I sometimes struggle to follow the flight of my drives. His suggestion was that I learn to hit the ball where I intend then just walk to that place and it'll be there waiting.

Funny guy.

52 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

Plastic (styrene) kits are best built with a thin solvent such as MEK or Tamiya Extra Thin Cement, using capillary action - they set almost as fast as superglue!

That's worth knowing but I was thinking more of the Ratio kits. I made a right bog of the platform cover because I had to hold the two halves of the roof together at a precise angle and failed. The Metcalfe laser cut wooden kits on the other hand went together easily.

I prefer wood laser cut but I've also had good results with card. I've also designed my own buildings and had the kit built by York Modelmaking. My designs tend to be simple but you only have to look at the York Station model railway to see how good that process can get.

I struggle most (and in fact think I've failed every time) to build plastic kits. I don't know why other than they seem to require to you hold parts together at the correct angle whereas wood and card seem designed such that they are self supporting. Until recently I refused to use superglue so it might be that if I were to try again using that I'd have more success due to the speed at which it sets.

Well that was 'fun'. It appears that I've been the victim of the CW/CCW startup bug. That's a bit surprising because all my controllers were purchased after 2019. The problem for anyone else who might encounter it is that the earlier controllers don't correctly remember their position when turned off if their direction has been set to CCW.

In my case I was trying to sort out a double slip where both motors were operating from different controller outputs but programmed to use the same address. A thoroughly confusing situation especially since at one point I mixed up the frog droppers.

On 23/11/2023 at 12:26, Steamport Southport said:

 

Totally agree. Should never have been posted.

 

It's blatantly obvious that post is mocking that accident. Why do you think it's trending on Facebook.....

No idea. Having never opened a Facebook account I have no idea what goes on on that platform. Your response here only serves to confirm the validity of my decision.

On 12/11/2023 at 11:28, Ian J. said:

 

Now, you see, I actually like and far prefer the 1998 version. It had Jean Reno in it, took very valid pot shots at Americans who thought themselves superior, and had a more realistic Godzilla in that it didn't look like a man in a suit. Yes, it's a guilty pleasure, but I do enjoy it.

Also the surround sound was very good. Something that a lot of movies neglect because the director prefers to concentrate on visual effects. That was the problem I had with The Matrix. A collection of cute visual effects but when the opportunity arose for some stunning surround sound - the lobby scene - he totally fumbled it.

If you want to hear decent surround sound for a gun battle try the beach scene of Saving Private Ryan.

5 hours ago, Chris M said:

My Dapol tender locos don't seem to be too bad. 

I only have one - a Hall - which was awful. Couldn't handle R2 curves on my old layout nor the not-quite-R2-curves on my current layout. Also far too delicate as I ended up having to replace the tender wires and coupler.

I have a 4-6-2 Queen Elizabeth from Farish though and that's been fine. I also have a class 08 with sound from Farish which required a lot of running in but is now fine.

The rest of my stock is Dapol Diesels and aside from having to adjust the pickups on my HST no problems.

And yes, the biggest draw for me of N is long trains. If you want to shunt then N is probably not the best choice but for long trains:

5 hours ago, n9 said:

I haven't got on with Peco Code 55. I'm committed to it, but I wish I'd gone with British Finescale. Or anything else that doesn't make every 4 wheel piece of rolling stock look like it's had its axles replaced by a pogo stick whenever it goes over a frog.

Same here. I went with code 80 but it's no better. In fact I think their Streamline turnouts are worse then their Setrack. If I do build another layout I too will look at alternatives. To be fair trains roll without derailments (and I wouldn't claim to have laid perfect track) but the frog wobbling is unsettling.