peach james

We used the main and desup stops to cook on- they were lovely, one at 800F the other at 514F Beautifully lagged too- and couldn't be bothered with trying to shove the steaks on a shovel in the oil fired boiler...that'd never work anyway, as the casing was at 25" WC at full power, so no, not happening. Same sort of thing for treated water- you don't want to drink the water from after the softener, and certainly not after you've added compound to it. It's only pH 11 here :), with a bunch of Sulphite and Phosphate in it :). I can see putting a billy can into the fire on a traction engine, or as dad apparently has, cooking on the top of a Sentinel boiler (IIRC eggs & bacon), but not on the shovel. I think the more normal way with a traction or similar for brewing up is to use the injector overflow. The issue will be where you got your water from, because quite often it's not going to be nice water to drink, coming from a river or pond. James

The image I wanted to use was (but apparently I was a numpty and posted something else in, and it's too late to edit it...) When I saw the one with the sheep on top (the top photo, in the middle), I had assumed that the spoil was level outwards. I'm a bit shocked that the contractor would do it that way, because it would seem easier to me to have dug off the tops of the hillocks and dumped down hill, even at the expense of moving more material. Someone did a time/motion guess and came up with what they did though... the middle one with the sheep on it, that's quite the pile of dirt to wheelbarrow around. (it's probably worse than your last house's garden even !) The number I have seen referenced is 1 yd/100'/man/day As in, a bloke with a wheelbarrow can dig, move & dump a yard of fill 100' away, in a day. That makes those spoil heaps all the more impressive. What I suspect happened is that the contractor moved as much as was practical out the ends, and cast the rest over the top of the hills- that's why the spoil heaps at the end are as big as they are, and the other ones are rather less so. I know there is the wood carving image of them using a horse in a trace to drag a wheelbarrow uphill to dump, and the comments about boulder clay for the whole line... James

Jeff, I know- it's your railway...but the contractor wouldn't have lifted the dirt up the hill to dump it. It'd be cheaper to work it out the end of the cutting, and dump it out there than to lift it up. gives a good idea of what they did in real life. I know, the spoil hills would cascade into the asleway, but that's because the contractor was out to make a bob on the whole project

My usual way of heating is to burn wood as long as I have dry wood to burn. This year we've burned about 500L of oil and a cord of wood or so. I have about 1.5 cords stacked to dry over the summer (8'x20'x16"), and that should provide the majority of the heat for next year. I've got some more stacked down the back, and a couple more trees to take out- they're just Alder, but its still free. I've a gas chainsaw, access to a gas woodsplitter & between myself and next door, we did about 5 cords of wood from some trees that fell due to wind, and the alders I dropped. The big ends of the Hemlock's next door were big enough that it was 4 square to cut with my 18" bar (have to cut through from both sides, so the tree is ~40" diameter). We'd have taken them out as sawlogs, but getting them from where they fell to the road wasn't possible given the 30-40' to the trail & the size.

Jeff, I doth protest ! Age of inner child is stuck firmly at 7. Just old enough under the old rules to play run a small steam plant, and plug things into the wall . How else would I have built the new roller coaster, and forgot to connect the track, creating a slight problem of a doom plunge? It's been fixed, but I haven't the time to make it work yet...and may need revising to work as per Ffestiniog from the top of the hill to the bottom... Currently working, Currently at work, on RMWeb, James

That must have been a LONG time ago- I mean, I worked with a Air Bos'n who had been around prior to 1967. I've no formal training in nav, but I spent 2 years on boats teaching navigation...I picked up a little bit of it. James

Oh, version 1.0 of Long Marton ended up done for, quite well. I stripped the track in 1997, and set fire to the rest...after which, it was well done :)

If you are desperate for them, Credit Valley Railroad in Canada has at least one... Otherwise, you are at the mercy of Peco making more- I had thought Hattons showed 2 in stock, but I could have been wrong, or someone else snaffled them up !

So, in some ways, I disagree with Jeff- if you think of it in terms of "cor, I've got 10 more years of this !", or you can think of it in terms of "gosh, I've got ten more years before this version will be done...". That being said, it depends on which area of modeling is YOUR go to- if it is running trains, and it's going to take 2 years to get to being able to run trains, then ! mojo alert, it is unlikely to happen. If it's building buildings, and it takes you 10 years to get to running trains (Hi Jeff !) then that's fine. I've got about 15 years overall into Long Marton (3), and there are areas which have been redone x2 so far for it, and likely will get redone again. I view it as a lifetime of progress, hopefully forward, but still something to occupy my time. (well, that and Canadian Puget Sound II which is eating my time for now, along with some N gauge that seems to have spawned its self, and a Lego rollercoaster that has grown, and the at home Lego that for the first time in years is mostly complete, and my two schmoes who require a bit of time ). I'd suggest (if you facebook), take a look at what Jason Shron has been doing with his project of a lifetime (Kingston Sub), as it is a good look at what can be done, and how to view it particularly from the prospective of where it "had been" a semi-club prior to COVID. (he had a bunch of the Rapido employees working on his home layout, and still has a bunch of other modelers working on it offsite) Anyway, I look forward to some progress- right now Long Marton sits taken mostly apart into its modules, because I still have to get a new furnace... James

I know dad considered taking one of the Minnie's we have and converting it to rail. The issue is one of size- a 6 sq inch grate makes for a small railway engine in 5". He has used a 2" wagon boiler for Monsterous, his vertical. Currently, it has a 2" Clayton wagon boiler on it, having previously had a 5" diameter stainless (*) boiler on it, providing steam to a Stuart Twin Launch engine. (7/8x1", 2 cylinder) Photos from TO by Peach James, on Flickr Shows it with the Clayton boiler, a steam-steam feed heater & my then 6 year old riding. (*) the stainless boiler was made from some alloy that was stupid expensive, and was an offcut from making a flume for pulp research at the UofT. Silver soldered in copper tubes, which kept on developing leaks at the hot end, as they weren't submerged...it also tended to afterburn.

He's active on Traction Talk

Yes, there can be. Depending on the metals, there may be a small amount (like .1%) of another metal to cause them to alloy. Consider that lead & tin do alloy fairly well together, but have different melting points and boiling points. My guess would be that there will be something like a small quantity of bismuth in there, or of copper (or silver). There must be information out there somewhere on how to alloy what amounts to solder, but exactly where is going to be difficult to find. Some of it will be trade secret, I am sure. There is one suggestion in https://edu.rsc.org/experiments/making-solder-as-an-alloy-of-tin-and-lead/1742.article in the form of putting a layer of carbon over the melted mixture...

I can see how the math would work out- if it is used on an out and back of say, 100 km, then it _should_ be manageable with current Lithium Ion tech batteries. Tesla Model S battery pack is 1200 lb, 75 kWh. So, if you get 150 000 lb of engine out, then you could put in 125x battery packs, or 9.3 MWh of batteries, giving a run time of 3 hrs or so at 3 MW- some really crude figures there, but it should be workable.

Peco make SL-93 (Short Crossing), and SL-94 (Long Crossing), and ST250 (Set track Medium Crossing). Any of them work for you? These are all code 100, and Hattons indicate they have them. (other choices exist...) James

OK- I have a technical question for Rapido (UK)- I live in Canada, home of Rapido (Canada)- how do I order, preferably in Canadian $ and Canadian Shipping? Or do I have to order in UKP with shipping from the UK ? I'd like to pre-order one of the 28's, and when they come available Titfield Thunderbolt too. (my next Rapido order should be here by the 4th of May, they say...well, since it's a Canadian, that means anytime from 1-14th is on time if you believe VIA !) James

And now we loose Jeff for a week as he plays trains extensively tests to ensure that quality work has been done !

So fling the bits out the back of the van onto their home... CPS II at home... by Peach James, on Flickr I have the last section to work on here at work- but I'm too busy running the single power unit up and down right now on air :). I have to hoist it back up, and weld up the 7.5" gauge rail to that 128" section that I have here, and then carry on from here. It looks like the idea of using a fairly hefty servo to drive the reversing gear will work- I don't know for sure, and won't until I can try against some fairly substantial pressure, as to if it will work under all conditions, but moving the linkage it appears that it should work OK. I have the bits here to try it with the radio, I think, but haven't yet...

I'm not sure if it made it into the UK as widely as it has over here- (at least I think I'm getting the right page/link, I can't see Youtube from here...) It should be a video shot from the prospective of being a passenger in a coach pulling into Brookville eastbound to Montreal or Ottawa... James

What about countersunk screws of something like 4-5mm diameter? You'd want to countersink not more than 1/2 the acrylic/ect, but it should be secure enough. Thread them into the aluminum, or use nuts on the top of the ally to hold the assembly together (& then locktite them).

Rob, the ESU Booster (generic DCC term use) is seeing what it percieves as a short circuit on power up, because likely each of the sound locos you have on the layout is drawing a substantial inrush current on start up. The Capacitators will hold charge depending on draw down. This can be internal or external draw down- I'd suspect that any caps in use will be fully discharged by the end of 10 minutes, and likely sooner. So, when you power up the layout, you have to charge up all the capacitators, and that is what the ESU booster is seeing as a short. You possibly can change the power on delay on the PSX so that they load sequentially rather than both at the same time. Otherwise, you will have to further divide the layout. There is a fairly easy way to figure out how many sections you need, and that is to remove some locos & put them on the shelf, then turn the layout on. When you get to where it will turn on without fiddling around, you now have your answer, subtract 1 from that, and then divide your # of locos by the # that the booster will start at the same time. There are other options- one that springs to mind is to use a Digitrax booster. They have very slow trip times, in the order of 1/2 a second, which allows for the inrush current to have dissipated- occasionally I will run into a problem, but usually it means that I have a dead short and not anything else. If you are feeding DCC to accessory decoders, remember that they too will draw inrush current on start up. James

The good news in all of this is that the Rapido N scale Canadian's are shipping... Other than that, I've nothing positive to report.

That section had been relayed fairly close to the end of service, due to the road crossing which you are standing in being redone. Not as extensive as at the graving dock, but still very little used by rail. There are more in Langford which are yet to see a train...up by the west shore YMCA. Floyd’s Diner is fairly good for brunch...

I think DAS would love that

CNR in Canada had a pair as well- ex Port Stanley Railway, they came to Vancouver Island, then went to NL to presumably 42" gauge. (or as spare parts for the G8's...) http://www.cnrphotos.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=12804

And while it might "need" mirrors, it might be even more funny to plant them smashed off on the ground