Dmudriver

I'm glad that RMweb is back up and running and hopefully all the pics will be back soon, too. I've not done much on the layout really, just a few odd routine maintenance or repair jobs. However, I did finally decide to put another parcels vehicle on the layout after it's been sat on my work bench waiting to be sprayed blue. To be honest, I've not been keen on using my airbrush as I find it's a right faff setting it up and cleaning it afterwards. However, I have now convinced myself I need to do it as the van runs rather well on the layout, particularly after I've fitted it with Dingham couplings. Here's what it looks like on the layout with views from each end showing the couplings: For some reason that I can't now remember (!) I hand painted the buffer beams blue some time ago thinking it would make masking easier. I think I'll have to rethink that idea!! Fitting the Dinghams led to quite a few hours making new ones for some of the existing stock, followed by some very absorbing hours making sure they all worked correctly. I've learned a lot more about them now - having made quite a few mistakes in the past!! However, testing them all in operating sequences/conditions did make me mad at times as I couldn't see where the magnets were as I've disguised them so well!! This made all the more important by the revised operating procedures involving much more shunting. So I've used some sand coloured paint on the sides of the rails and the ballast (a little) to help me, as here: I think the pic also shows how difficult the magnets are to see!! The ones in the platform were a problem too so I've put a blob on one platform edge and 2 on the canopy roof - these latter will eventually be replaced by seagulls once I get round to getting some - suggestions for replacing the platform blob will be gratefully received! Here's how they look - not ideal, but not too obtrusive either: The operations have also convinced me that I definitely need the electromagnets. That has now become the next major job. Hopefully I'll be able to get some seagulls at Shepton Mallet this weekend. (I'll get the electromagnets from the Guild). I'm helping to operate on a new layout "Alexandra Sidings". It's basically a replacement for "Oldham King Street Parcels" and has some similarities but also a few big differences!! If anyone is going, drop by and say hello - I'll be there from the Friday afternoon. That's all for now. More soon. Happy modelling to all. Rod

Wow, that is different! This is as it was in May 2012: Rod

I've now fitted the Dingham couplings to the 116 and the 128. Here's the 116: And underneath it looks like this (this is how I did the 131, too): The coupling shank is superglued to the strips of wood, which are glued to the floor (basically). It means the coupling can be easily withdrawn for retrofitting the screw links if necessary. The Blutack is holding the buffers in place - the heads being 12.5mm from the beam. [I realise there's a pipe missing off the front of the buffer beam - white metal pipes are a bit fragile.] I've realised that this measurement is very important: leave them too long and the vehicles won't couple as the loop is too far off the opposite hook (unless the buffers are very softly sprung); too short and they won't uncouple as the loop is pressed against the rear of the opposite hook and won't lift. I found this with the 25 which was having difficulty coupling at one end: one buffer was about 1.5mm too long. Fortunately, there was some screw available on the shanks so those buffers are now the right length and it now couples/uncouples perfectly. I had a bit of a result with the 128 - unlike Everton v Crystal Palace this afternoon - 'nuff said!! - in that the buffer beam unscrews. So I've just replaced the Heljan coupling with the Dingham one - spring. washer and split pin reused! The Dingham instructions don't recommend springing the couplings but so far they've been OK: I'll have to see how they are after a few hours running and shunting. Here's how the 128 now looks: I had to draw the buffers back slightly - the width of a coffee stirrer was all it took, glued between the buffer beam and the stop on the buffer shank. Now onto the 37. I've checked the buffer beam and it doesn't unscrew like the 128 unfortunately but it is in 2 parts by the look of it: there's a joint all the way across. But how that is relevant, I don't know: I'll have to strip it down to find out. As you might gather, I've not been able to do a video yet! Watch this space! More soon. Rod

It was a decent suuny day today so I decided to have a bit of a play-day. I didn't reckon with the cold wind!! Nevertheless I managed a couple of hours. Quite a bit of it, though, was spent sorting some problems - a dead frog in the fiddle yard; point blades not going over properly - bits of leaves and even a seed somehow blown under the covers caught in them; a couple of point blades sticking on sliding chairs. All sorted in the end and I did get some running done. To start off, here's a view of the full fiddle yard: After the morning rush of trains to/from Birkenhead, Chester and Helsby, the parcels trains began arriving. The first was a 131 with a GUV in tow, just stopped at the Down Inner Home signal, waiting for ground signal 30 to clear: The train arrives in the Down siding and the DPU uncouples and moves forward slightly. The 08 is waiting at the end of the headshunt to run onto the GUV: The 08 has come onto the back of the GUV and, coupled up and awaits the arrival of the next parcels train, which is the ex-RailAir Express Parcels unit with 2x 12T vans in tow: The unit having arrived in no.1 siding, the 08 adds the GUV to the 12T vans and prepares to draw them out, ready for sorting for their trip to Moreton: The 108 in plattform 2 is a Helsby service and is on top of a 3-car Class 108 on a Chester service. If the weather is decent at the weekend, I'll see if I can get time to do a video. In the meantime, the 116 is now on my work bench ready for having a Dingham coupling fitted. More soon. Rod

Thanks for the suggestions but I've now added weight - they're both now around 275g. I've tried them on the layout and they are much better: still free running but a lot less skittish. Now onto the 128/116 combo. Rod

I need to make a slight correction to my earlier post. The reason is not so much the weight but the free running qualities of the vans. I've weighed them and checked the weights against the G0G standards: they're 140 and 150 grams (near enough) which is the recommended weight. I do need to increase the weight, though, just to increase the friction on the axle bearings!! I've also seen comments about braking the axles but I think weights will achieve the same result. Anyway, that's what I'm going to do. Rod

And the next chapter of the Dinghams-on-the-131 saga!! I tried them with the 2 Dapol vans and, whilst they worked, it wasn't consistent. Basically because the vans are so light they react to the slightest movement. So, if I was reversing the 131 v. slowly the vans would roll ahead and the buffers were just far enough apart to stop the loop lifting. Similarly in trying to couple, they would bounce off the loop as it touched the hook on the other vehicle, even though the loop is designed to slide up the hook. I tried it with the weighted Heljan GUV and it works perfectly: the GUV rolls smoothly but there is a bit of inertia in the weight so the 131 couples and uncouples perfectly - as do the vans when coupled to the GUV. The answer is to weight the vans so that will be the next job. I've fixed the loop to the 131 by glueing a couple of pieces of coffee stirrer underneath the cab floor (to maintain the correct height) and then glueing the tail of the coupling to those stirrers: there's no glue near the coupling slot in the buffer beam so they will be removable if needed.** All in all, I'm a happy bunny again!! So, after wighting the vans, I'll move onto fixing the Dinghams to the 128/116 set. Watch this space. Rod ** I tried to take a pic but it's a bit congested under the buffer beam and the pic didn't show what I wanted, unfortunately.

Experience has told me that they do move - certainly the loop end, the hook end seems OK so far. This means that the loop doesn't always work properly, which is rather frustrating. So the next step will be to glue this coupling in place: I'll leave the hook for now to see how that goes. I'll aim to glue the coupling so that I can remove it fairly easily if ever I want to revert back to screw couplings - where I've glued them already (the 25, 50, 03 and 08) I've used superglue which will not make it easy to remove them and retrofit the screw couplings again. It does mean, though, that once in place they carry on working correctly! On the Mark 1s and the parcels stock the Blutack is contained and has nowhere to go so the couplings don't move. More soon. Rod

The 2-car 108 is now off the naughty step!!! I've put it back on the layout and it runs well. That was quite a good exercise in fault finding!! Rod

And part 2 of tonight's posting. I've sorted the shorting problem with the 108 power car. It turns out a feed wire from the pickups on one side of the motor bogie had somehow worked loose and was touching the feed from the other side. Not a good combination!! The connection is 2 wires (one from each wheel) soldered to a split pin which fits into a piece of brass tube: it isn't a very good fit but it's now secured with Blutack (would you believe?!!). It's worked OK now on the DC controller I use for testing so there's no reason why it shouldn't work on DCC. It's raining outside so I'll put it back on the layout tomorrow and just make sure it runs OK. I'll be very upset if it doesn't!!! Rod

The couplings are done on the 131. Here's some pics. The loop: I didn't notice the broken buffer housing until this pic was transferred off my phone! A bit of glue is needed. Then the hook: And finally, the unit has arrived in the Down Siding with 2 x 12T vans - a permissible load, I think. If I remember rightly a power/trailer unit was limited to 1 x 12T van but I'm pretty sure a single unit was allowed 2, or one bogie vehicle. I've just found out that I never put a magnet at the station end of this siding, assuming there would be no arrivals into it: any arrival in the sidings would go into Siding 1 which does have one. I'll put a permanent one in for now and operate the layout with them until I'm happy the operation is OK: if so, I'll fit electromagnets. I'm not convinced about the stability of the couplings on the unit just yet but I'll see how they bear up in practice before I do any more. The reason is that the Blutack is not contained as it is in the vans and the Mark 1s so not tightly packed, and there is scope for the coupling to move. Experience will tell me!! More soon. Rod Rod

Time for an update I think. I've decided to fit the Dingham couplings to just the parcels units at the moment - the 131 and the 128/116 combo - just to see how it goes. I should get some interesting operations with those and the loco-hauled. So I set to to fix them to the 131: worked out how to do them, built up the 2 couplings and then wasn't dead sure which end was which - it matters as the couplings are ended. So took the unit out to the shed, and that's when the fun started!! I put the unit on the track and pressed the red Stop button on my Lenz controller to set everything up and stop the "OFF" message flashing. Except it didn't!! Took the 131 off, tried again - nothing. I was a bit flummoxed as the layout worked perfectly last time I was in the shed. So I checked all the points to make sure it wasn't a microswitch playing up; checked all the track in case something was bridging the 2 rails somewhere - including outside. Nothing!! Checked all the insulating joints in case something had closed up, even though unlikely as the weather's not exactly been hot. Still nothing, so I phoned a friend!! He gave me some advice/suggestions - thanks, Dave. I turned off the power, unplugged every connection and left it for a few hours. Put everything back - still no joy. Then I took all the powered rolling stock off and, lo and behold, everything worked!! Then it was a slow process of putting the powered stock back on the track one by one and I found the problem - it was the power car of the Westdale 2-car 108. I've done a quick check but can't see anything obviously wrong. Next job will be to strip it down. I'm completely out of ideas as it was working fine last time out. Any thoughts or suggestions as to what the cause of the short might be will be very gratefully received!! In the meantime I'm getting on with the 131 - I've just blackened the Dingham couplings. I'll take some pics when it's done. Oh, the joys - and challenges - of railway modelling!! More soon. Confused of Preston

T Love it!! Thanks.

That's a fantastic picture, billy_anorak59!! Thanks. My ticket booths are not like these (mine are Skytrex, I seem to remember) and I've never seen that paint scheme before - mine are painted blood and custard!! The other thing that intrigues me is the "H OFF" sign. What is it? I'm lost for an answer at the moment. Rod

It's been a retty nice day today (though it got colder about 3.30!) so I thought I'd run a few parcels moves - just to check it works as planned. The first movement was the arrival of the ex-RailAir Express Parcels unit, towing a GUV and 2 vans: Looking the other way the 08 can be seen, waiting in rear of signal 34 to drop onto the vans: And there he is, coupling up to them and waiting for signal 17 to clear to draw them out ..... ... but only after the arrival of a Class 50-hauled parcels train, seen here passing the Down Outer Home signal: and arriving in Siding 1: The 08 is then released from platform 1 with the GUV and the 2 vans and propels to the rear of the 3 BGs and couples to those before drawing them away and shunting the 6 vehicles into no. 2 siding: Safely parked up, the 08 uncouples and draws forward towards signal 21 (out of pic to the right), awaiting its next duty: It all went OK apart from the coupling loop on the GUV needing a bit of adjustment but it has shown me that permanent magnets are not ideal for this operation - shuting the GUV and 2 vans onto the rear of the 3 BGs uncoupled all 3 of them when I didn't want to uncouple any!! (and also going into no.2 siding) I'll now have to research electromagnets to replace them. They were fine for the original operations but these operations are a bit different. I did enjoy that short session, though - bring on the better weather!! More soon. Rod EDIT I've now found that the Guild do them - at £4.50 each which doesn't seem a bad price. Looks like I'll just need 5: I'll keep the permanent ones at the platform ends.

Next van is done. Here's how I did it (sorry some of the pics are a bit blurred but hope you get the idea). First, this is a Dapol coupling after removal from the vehicle: The bolt at the end is actually tiny and very easy to lose - how do I know .......? The coupling fits through a slot in the buffer beam and is held in place by a screwed-on cover: Once removed, this is how it's left: The shank of the Dingham coupling hook needs shortening slightly to fit in straight and not foul the screw housing. I then part fill that space with Blutack (proper spelling this time!), insert the Dingham hook through the (slightly enlarged) slot in the buffer beam and pack more Blutack very tightly round it: The hook in the above pic needs pushing further in slightly - until the small "bulge" is hard against the coupling slot. Having tidied up the Blutack round the edges of the space, the cover is pressed back on and screwed down again: Different end, but same procedure!! And that is it. They really are well wedged in and take some effort to pull out. With my train lengths - 4 free running bogie vehicles and a couple of vans, they don't pull out. If there was a problem, my first remedy would be to add a couple of pieces of thin rod into the coupling shank at right angles then pack again with Blutack - to create a bit more resistance. The advantage is that the original couplings can be replaced quite easily should ever the need arise. An interesting thing I only found out when fitting these is that the buffers are different lengths on the 2 vans: on the Palvan they are 12.5mm, whereas on the other van they are 10.5mm. It's only significant because for the shorter ones you cut off the "bulge" I referred to above to get the correct operating length for the coupling. So that's it! I found out I'd done the same on the outer ends of the 3 vehicle coupled rake of bogie vans - and on the Mark 1 coaches: that was ages ago and they are still working properly. Now to work out how to do it on the 37 and the DMUs!! That'll be a bit more tricky!! More soon. Rod

I've decided to fit Dingham coupligs to the 2 vans to match the rest of the parcels stock . I had a couple ready made, destined for a kit-built van that I've yet to spray blue, so I fitted them to one van. Unlike most of the rest of the stock so fitted, I've not glued these in, rather they're surrounded by tightly packed Blutac!! It's worked on the Mark 1 coaches and these are also very solid (I've tried to pull them out by hand and it's not at all easy!!) Here's how they look. I've tested them with the 08 shunter and the GUV and they work perfectly. I've definitely learned since last time I used them!! The questions now arise as to how to fit them to the 37 (the 50 and 25 are fitted with them) and also whether, and if so how, to fit them to the DMUs as those are now being used with tail traffic and also do multi-up. I'm currently making up some more sets of Dinghams so I'll take some pics to show how I've fitted them when I do the next van. More soon. Rod

Well, well! It just goes to show you're never too old to learn! As I said, I'd never heard the word "spragged" before and never knew anything about the device or the practice. All I knew about - and have used on occasions - was chocks. I assume the sprag was pushed in so the thickest part in the centre was between the spokes? If it wasn't a tight fit, how did it stay in? Rod

"Spragged" is not a term I've come across before!!! Where does it come from/ I assume it means "chocked". Rod

You mean like this, Hroth? I haven't done anything to them, just photographed them outside the shed in natural light! I've mentioned before how free-running they are. I came into the house to transfer this pic onto my PC and when I got outside again, the wind had blown them a fair way down the track - and the layout's quite sheltered!! Rod

In my last post (over 2 weeks ago!!) I mentioned the clean vans. Well, I've now dirtied them up a bit. Here's how they look: I've not really done much weathering before so I'm not that good at it but what I did with this was to paint diluted frame dirt all over them and wipe it off the sides and ends with some kitchen roll: the underframe I just left. It's taken the shine off them and made them a bit grubby, so I'm quite happy with them. If anything, the contrast between cleanish and dirty is a bit more in real life: I think the camera has compensated for the relatively low level of light in the shed. So here they are, coupled to a 37, ready for a special trip to Moreton: Just need a tail lamp on the hook of the last vehicle and they're good to go once the driver gets the road. More soon. Rod

The revised parcels traffic working arrangements are now in force and here is a nice clean van that has arrived attached to a DMU ex Manchester: The 03 has been started up but the driver is a bit tardy - he should have been out on the Up Main, in rear of signal 34, ready to drop onto the back of the train. Fortunately, the following service - a 2-car, also with a van, which is due into the same platform, behind the 3-car - is running late so he's got away with it this time. He's claiming he's not used to the new operation yet but's it's been on the notice board for a couple of weeks!! Anyway, here he is, coupled up to the van and drawing it out of the platform: He will now wait behind signal 34 for the 2-car, plus van, to arrive and will then take that van away to the sidings to await onward movement. He's biting his nails a bit as the 115 is due out soon and standing at signal 34, he's blocking the route. He might end up getting moved to no.2 siding - the bobby's getting a bit fraught, too!! More soon. Rod

When I worked in Industrial Tribunals it was described as "robust industrial language" - presumably in other legal settings too. However, having spent my whole working life in industrial settings, I am used to it and just accept it - used it myself a lot, but depending who I was talking to. I do, though, understand and respect the views of people who don't like to hear it. I thought I recognised Ashton Park but it's a long time ago, so I accept I am very likely wrong! Back to railways in the next post!! Rod

Ah, but you could see clean sand in the background!! Not something I remember from Otterspool!

Or use subtitles!!