jukebox

Photo attribution: By RuthAS - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6431823

The perway gang was out with the soldering iron tonight, reattaching a number of the copper clad sleeper rails near bridges, that had come adrift in the last 24 months of inactivity. These had been causing nuisance derailments that were edited out of videos shot recently. Once I'd sorted that and cleaned them up, they needed a bit of testing. I'm not usually a fan of videos like this, but seeing Wild Swan and Great Eastern having a bash around the room for 15 minutes or so to make sure all was well, felt very mainline-like. With that sorted, I am going to tackle relaying the terrace house curve next. That will take a bit longer to fix... Cheers Scott

Simples, Mike: Run your cursor over the Youtube address, copy and paste it into your post:

Put it on your head and it will probably cog down your forehead to the bridge of your nose...

Okay, so we are a week away from Winter solstice here Down Under, and tonight the last of my rolling stock auctions end on eBay. It's been a very cathartic, if eye opening process. It encouraged me to do what I have never actually bothered to do in 25 years of modelling: a stock-take! (In the past, it never seemed to be important. But after the B1 debacle, I thought I really should refresh my aging memory). So I did. Because I started to wonder if I will have enough track space in my MPD. 29 steam locos. 5 d/e's. 5 unmade kits. Using a rough estimate, it's about 10,000mm track length of steam stock, which should be okay and allow for some future expansion with my current track plan. And I'm happy to have a few locos off layout on display in a cabinet in my study, which takes the pressure off. The exercise also crystallised a few other concepts I'd not given nearly enough through to. Namely that the 5 d/e's will be stored at the heads of train in the storage tracks. About the storage tracks... I may have some issues with space there, too! After I'd counted locos, I counted coaches. Enough for 8 passenger formations from various eras. Then there's four wheel wagons for *cough* at least four goods rakes. 6 storage tracks under the layout, so I'll need to fit 2 rakes of something in each storage track. As I said, I've not given this anywhere near enough thought until this month (learn from my mistakes, dear readers!). It's not a terminal issue, just one that will need a bit of care in operation. I had always envisaged fixed rakes, and have set up Kadee uncoupling magnets on the front of each storage track, so that rakes can be left loco free at the front of each siding. Plus the storage tracks are ~7m long, with four of them having a turnout ladder halfway along. At worst, I may need to cycle some stock off the layout - which I would be likely to want to do with the goods wagons, anyway. *** So to close out the purge, indulge me in some photos of the GNER rake that I currently have up for sale on eBay; 89001 + DVT + 8 Mk.4's. The Class 89 is a DC kits model, and the DVT a resprayed Hornby. I was shocked how long the whole lot is when I set it up to photograph it for eBay a few weeks back - it is huge. Those Mk.4 coaches are really long! So long it didn't all fit on the straight sceniced section of the layout. I will always love it the GNER deep blue, especially with the DVT on the end, as to be it evoked a modern day version of the LNER Coronation set with a beaver tail on the rear. Speaking of which, given Hornby's move on the LMS equivalent, I am hopeful that an RTR LNER Coronation will find it's way to the shelves in my lifetime. That will be another 9 coaches I'll need to keep space for! Back next time with some real modelling! Cheers Scott

I love the long shadows from the natural low light, Shaun. That is 10,000% more photogenic than the anodyne fill-flash photography that so many of the "gurus" in today's modelling mags seem to prefer... Well done! Cheers Scott

Warmed over an antipodean Photoshop filter for you, Gilbert: Regards, Scott

What a co-incidence: My ex-wife is very high maintenance. I wish I could spend what I send her on my hobbies... well, actually I wish she would spend all of what I send her on our daughter, but that's a whole different quagmire. Scott

A5 A8 V4 Sorry, couldn't bear to drop any of those. Consider them 1/3 of a vote each, and use it as a tie-breaker.

As a name, Thunderer rather impressed me... esp. romping through Southall at a solid clip back in 1988.

Prince Leonard is dead. Long live Prince Graeme! https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-13/prince-leonard-who-founded-hutt-river-province-dies-aged-93/10808236 Suspect he got a whiff of what 2020 looked like, and decided to check out. The Province closed it's borders a few months before Australia did: https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/hutt-river-principality-will-close-its-doors-until-further-notice-due-to-financial-hardship-20200110-p53qja.html In the meantime, his Iron Fist approach to Covid-19 isolation has earned our State Premier Cult Hero™ status (89% approval rating!): https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/auslan-interpreter-wa-premier-mark-mcgowan-en-love-you-buddy/

Never mind the crazy bidding - the crazy starting price exploded my head.

Seems to be an ongoing theme with DJM, doesn't it....?

Thanks Julian - what you describe is not an accident; it was an idea that I read about in an Iain Rice bookazine on layout planning - he talked about LDE's - "layout design elements" that are basically mini scenes joined together to form a larger layout. I recognised the possibilities for that with a layout orbiting four walls of a room, and so have tried to put it to good use. That goes as far as my colour palettes, with the window side having a deliberately bright set of tones compares to the wall side. I've ordered a couple of cheap Gorillapod knock offs from China - one small, one large - that I hope will let me plonk the phone in some more spots I can't do properly now. But with Covid slowing down air freight times, I am guessing it will be a couple of months before they arrive. Winter solstice in a couple of weeks, so whilst the temperatures will keep dropping for another two months, at least the days will start to get longer again. Hope you're doing well and keeping Covid-safe. Cheers Scott

Not enough washout plugs? (should it be a row of 7?) Scott

Thanks very much for the kind words, Julian. Yes, I've looked at that pile of kit sitting in the riverbed a number of times and thought I should move it before I shoot the next video... which would then make me feel guilty I haven't filled it with resin. Or the small river for that matter. I'm holding off on those till I do the last of the plastering - the dust would, I'm sure, end up on the water surface... That video was a bit of an experiment - I was using the iPhone, and trying to take footage from places I don't normally use. There are some that didn't work this time, that I will go back to. I'm on the lookout for a Gorillapod. Once I get one of those, I'll be able to place the camera deep into the scenes and "look out" - which should be special. The great news is I am almost done with my auctions - the duplicate DP1 has gone up on eBay, along with 89001 and her 9 coaches, plus a fistful of others. Once they are all in the post, I will refocus on the layout. The starting point will be a few "niggle" spots - where there's twist or dips, that impact running; the Bachmann locos are good for that. I'm going to fit tender picks ups to the Bachmann steam fleet - it's noticeable they are much more fussy than the Hornby models - even Wild Swan, which is one of the new DCC-ready models, seems to need scrupulously clean rail heads or it falters... I also need to work on the rail levels at the lift up section, and the temporary big bridge - there is a step in them that is not impairing running, but is shredding the track cleaning cloth under the CMX. So a bit of change in the overall plan - trackwork first, then back to the trees. But in doing so I will also be able to bring the storage tracks into use (right now I've just got two shorter rakes parked on the mainline) and store a few more complete trains under the scenic level - which will make photography and video more fun. Onward! Cheers Scott

Steam's Indian Summer at Stockrington... Cheers Scott

"The most attractive design of diesel prototype, perhaps with innovative features thrown in. Some of them didn't work, and others didn't lead to anything further, but that is irrelevant here. The most striking and innovative please" If it's diesel protoypes.... Kestrel. Electrics... Avocet Gas Turbines... GT3.

As a buyer and seller of 20 years on eBay with a 100% record, that is a small price I'm prepared to pay not to have some numpty spoil it!

A little bit of house-keeping with the replies here; I do like to try and get back to everyone. Decision made about a week ago, Gordon: I'm going to lift that curve and relay it, hopefully using a single piece of track. There's a rail join there that may not be helping, but obviously some twist, too. Better to face that now, than have it irk me once the MPD shed is built in front of it. There is no No.19 on my roster, Manna - but something much more appropriate will debut next week... I took a deep breath, and have scheduled her for eBay. Funnily enough, something trivial tipped the scales - the 20th C overhead warning decals. That, and knowing Hornby now has a better model available - albeit at a much greater price. If I miss her in the future, I'll think about replacing with a newer version that is at least period prototypical. Of course she may not sell on eBay - the green B1 didn't - so there is that! I do suspect something along those lines. The newer Bachmann Pannier chassis have a sprung centre driver, and I think that makes all the pick up difference. I agree - you can see the centre roller being shunted back and forth as the wheel rotates - and a slight kick in the front left wheel, too. These will be signs that the plastic axles are on their way out... which I'm resigned to having happen to all my split chassis locos. But as someone else here on RMWeb philosophised, "I'll run them till they drop, and then that's it for them". I thought about a Comet chassis for the J72, but I might as well spring for a new Bachmann DCC ready one when the time comes - it's a tidy little model, and very regionally appropriate for me. Food for thought, Cam! My fixed sets of carriages will all be in held on low level storage tracks, so they should be okay. It's just the photographic possibilities that is whetting my appetite for open storage... looking across four shed tracks, with the mainline embankment in the background... would make for some great photos. Hopefully I'll always have moving trains, Gilbert! But I do want them to be "in the landscape", hence the scale of what I've imagined. Watching even the Duchess + 11 being dwarfed by my temporary big span bridge was rather thrilling as I was filming last week - there was a real sense of scale, knowing how large a Princess Coronation is, and seeing it dwarfed by the 1200mm span. As I opined on Page 1 of this thread, my modelling tastes won't be for everyone, and I undoubtedly will get some things wrong (Mr.Wright would be apoplectic, I'm sure!) but as I say form time to time here: It's a glorified train set - have some fun! As a last note about rationalisation and scale; I have a nearly completed model of 89001, plus a rake of 11 Mk.4's and a DVT. The announcement this week that Accurascale are thinking about an RTR one hurried me to list that project on eBay. When I set it up, I didn't have a sceniced straight long enough to photograph the whole train. It's another sharp looking model - that will hopefully end up at a home where it will be enjoyed. Cheers, Scott

And to finish off the weekend, a little behind the scenes tale... literally. I set up the rake of Thompson coaches on the layout one evening mid-last week, and sat Duchess of Sutherland up front. Keyed in the loco's number and away she went. Across the big bridge smoothly and into the tunnel... the train was quite long, so before the last coach entered the tunnel, I was around the valley side, watching the progress past the farm when ZAP! The train stopped dead. All I could hear was the clicking of the PSX - the circuit breaker I have inline to protect the system (and loco chips) from shorts. Click... click... click... as it reset, tripped, reset tripped. Huh? One by one I took the 11 coaches off the tracks. Click... click... click... I took the loco off Click... click... click... It's moments like that, you just shake your head and want to walk away. I'd done a comprehensive check of the circuits when i was building four years ago, and had been running test trains for the last three weeks now. What could be wrong? I could hear the PSX circuit board clicking on and off, but one of the curious things with DCC (DC too, I assume?) is that I can hear the short itself - a little zap, like a cricket, right where the short is... In this case, it was in the tunnel. What, The. ??????? I took my phone, leaned in across the layout, and pointed the camera into the tunnel Nope. Couldn't see anything useful. Try again: Flash on, still nothing. Then I remembered a trick. If you want to see a short, turn the lights off. So I did, and there, deep under the mountain, was a tiny spark as the PSX tried to reset. I took my Stalled Train Pushing Rod™ and placed it just ahead of the spark, and took the photo again: B*gger. That's near a track feed. Has something shorted there? Bear in mind, that under this section of track is the throat to the storage yard. It's nigh on impossible to get into that area for anything useful. But because I don't have the layout fascia on yet, at least I can photograph it from the front... Gotcha! Something in the 4ft. Take another photo from a high angle, just to be sure: Yep. It was an errant piece of chicken wire, from when I formed the hill above, maybe two years ago. Who knows why it dropped down now, or got shifted to make a short - the train was on its first lap and only at walking pace... Anyway, out with the vacuum cleaner, and a good hoovering of the track picked the metal up - and anything else hiding back there. Glad to see the PSX did its job. And don't forget the simple tricks, like turning the room lights off. Cheers Scott

As part of my clean up, I have been emptying the shelves of the display case in my study of inappropriate rolling stock. In that same case are some projects that stopped mid-way because I lost enthusiasm, or they got the better of me, my divorce derailed my mojo, etc, etc. One of them was fitting a DCC decoder to a split chassis Bachmann J72. I actually did the work, but it ran like a loose bag of bolts, so I pulled the decoder out, and never bothered re-assembling it. Well 6-8 years on, with a bit more patience, if not eyesight and manual dexterity, I thought I'd give this project one last look in; if it didn't work, off to eBay for a low-ball disposal. I know people get scared when they hear DCC + split chassis. No real need, just use common sense. In this case, dismantle, remove the motor contacts that are attached to the frame sides, isolate, and replace with feed wires to and from the decoder chip. I drilled a couple of small dia holes in the top if the chassis block, and use brass screws to trap the back and red track feeds. The chip is a TCS M1, which sits discretely next to the driver in the cab. It's a *very* tight fit - after I took these photos, I had to carve away some of the heat shrink, so the cab front would sit down correctly. You don't see much in there unless you are up close, anyway. On the rolling road, the results were not horrible... But on the open track, she still ran like a dog. Having said that, I noticed now much better the Bachmann Pannier I am selling ran - even more so than 60012 (another Bachmann split chassis) so I did some research, and it turns out it's a common complaint; The old split chassis construction is not conducive to good current collection (and the A4 has no more pick ups than an 0-6-0). But unlike the Princess Coronation, the two blue A4's and the J72 belong on Stockrington. They are now the only split chassis locos that I have, but I will look to replace them as they expire in the future. In the meantime, they will need scrupulously clean tracks when they run, as the short mini story that follows shows... Cheers Scott

Sorry, Cameron, I did mean to reply to this earlier, but can't find the photo I was going to reference. This is an *excellent* idea. Sometimes the non-digital, analog ways of old are best. When I read it, I reminded me of an old Steam Railway?/Steam World? article written by a driver rostered to the royal train (Tom Stavis?). In it, there's a photo of him at Camden Shed, and he's standing in front of a loco allocation blackboard, where loco numbers are chalked, and the turn they are booked for next to them. The system you describe would be a lot like that, and work very well. The only rumination I have now, is if visually it's better to have a nice mob of locos stabled in view, rather than 75% of them hidden. On the plus side, it'd keep the dust off! Cheers Scott

37/0, I think. Whatever flavour these coal sector beasties were...

Amazing more species don't, quite frankly. It'd bring the survivors into line pretty quick.