February Update

      

It seems a lot has happened again this month as I am still not going very far from home.  Activities have included Hornertown Yard Lights, Model Rail Radio, Bridge, My Ops Session, Ops Session at Picardy, Steelworks Signs, Scenery Work, Tsunami2 install, Ops Planning Session 1, Session 2 & Session 3, Website Update, Tasks Completed in last 30 days & Scheduled Tasks for next 90 days and a Day at Wayne's.

Hornertown Yard Lights

Well after trying a few things over the last six months which all failed when my Grandson visited I asked if he would give me a hand.  He was out of his chair heading for the train room before I could get out of my chair. I had left it for so long as it was a bugger of a job.

 After removing the lighting strip, I resoldered the joint that I thought was causing the problem, we put it back and oh shit it failed again…

 The second time I soldered jumper wires from before the joint to after the joint put the strip back and it appears that it has worked.  Time will tell if it was a good fix.

Thanks for the help, Joel!

Model Rail Radio

It was with great sadness that we learnt that Lawrence Eggering aka "Uncle Larry" had passed away.  I participated in the show dedicated to his memory, show #220.  I have fond memories of spending time with Uncle Larry and Lionel Strange in Indianapolis in 2016.  He will be missed by many, RIP Uncle Larry.

Bridge

I reckon about 12 years back BJ and I decided the view separator between Hornertown and Flintston would be a bridge.  Well, I finally bought the bridge section kits.  I have assembled three Rix "Early Highway Overpass" kits with a few modifications for an angled intersection.

Concept

The Build

Trial fit

The height of the pylons will need adjustment as they are about 10mm too high. I will decide if I build a "strong pylon" or build some edge scenery to protect the end of the bridge from accidental bumping.

Ops Session on 6th

Chris, Dennis, Don, John, Peter J, Peter S, Ross & Wayne joined me for the session.

This was the first run of the reduced schedule, and it was generally agreed that it worked quite well. Given it was the first ops session since last September we were all a bit rusty.  I did not get stressed out, we did stop the clock three times due to something going wrong however we did finish "before I would have had to pull the plug" and then had to finish session myself.  This is the first time in a few years we have achieved that!

Don used the ProtoThrottle for the Jimtown Turn and he enjoyed operating with it and despite all the adjustments for momentum, etc he still was able to keep with the timetable.

Some photos taken by my operators during the session are below.

Crew Room

Lessons Learnt

• I need to introduce a system to limit the number of operators attending to seven.  This will address the excessive downtime a few operators experienced.  Wayne has a system in place that I will probably copy.
  
  
• I discovered the Hornertown Yardmaster was treating the cars in the "Out" box of the industries East and West were to go on the next train. My planning had then being picked up by the Assistant yard Master and shunted to the departure storage tracks. So things were at cross purposes and lead to confusion and holdups.
  
  It would appear changing the descriptor will solve the issue
  
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• The allocated time to prepare the "Locals shunt" by the assistant Yard Master needs to be extended from 20 to 30 minutes
  
  
• With the changes to the Waybills (including less express goods trains visiting Hornertown Yard) the storage tracks have been reallocated to provide for better use.  Half as many express goods trains = half the storage Vs more local goods throughput = extra storage.  Here is the first cut of new allocation.

• The control panels have been updated to suit.

Afternoon Tea

Following the session we debriefed over afternoon tea.  Peter J took Barry's usual seat and cheese cutter role.

Peter S tests new Staging

I outlined in "lessons learnt" above that the changes to the Waybills affected the storage tracks.  Peter came over for a practise session and I found a need for further changes. I will make the build Locals into two separate 15 minute jobs as there is a strong chance that there will be > 20 cars in the sort string if kept as one.

So, there will be a build East consists & a build West consists as separate jobs.

Wayne had indicated to me that the "string of local goods consists" prepared were in the wrong order when transferred to him ready for despatch. I asked Peter to explain to me what the job card as written meant to him and I can now clearly see I didn't get the wording right so they will be adjusted!

We had a discussion about "blocking of the Jimtown Turn" to help the road crew and have decided that the list of towns in blocking order appear on the staging box so the order car blocks so it will be Jimtown, Stanvac, Adamsville & then Iron Hill.  

I am decided I must vary my first attempt as I got the balance wrong. Using an East Departure Staging Track and an West Departure Staging Track will provide a better balance on the number of cars (East – Flintston max 8 Jimtown Turn max 8 ~ West – Huntington max 8 LeMaistre max 8 [Usually 3]).

I have rearranged the labelling and sorted the cars based on the further learning.

Thanks Peter for showing me the error of my ways!

Ops Session at Picardy

Unfortunately, I was unwell on the day and could not attend.  

Apparently, the main point in Adelaide that divides the passenger roads from freight roads died as soon as they started so had to be thrown by hand.

Ross sent me a few photos...

Chris at Bugle Ranges and Barry at Adelaide deep in concentration

Peter S running through Hallett Cove Junction

Rosslyn at Birkenhead

Steelworks Signs

For the last nine or so months Peter J and I have been sharing different ideas for signage at the steelworks.  After final agreement Peter manufactured the signs and they were fitted just prior to the Ops Session on the 6th.

They look great - Thanks Peter.

Scenery Work

Strategy

Peter J has kindly offered to assist me over time with outstanding scenery work.  I am more of an engineering type and not to good at artist stuff. I am hoping to build a relationship similar to what I had with BJ when we planned and started scenery work a decade or more ago now.  After BJ passed away our whole group suffered from the lack of his ideas and critique.

Peter and I had our first sit down and think about the big picture to set the framework for discussion and then we discussed ideas for outstanding areas where work is required and agreed what materials were required.

Commencement

Peter took my Onka Valley bridge sections that I built some years back to give them a coat of paint.  He sent me some progress photos.

I have started the process of constructing the side beams for the bridge at Onka Valley.

Below is a mockup of the bridge beam that will sit below the Mani "I Beam" and under the super structure it has been fashioned from evergreen basic shapes.

I need to make two of these and a half size on that will be "cut to fit".

I have ordered some Woodland Scenics Realistic Water from Amazon for the water in Onka Valley.  Peter is going to pick up some other items he uses for our planned work.  I will no doubt be the gofer when work gets underway.

Miller Signs

The first one (Castrol) I bought from Factory Direct Trains about a decade ago and recently I bought a second (Southern Pacific Lines) from the rebranded Factory Direct Hobbies.

The final locations are still to be determined.

The First Workday

Peter gathered his goods and chattels and duly arrived and we had a session.  A few trials were undertaken and a strategy developed to move forward.  We need to acquire some different colour paints to achieve the desired outcome.

All the consumables lined up

Peter explaining some ideas to me

Testing the colours and textures

SD7 Tsunami2 Install

I think this is the last Broadway Blueline diesel that still had the orignal decoder with a Lenz Silver piggy backed.  Recently it had been playing up and a service request was lodged by one of my operators.  When in the workshop the original decoders just didn't want to play with Decoderpro to I bit the bullet and stipped them out and replaced with a Tsunami2 including adding a ugar cube speaker in series with the existing speaker to take the increased output from the new decoder.

The new decoder was speed matched to my standard freight graph and seems to be working well.

Ops Planning Session 1 V4.1>V4.2

Following my Ops session I modified the schedule to include for "Lessons Learnt" as outlined above.  I corrected a few clerical errors at the same time.  A few changes to the Job Cards for the Hornertown Yard operations remain outstanding,

Ops Planning Session 2 V4.2

The basic planning was completed consistent with the less intense operations used in session 1. The Train Graph constructed to fine tune the session and the supporting paperwork to completed the planning prepared.

I have completed the detailed running information and Job Cards for the mainline operators and Hornertown Yard.

Ops Planning Session 3 V4.2

The basic planning has commenced for the session to be held in April.

Website Update

I have updated the following pages:

Session 1

Session 2

Maybe have a look....

Tasks Completed in last 30 days 

Scheduled Tasks for next 90 days

Don is helping me using his ESU Lok programmer for RSD5 Loco 5303 and railcar 446 as they both have Lok Sound decoders that needed some attention after I mucked them up.  When done I will read into DecoderPro.

 

Day at Wayne's

I had a pleasant afternoon at Wayne's he started by showing me his recent changes to the layout and explaining the differences.  The first Ops session is not far away so I look forward to working the new arrangements.

The main reason for the visit was to standardise the locos in the fleet so we spent a few hours setting his groups of locos up to operate at the same speed and accelerate and brake at similar rates.  We used the speedo I made for him and JMRI to make the adjustments.  Wayne informed me afterwards that we configured 22 locos in the session.

That's it for now so until next time.....

-ooOOOoo-