This month has been quite busy with activities including: Scenery, Kits, NMRA, Maintenance, Car Cards, Ops Sessions, Tasks Completed & Scheduled.

Hornertown Scenery

Well, I finally got around to doing some work

Road Bridge

Firstly, I cut the pylons to height so the road surface of the adjacent area aligned. then positioned the pylons and marked out the footing area and centre of each pylon, drilled ready for nails to fit inside of each pylon to positively locate each one.

Walls

I think I bought from Hatton's in the UK after seeing them at Andrew's layout sometime circa 2015 I assembled the individual units then.

I have finally started assembling them for use.

I had purchased some matching stonework panels from which I cut sections to cover the gaps.

Trial fitting ensued

Another section Between Bud's Trucking and Arrowhead Ale

Another three sections between Arrowhead Ale and the bridge

The total scene

Kits

These are my first wooden kits I have built so I am learning so do's & don’ts!

I commencing building these two kits as I need to hide a Peco Solenoid Motor at Helix Junction. I was unsure which size would suit best so I am building both and will decide which one fits in best.

The roof sections were bowed so I applied some weight for a day to see if I could straighten then up

Not too bad for my first go...

Painting and windows await.....

NMRA Meeting

I attended the meeting along with 14 others at Malalla some 1 1/2hr drive from home. It was a good meeting, and we enjoyed afternoon tea and ran some trains too. It was nice to see a developing layout and it brought back memories of going through similar experiences.

Track Numbers

A while back I added track numbers in the Hornertown Yard to provide a better reference between the control panel and the job cards. With Wayne mentoring other operators how to efficiently operate the yard, he brought to my attention that the car card boxes did not have the track numbers on them, thus making it harder to get the car cards "in the right box".

They now have labels...

Maintenance

This month has seen work on

Loco Maintenance

The F7A/B set used to shunt the Huntington Steelworks have been playing up lately so I deconsisted, removed the permanent drawbar between them and took them to the workshop.

Th "B" unit is a P2k with QSI Version 7 decoder which seems to be behaving itself but the "A" unit is an old Athearm Blue Box Superheavy weight with an ESU Lok Pilot 3.0 DCC which is playing up full speed in reverse and half speed forward. The trim for forward works but for reverse doesn't despite multiple factory resets.

Don camne over between sessions and brought his Lok Programmer so we could have a good look at the problem decoder. We read a brand new decoder using the Lok Programmer and then wrote it to the loco to ensure a clean decoder to start with.

We managed after two hours of incremental changes to have it working but still could not get the reverse trim to fully function so as the locos are used only for shunt I settled on top speeds of 25 smph forward and 20.5 smph in reverse

Rolling Sock Maintenance

The end walkway of a diffco gondola, used between the loco and tank cars on my oil train, dislodged following a derailment in the Ops Session on 2nd. I am glad my operator took it off the layout and presented it to me for repair. Repair dome and it has been placed back on the train.

Track Maintenance

The mainline point to the Stanvac Refinery Lead has been causing issues so I asked Don to help me get a permanent fix as it is in a difficult spot and I thought it involved the centering spring and right rail closure rail issues.

I was right and after some minor rail adjustments and permanent positioning of the centering spring it seems to work just fine.

Clearance Issue

It was brought to my attention that the Winery platform at Huntington did not have the correct clearance, some cars have been sideswiping it.

Remedial work iwas completed

Turnout Problem

I had had an issue with Peco above board mechanism failing, this time part of the throw rod to move the blades failed.

The usual disengagement wasn't the problem

The broken bit...

I found some spring wire of the correct size and made ua lop sided "U" piece removed some track pins and lifted the turnout and fitted the "U" between the "underboard switch motor pin hole" in the tie moving the blades and the solenoid.

Tested and it functions OK.

Car Cards

I found an error on one card and another went AWOL.

Peter J has a new loco and asked if I could do one for him so....

My Ops Sessions

Monday 2nd

I ended up working the control panels as we had a late withdrawal, so Barry ran trains rather than working the control panels. Everyone seemed to get jobs they had not either done before or it was a long time ago. I also found a few paperwork errors I need to fix.

For the first time since commencing the new ops system we ran out of time and I "pulled the plug" and sent everyone out for afternoon tea!

I only managed to get a before and after photo!

L>R Barry, Peter J, Ross, Denis, Peter S & Wayne

Afterwards some of us enjoyed the debrief and afternoon tea, others had other commitments.

I had quite a lot to do in order to be ready for the next session,

Wednesday 18th

Barry, Denis, Don, John, Peter J, Ross & Wayne attended. Barry was on the Control Panel, Denis was Hornertown Yardmaster being mentored by Wayne, Don, John, Peter J and Ross operated the mainline trains. We had a great session even though people were in the main doing something new. Just over 3/4 of the way through the session a "loud transformer hum" started so I immediately hit the master power down switch. Given we were with 20 minutes of finishing I decided to cancel the rest and go to afternoon tea.

After afternoon tea Barry & I returned to the train room and I isolated the 11 transformers and brought them back online in an orderly way - no issues surfaced. I checked all supply and downstream fuses and they were all intact. It remains a mystery. So, if it happens again I will power down wait a while and power up to see if had cleared.

L>R Ross, Denis, Barry, Wayne, Don, Peter J & John

Afterwards we enjoyed the debrief and some afternoon tea.

Wayne's Ops Session

Thursday 26th

Barry and Denis joined me and our host Wayne - a small but competent crew!

Here are a few photos from the session

Here is a video of some trains in the session

Afterwards we enjoyed afternoon tea.

This was our last operating session until Wayne reduces the layout size by approximately eight feet which is to become a workshop for his "Tradie wife" who need working space. Reminds me of the saying "Happy wife happy life"!

Here are some photos of the area to be massively changed.

Mulga Ridge