Saturday, August 23, 2025

August Update

This month I have a achieved few things that included: New Locos, Throttle Lesson, Maintenance, Ops Sessions, Tasks completed & scheduled. It was a pleasure to have Peter R come and stay for 10 days and we undertook some of the activities outlined below together.

GP15T's

On 1 December 2023 I ordered two locos after being talked into it by Spacky. Earlier this year Athearn released a run, and my supplier did not get any. The Athearn website now shows that there is no date for the next run. I had noticed that some suppliers still had some stock, so I cancelled my pre-order when I was able to source them from Trainworld.

FedEx did its thing, and they arrived 7 days after order. In the meantime, I made the car cards.

They were run in, speed matched, consisted and put into service as motive power for the Huntington Local. Reports after the op session they performed flawlessly.

NCE Throttle

I have never used the "recall" feature. During the Ops Session on the 4th Peter S came up to me and asked: "have you used the "Recall" function?" to which I replied "No". He said he used it on his layout and wondered if it would work if One of the Locos was in a Consist. I didn't have a clue. I said "go try it as you have a few minutes spare..."

He came back to tell me it works!

There are three locations this could potentially be used:

Hornertown Yard - 2 Shunters

Iron Hill - Mainline and Shunter

Huntington - 2 Shunters

Hornertown & Huntington probably need dedicated throttles I will think a bit more and do further research before any implementation.

Maintenance

Four locos needed attention following the 1st July Ops Session.

The new decoders have arrived and they have now been installed.

Loco SW8 1109

The QSI Version 7 decoder just died during use, so it is time to replace it. A new Soundtraxx TSU-2200 Tsunami 2 Sound Decoder with 8-567BC engine sounds has been purchased for installation. I remembered to install resistors on the LED light leads this time!

Failed decoder removed

No CAN motor in this one....

I had to install a new LED for the front light and used machine pins as plug & socket for lights

Loco F7B 8215

The QSI Version 7 decoder consistently shorted out (it has done this a few times before) so time to replace the decoder. A new Soundtraxx TSU-2200 Tsunami 2 Sound Decoder with EMD 16-567B engine sounds has been purchased for installation.

The decoder was speed matched to comply with my standards and the consist tested in the workshop before return to the layout

Back in service

Loco GP40-2 7600

The snowplow was "just" scraping on the rails at a change of grade, so I filed it back to give clearance.

Loco GP40-2 7602

The snowplow is scraping on the rails at a change of grade, so I filed it back to give clearance. The rear truck derailed more than a few times. Gauged the wheels and ok. Coupler box cover was not seated correctly so glad hand could move low - this has been fixed so time will tell if it has solved the problem.

My Ops Sessions

I hosted two sessions this month using the latest strategy.

4th August

What a great session! Barry, Denis, Don, Graham, John & Peter S joined me for the first run of Session 1 (Version 7). We seemed to be more relaxed and having some fun whilst learning some differences in what was required with "thinking time".

I was able to explain the new Hornertown shunting strategy that had been applied to all build consist jobs. As we no longer have a yardmaster the arriving crew is required to clear the arrival track and place the caboose into caboose storage.

L>R Graham, Don, Peter S, John, Barry & Denis

We enjoyed some afternoon tea afterwards

20th August

Barry, Denis, Graham, Peter R and Wayne joined me. Unfortunately, Alex had a last-minute family issue that precluded him from coming. The new Ops Sessions are designed to accommodate last minute dropouts as we are all getting older and "things just happen" sometimes.

L>R Denis, Barry, Graham, Wayne 7 Peter R

Barry "in control" of the session

Graham - Flintston Local

Getting locos at LeMaistre Loco

Shunting at Flintston

Peter - Huntington Local

Building the Consist

Wayne working Hornertown Yard

Afterwards we enjoyed afternoon tea

Operations Picardy

Ross held a session on 11th, the day Peter arrived from Victoria, I could not attend but Don sent me a few photos and reported they had fun. Barry, Denis, Don & Rosslyn attended.

Tasks Completed in last 30 days

Scheduled Tasks for next 90 days

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

-ooOOOoo-

Thursday, July 24, 2025

July Update

This month I have a achieved few things that included: Ops Changes, New Tool, Maintenance, Ops Sessions, Tasks completed & scheduled.

Operations Version 7

Well after running the Version 6 Ops Sessions it was very clear that whilst the new strategy will work the time allowed for shunting activities in Hornertown was way too short. So, I bit the bullet and decided to scrap the new Version 6 and try again....

Here are the changes...

In order to fit all the activities in I had to add a session so we now will have six sessions.

Concept in 5-minute blocks

Here is the overview of the concept used to develop the detailed train graphs to prove the ops plan.

Well, the Tran Graphs have been done, and it only caused a few tweaks to timings. Here are the links if those that may want to dive deeper into the planning.

Session 1 Session2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5 Session 6

All the paperwork has been completed and the new Job Cards printed ready for the run scheduled for 4 August.

All the paperwork and job cards can be found here

Hopefully I have not made too many mistakes - time will tell and my operators will certainly let me know!

New Tool

I have purchased one of these as my hands are not as steady as they used to be. I am hoping it will assist me with some of my scratch building. Unfortunately, I paid "full tote odds" and a couple of days later they were on special at Ali Express at 65% off!

Maintenance

Four locos needed attention following the 1st July Ops Session.

Loco SW8 1109

The QSI Version 7 decoder just died during use, so it is time to replace it. A new Soundtraxx TSU-2200 Tsunami 2 Sound Decoder with 8-567BC engine sounds has been purchased for installation.

Loco F7B 8215

The new decoders have arrived - they are still to be installed.

Loco GP40-2 7600

The snowplow is scraping on the rails at a change of grade, so I filed it back to give clearance.

Loco GP40-2 7602

The rear truck derailed more than a few times.

Hornertown Yard Turnout13

During the ops session on 1st the turnout stopped throwing. Upon inspection the solenoid pin was not connected to the throw bar. A couple of days later I was on the floor inspecting the solenoid mounting and found a mounting screw had worked loose and fallen out allowing one end of the mount to drop and the solenoid pin had disengaged. I juggled the pin back into the throw bar and fitted a new mounting screw and that fixed the problem. Tested ok.

My Ops Sessions

I hosted three sessions this month.

1st July

Barry, Don & Peter J assisted to host David O, Geoff M, Reg F, Ron S & Steve W for a session with a difference. We gathered at 10:30 for Morning Tea and commenced operations around 11:00 running for around and hour before a sausage sizzle lunch then recommencing and running until about 2:30.

I was impressed with the quality of the operators, and we all had some fun and an enjoyable run. Of course, we had a few gremlins: two locomotive failures; a few tweaks required on new locos; and, a failed operation of a key turnout solenoid in the main yard.

Lunch Gathering L>R Peter J, Ron, David, Reg, Steve, Don, Geoff & Barry

Afterwards we sat in the crew room and had a chat.

I thought we had a good day and thanks for the positive feedback I have received after the event.

7th July

Barry, Denis, Graham, Peter J and Wayne joined me for the session.

We ran one down due to illness but had a good time and some fun despite Barry not having his best day on the Control Panel and quite a few gremlins. It kept me occupied and I forgot to take some pictures during the session.

In the crew room prior to session L>R Denis, Peter J, Wayne, Graham & Barry

Afterwards we enjoyed a chat and afternoon tea

L>R Graham, Barry, Me, Denis & Wayne

16th July

Denis, Hugh, John, Peter J & Wayne joined me for the session.

I operated the Control Panels for the session with only a few errors! We managed to do the vast majority of scheduled movements and due to the change to Version 7 Operations next session pulled the plug on the final main yard shunt movements.

We had few operator errors, things ran well with a few glitches, and we had fun!