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I took the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow last night. Normally, the E-G services are made up of 7 or 8 car (2 sets of) Scotrail class 385s. At the moment they are just 4-cars and crammed at peak times. Standing all of the way. I can't see the connection between a driver shortage or work to rule and the trains being short formed. But maybe someone with better knowledge of the workings can throw some light?

I've been thinking about this a lot. I guess my work is more renewal rather than maintenance. But that is me splitting hairs. For me the frustration on this job is taking two steps backwards and only one forward. Although I'm now up and running again and it should now be good for a few years, there's still a ton of work to get back to where I once was. The backscenes need replacing. The station needs to go back in. The points need remotorising. All of this will just return me to where I was. The lesson here could be that I shouldn't let things deteriorate so much that it all has to be done at once. And when I do maintenance jobs I enhance the railway rather than just returning to as was. One enhancement will be switching from the car door lock motors to servos for turnout throwing. It is the next job to get on with. I've got a bit of code to adapt to control them, and I need to figure out a link mechanism which will work outdoors.

I decided to add roofing felt to the top of the viaduct. previously I was concerned that the adhesive wouldn't play nicely with the plastic. The plastic wasn't doing that well exposed to the elements so I decided to add the felt. Went down OK and looks much better. I risked gunning staples into the felt and thus the plastic. They seemed to go in OK. The edges got stapled every 10cm or so. Yesterday, once again with the assistance of my friend, the track went down around the curve and over the viaduct. I'd had enough of soldering old rails. My friend gave me 4 lengths of long straight track as a like for like replacement for the tracks on the viaduct. It was a still evening so soldering wasn't too frustrating for once. The old track will be fine for indoor use. With the tracks down and soldered I was up and running again. Only one bond was a failure and that was quickly resolved. Thinking about it now, to have a dead section, there must have been two failed bonds. The other may be in the point work. probably easier to ignore.  Had some friends round for drinks yesterday evening and ran trains until dark. Track performed exceptionally. Probably the best running session I've ever had. I don't think there were any incidents caused by the track and we were driving 3 trains at a time continuously looping for a couple of hours. The trains and the drivers weren't as perfect as the track and there were a few driving incidents! A mate bought his class 20 round and it wasn't running well, making an worrying noise when driving bonnet first. When we coupled some wagons to it I noticed the buffers were missing. It appears that one of my mate grown up children has dropped it on his garage floor and failed own up to it.

I have bought a couple of cheap Lima engines that had had the CD motor conversion. I threw  the CD motors away and put a good old Lima pancake back in. I've never really seen the attraction of the CD motor. I find Lima engines will run really nicely if you give them a little care and attention, even in the crawl, although I'm not a crawl fetishist... LOL

Lol, I do have some Lima in my "secondary" Fleet (old stuff not for YT). The Class 37 has had a CD motor replacement and runs quite well to be honest, still not quietly though. The Lima 156s have yet to have their CD motor conversions.

Great stuff! Need some Lima engines so they make a nice growl 😁

Hi, Your question on Youtube, that video is unlisted but can be found on near the top of page one of this journal. I'm going to re-make it with all of the wagons and locos stored at Dad's but in my garden.