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IPA is good but has anyone tried K2 contact spray? I don't have an outdoor layout but my unheated garage is pretty cold and dank. I have used K2 on DC, DCC and more recently on RC control with track re-charging. I have also used K2 on electrical and electronic circuitry to keep contacts clean. worth a try? Steve

Could they be carriage sidings?

The term fiddle yard is also used in German, but it refers to a track system outside the landscaped area of a layout where trains can be rearranged by lifting them off the track and replacing them. This differs from the "Schattenbahnhof" (literally "shadow station") which is only used to park trains and is usually found in the underground of the layout. I actually don't have a suitable term in English for "Schattenbahnhof". Regards Thomas

It sounds much more refined than "fiddle yard".

Happy New Year Thomas! That's looking very impressive. You must have a wonderful collection of stock to need such an expansive storage area - and this is the second one! I quite like the term 'parking station' by the way - it's not something we hear too often.

Hello everybody! I wish you a happy new year! My second parking station has been tackled and the entrance is already taking shape. It will have 16 tracks plus 2 bypass tracks. Regards Thomas

Perhaps this is a possible candidate for the next series of 'Walking Britain's Lost Railways'....? There is a viaduct somewhere beneath all that toppled bamboo! I have since cleared the snow from the bamboo allowing it to regain its upright stance and fortunately there's no apparent damage to the viaduct. These are tough times for garden layouts!

Hi Andrew, many thanks yeah I wish those curved points had a better curve , the smaller cure has a 30 radius and the larger 5 feet , the larger should have a better curve in it , I try to make sure the track coming onto the larger curve is large as well. That is the only approach module , there is 13 tracks not all are through, three aren't the are terminus track, I will have a big station building to match, based on the Denver union station building in the US. is it still snowing where you live , nice to have a white Christmas, hot Christmas over here . Tomorrow is supposed t

It's looking good, Tony. I like the way you're using those curved points - they look very effective. But I suppose with the points there on the curve, you can't really do any banking of the track. Keep the pictures coming!

Hi all, hope everyone had a great new year and well settled into 2021 , I am now getting stuck into the layout construction finely finishing the curved approach module . It is a nice morning here n down under perfect weather for working on the layout, will go down to the shed after lunch, now can move onto the first station module. Yet again I have decided to move the layout back do to the flat yard and the large return loop be going into the shed, I will make use of my gazebo to cover the control panel , have access into the shed, will finish the first station module this week, next

It's been an unusually cold start to 2021 as seen by the following chart which compares the average daily temperatures recorded by my weather station up to and including January 9th for each year since 2012. It's forecast to become less cold from today.

Another day, another walk, but I think it's probably the same Kestrel. Despite the commotion caused by so many people all deciding that a walk is the only thing left for them to do, I managed to capture a few more photos of what I believe is the same Kestrel we saw a few days ago. Certainly it was perched at the top of the same tree so it seems the tree has become it's favoured hunting or lookout post. As I said, there were so many people walking past and youngsters making such a din that it didn't appear to feel as content as it did on the previous occasion and within a few se

You are a braver man than me, though it is now above freezing in this part of the world - but only just!

Thanks Mick. I'm estimating from videos that the real gap in normal running is probably under 3ft and I'd agree I'm not going to try getting them that close in 4mm even limiting them to the main running line with its minimum 36" radius. The images on Paul Bartlett's site suggest there was a fair gap between them ~3ft but maybe that is with the instanter coupling in the long position. I have discovered on the yellow ones that arrived today that the blue plastic of the chassis is incredibly brittle and will be impossible to alter the buffers so I'm going to test a pair of the others with th

just a follow up, I have reduced the boost voltage from 15 to 12v, and repeated the 10 seconds per lap run. run speed 71 miles duration 1hr 50 mins. distance traveled 130 miles this has made the system more efficient, any thoughts on this?

Perhaps that's something I should know but I was never really all that interested in the classroom. It's a difficult one to answer because when stabled the wagon buffers would generally be touching as the force of the sprung buffer would set them apart. There wouldn't be more than a couple of inches between the face of the buffers when the wagons were in motion so in 4mm scale it would probably be unworkable. Certainly in your lower photo the gap between wagon buffers would appear to me to be too large for an instanter coupling in the normal running (short) position. However, the importa

I have been testing the EDL PP3 li-ion battery 600mAh, tested on a 4.6 yard loop and setting time/lap and running until battery is flat. 10 sec lap (scale speed 71mph) 1hr 20min 94miles range 11 sec lap (scale speed 64mph) 1hr 30min 96miles range 16 sec lap (scale speed 44mph) 2hr 30min 110miles range I have ordered some Poover PP3 batteries 700mAh these should perform better. Test loco is an old Lima Deltic, lots of room to play with.

C'mon Mick, build that blow torch car!

So I converted my first two half wagons to No5 Kadees. As much an experiment using a couple of old Lima grain wagons, one an existing one from my fleet and the other newly acquired just because. I'd seen a video of a very dirty pair of them going off up the Far North Line from Inverness in about 1986 and thought they could be heavily weathered and go in a mixed rake behind 37114. On the newly acquired wagon someone had tried to lower it but made a mess of so I decided to replace the wheelset with a new Bachmann wagon pair. The pin axles are slightly wider on these so I had to hand drill out

Most of the vape batteries are the 18650's (same as I'm using that I got from old laptop battery packs), they'e 3.7v. I put one in a wagon, with the Deltang Rx65c reciever and a voltage booster. The green PCB is the Deltang reciever and the red PCB is a voltage booster. I stuck it on my little test track (too cold outsie) The battery wasn't fully charged, and it still ran for over half an hour.

Have seen on you tube a guy who uses small batteries used in Vape (fake ciggie things) Low voltage but uses an voltage upper thingy . Sorry techno wizard l am not!

I haven't bought any Lipo's yet, but I've got several Li ion 18650's, that's why I built the "power" coach. The receiver isn't hard wired in, so I'm going to put a single 18650 in a wagon to try with a tank engine.

If you use the Tam Valley system you can use your existing DCC controller so retain all the benefits. Instead of wires from the controller to the track they go to a small stubby ariel or both if you wont. Tne Deltang system has the ariel in the hand controller. The advantage of the Tam Valley system is that you have as many locos assigned as your controller allows whilst the Deltang one is limited to 12 per control handset. Was looking at a battery wagon or coach myself, you try putting a battery in an 0-4-0 tank loco !

Pleased to see you've managed to get something up and running. Personally I still feel that DCC offers too many benefits for me to consider battery operation and remote control. As I've said previously, I encounter very few problems with power loss anyway and it takes 10 minutes or so for me to go round and clean the tracks before I can begin running trains. The addition of a stay-alive capacitor to a DCC fitted loco could easily remedy many problems that users often experience but I've not found them necessary even for outdoor running. Still, whatever method we employ to keep our tr

I think it's best to let nature take its course with this one. I've no intentions of running anything just yet so there's plenty of time for it to thaw naturally.