cleanerg6e

In case anyone in the UK may think I'm over dramatising the heat factor here's a photo taken today at 1.00pm and the heat of the day will reach it's maximum at 4.00pm Roy.

That snap it garden edging people look like there from New Zealand or as we Aussies say 'the land of the wrong white crowd'. If you could use rubbercrete instead of just plain concrete it would be an ideal system for a garden level line. Roy.

No I don't mean playing the air horn from the start of a video to the end, just a toot now and again. With points on my first effort I used electrofrogs and found that they weren't as reliable as I'd hoped. The reason being that they have on the point blades a little tab that is supposed to make contact with the stock rail, but with temperature variations the little tabs expand and contracted to a point (no pun intended) where they no longer made contact and trying to keep them clean was a chore. On my latest effort I've gone for insulfrogs, but will have to put in extra power feeds otherwise when you change points with a loco in a loop say a diesel the sound is cut off due to the loop being isolated. They're fine for non sound DCC but with sound DCC every time you change the points on a loop for a train to go onto the mail line the locos will go through their start up routine. Roy.

One thing I have discovered Mick as that when filming with an ordinary video camera, if you can get the lens down to almost track level it makes the locos appear much bigger. I found that out recently when I took a look at some old footage of my first effort when I'd first laid some track. My Heljan Hymek appeared to be O gauge as did my Bachmann 9F. It's OK as long as you don't try to pan the camera as being rather close to the track the image tends to go out of focus. I didn't have the camera on a moving platform or turntable. When I start to film my current effort I'll give it another go, but if I do any panning I'll put the camera on a small turntable so that hopefully the image will stay in focus. I know I told you I don't like class 70's. My current diesel fleet is class 08,20,24,25,31,35,40,42,45,47,52, Kestrel, 8 car HST Roy.

G'day Mick, I like your 'torch camera' and although a little jerky, that's you tube. I've watched some of mine on you tube and they jerk like blazes but when I play them on my PC or telly they're fine. I was totally astounded! after all these videos from you and some sound ones, we FINALLY get to hear an air horn. I was beginning to think you'd fiddled with the programming and deleted the horn or whistle function. Your neighbours may object to too many whistles or horn blowing, but would they prefer say heavy metal music shaking the foundations 8-9 hours a day. You've also mentioned inquisitive kids. Then again all kids are naturally inquisitive. When I used to run my first attempt I got the shock of my life when I one day turned around and there was a old bloke in his 70's standing almost behind me. He'd just walked onto my property to have a look and said he was envious as he wanted to build something like I had but his wife said NO. So keep blowing those horns and whistles PLEASE!!!. Roy.

No secret at all I did it just for a test and was as surprised as anyone. I emailed Bachmann UK and told them. Dennis Lovett told me their technical staff would take a look. One of Bachmann's secrets to good haulage would have to be the use of a full metal chassis. That coupled with a small amount of weight in the boiler area probably does the trick. For really superb haulage I don't think you could go past old Hornby Dublo or Wrenn. If you had a lot of those locos and didn't mind the lack of detail as modern locos have or a cab full of motor, they would probably fit the bill and yes they can be converted to DCC. The only locos that are an absolute 'bugger' to convert to DCC would have to be the split chassis of old Bachmann and Mainline, as it involves pulling the chassis apart completely. I know that Howes Models will not put a speaker into a split chassis loco because of the time involved.

G'day Dave, thanks for the compliment. I'll hopefully get better as I have another 50 to do yet and I may use an airbrush as I've got to get competent at using one because I have to respray 9 Stanier Period 3 coaches in Coronation Scot blue livery. Two period 3 full brakes have to be modified to represent the kitchen coaches. I've had the blue Hornby streamlined Princess Coronation loco for 10 years and have on colour film a streamlined Princess Coronation on 15 coaches. It's hard to make out the blue of the loco but the silver stripes stand out quite clearly. Roy.

When it comes to track base construction for a garden level line has anyone considered using Thermalite blocks as they take track pins if your careful in hammering them in and although they're supposed to be rendered you could render just the side and then lay some of your roofing felt over the top, or lay the track work and using a mixture of quick drying cement and ballast to do the top that way. We have the English company Hanson's here but they don't do Thermalite blocks as they don't consider it to be part of their core business, or so they told me in an email. I thought they were in concrete products not apples. Over here we have a European product called Hebel which is similar although pure white in colour. You can't use ordinary cement with it either you have to use the special Hebel adhesive which is very expensive. Roy.

32-201 BACHMANN 8750 PANNIER TANK BR LINED BLACK I bought this loco in 1999 and it was my first purchase of my now large loco fleet. At the time there was little if any DCC and it was forwarded to Howes Models some years later for sound fitment. It has a micro sound decoder fitted to it and the speaker is under the cab roof. If you look carefully you can see the side of the speaker just above the hand brake lever. There is very little room to put a speaker in a Pannier Tank This loco has run on my previous outdoor railway and was capable of hauling 10 Bachmann MK1 coaches, or 56 empty 16 ton mineral wagons. I grew up listening to my dad telling of the virtues of the GWR, so one of my first purchases had to be a GWR loco. This loco will be weathered in time. Roy.

I've been having a go at weathering some Bachmann 16 ton mineral wagons. I used Humbrol matt colours No. 29 brown, No.62 leather and No. 27004 metal cote. I used an old plastic ice container lid and mixed a little of those three colours together. I also mixed in with them some baby talcum powder to give a crusty look on the frames. I used No.29 brown to give a rusty effect on the sides although I may have overdone it. I also used Evergreen styrene sheets to make a little platform to fit inside each wagon to represent a full load of real coal. The first photo show a pristine wagon in "out of the box" condition. The second photo is my attempt at a weathered wagon with a full load of real coal 3mm deep. the coal is glued to the styrene sheet with PVA glue. Roy.

G'day Mick, the speaker for Mallard is located in the tender. The only tender loco I have with the speaker in the loco is Bullied unrebuilt Battle of Britain 92 Squadron. Roy.

G'day Mick, Yes Mallard is one of my now many locos that's fitted with sound by Howes. As for ballasting I'm not sure as I have a long length of run it would take more than a "month of Sundays" to do it all and it may make the sound of the locos traveling along the track so loud as to drown out the decoder sounds. I took that photo of Mallard in between showers yesterday and all the coaches only took two minutes to take out, rail, unrail, and put back.

In an effort to show you all what I'm trying to achieve with the canted rails here's a photo of Hornby's Mallard on Teak coaches and also a box I constructed out of mounting card to put coaches in. They take up far less space than having individual coaches or wagons in their original boxes.

The LGB track rubber leaves very little rubber waste on the track unlike Fleishmann track rubber which almost seems to disintegrate leaving large amounts of debris to clean up. Also with my big clumpy fingers the LGB is easier to get my hands around.

G'day Ian, hope you don't mind if I give you some info on the ROD's that made it here. First of all the ROD's worked on a private colliery railway owned by a Mr John Brown a mining magnate. The locos entered service from 1926 onwards and the last of his purchase of ROD's entered service in 1932. A lot of his engines came from the UK and the first three ROD's took over from the ill fated Mersey Rly 0-6-4 tanks. His ROD's were numbered 12 - 24. A non-interchangeability of parts became apparent within the class. North British, Great Central and Kitson were the triad of builders that provided that embarrassment. No.18 became a spare parts engine from 1937 onwards. All locos were superheated when originally delivered but became saturated as the superheater elements wore out. 3 were later resuperheated in an effort to improve performance. No. 24 was the last ROD in service and dropped it's fire for the last time in June 28 1973. No.s 20,21 and 24 are preserved. None are operational or ever likely to be.

G'day Ian, I'm glad your enjoying my progress. I had a look at the weather forecast tonight, rain for the next 7 days. So unfortunately progress won't start again until the rain stops. But every cloud has a silver lining. I've got some 16 ton mineral wagons to weather by hand and coal to put in them. I'm guessing that in the UK you go to a preserved railway and ask for a lump of coal for your wagon loads. Here I went to an old coal mine that stopped working in 1932, but there's still lumps of coal albeit small ones on the ground. I brought two lumps home and broke them up by hitting them with the flat top of the head of a sledge hammer in an empty 15 litre plastic bucket which once held urinal crystals. The now very small bits of coal are in an old jam jar. If I upload photos of my progress they'll probably be in the workbench section. Roy.

This is how the railway looks when "closed for business". Roy.

Unlike you Mick I have not kept the boxes that my coaches or wagons came in I have made boxes for them out of mounting card. I can fit 12 coaches in one box. My loco boxes have been kept but I keep my locos in purpose built boxes I made myself. May I upload photos of my locos and give a description of how I find them say on looks and performance. Also when I bought the marquee what it didn't say on the box was that it takes 3-4 people to erect it. Yet I managed to get it up no problems.(try not to read that the wrong way). Perhaps I'm becoming the master of the unfortunate phrase.

Ive done a bit more construction to the layout. Today I completed the relaying of Springbridge loops.

Hi Mick, the spiders I mentioned can be controlled to a certain extent. King brown snakes are very bad tempered and will if provoked bite you with lethal consequences such as standing on them or as some silly people do jabbing them with a stick. We have plenty of nasty creatures down under but you just take sensible precautions. You don't leave your footwear in the laundry for long periods without before putting it on banging your boots or shoes on the floor to see if anything falls out. If you've got a spider in your boots you can see his web and you just give the opening where you put your foot in a quick blast of multi purpose fly spray. I now have a marquee to work under on hot days. Before I wore white overalls with the collar turned up and a large brimmed straw hat. That gave good protection from the sun but in 40 degree + temperatures it was still uncomfortable. At the present time I don't have unlike you a place to run my trains into for storage, but I intend to have a large room built and the outdoor railway will pass through it. Here's a photo of the marquee I use when it's hot. Roy.

G'day Dave, yes it's really amazing how something so small as a command station can do so much. For outdoor railways I think that a wireless control is pretty well mandatory as with the unpredictable weather if you can have your command station indoors and there is a down pour of rain you only need to worry about your locos and not have to hurry to get your control equipment in first whilst your locos are getting saturated, especially sound diesels with speakers under radiator fan grilles on their roofs. I know the Gauge Master does a wireless throttle and I'm surprised that NCE hasn't got a permit to sell it wireless products in the UK. At the moment as far as I know you can only by NCE wireless in the USA Canada and Australia. Even living in the UK you can't buy an NCE wireless throttle on the net from the USA to operate in the UK. The courts would have a field day with NCE for supplying a product with no license agreement with UK authorities on it's use in the UK. I originally tested my wireless DCC system when I first bought it as they say that mobile electronic devices can interfere with the DCC signal. I got my brother to stand in the front of my house whilst I went right to the bottom of my back garden and operated the Horn/whistle function on the throttle. I had a Bachmann class 20 and he gave me a thumbs up signal from the back door indicating it worked. I also have a wireless modem and two mobile phones all of which were on and over my back fence is a double track electrified mainline railway. Some say that they've got over 150ft operating distance with NCE wireless. Roy.

G'day fellers, yes Mick we've had great flocks of cockatoos again this year and because I now have covers on the railway that I've constructed so far it's kept them off. Even they can't lift the covers to get at the bonded joints. On the inside of the covers I have sprayed an outdoor insecticide as they are a haven for Red Back and Funnel Web spiders. Two spiders you want as little to do with as possible. The Red Back will give you a nasty bite that hurts like hell, and if it bites a small child will kill them. The Funnel Web spider is deadly especially the female. If bitten by her you have about 45 minutes to get to a hospital to receive a shot of anti venom and if you don't your dead simple as that. When her mate "gives her one" he has to get away quick smart because she turns round and bites him which kills him and she then eats him. Hardly seems all the trouble of courting her in the first place. In the photo of the canted curves you can see on the spacer wood what looks like black tape. It's actually a rubber strip that comes in various widths and is used to put on the walls of brick garages so you don't chip the paint off your car doors when you open them. I has a paper like backing on one side and I found if I removed that backing it glued itself to the grey painted tops. So I now leave the back on and the backing that I did remove I had to brush with baby powder to counteract the gluing tendencies of the rubber. I use baby powder on my 16 ton mineral wagons which I mix with various shades of Humbrol matt enamels to give a crusty look to the under frame. It was a beautiful day yesterday and I got some more track laid and wired up. Today it's overcast although I can now work in 40+ degree heat as I bought a 3m X 3m gazebo, what an odd name. I always thought that gazebo was a sound produced by hay fever sufferers. The gazebo is also big enough to park my highly polished pride and joy under when I'm making board frames in the garage. Roy.

G'day Mick, I have considered making a concrete viaduct myself and had a quote for one, price? $10,000 or 4,500 pounds eeeeeeeekkkk! But for your almost ground level line get a copy of the Model Rail DVD "Garden Railway Expert." that may help you quite a bit. I had intended to put mine in the bottom left corner of my block. (where the blue King and 8F climb away in my you tube video. Roy.

When it came to curves I want to try to recreate the cant on curves as seen on the full size railway. If you read modeling magazines they'll often tell you how to create the most realistic models and landscape to run them through but all on the flat. Just like a toy train on the floor. Our trains over here and I expect yours over there all lean into curves. I even saw on you tube a Chinese narrow gauge colliery line with little 0-8-0 tender locos running on very badly maintained track and on the curves although the loco bounced it's way along it and it's train did lean into the curve. So why not on models? I have used sleepers from redundant pieces of Peco streamline and cutting off the chairs have put them at 90 degrees to the sleepers under the rails on the outer edge or the curve. This is an experiment I'll just have to see if it lasts. I have used Atlas track pins as Peco N gauge ones are too small and their OO ones too big, also with the Atlas pins you get 500 to a packet.

Now we move onto track work. I have used Peco Streamline code 100 and have salvaged nearly all the track from the previous effort. Mother nature can do wonderful things and she weathered the sides of the rails beautifully. Unlike paint it won't flake off and being outdoors it's exactly the right colour. I have found that when putting the Peco rail joiners on that I they often dig into my thumbs and cut them, although not enough to make them bleed. I thought to myself that there has to be an easier way and using pointed nose pliers there's a danger of them slipping. Using your fingers and avoiding cuts to your thumbs, I've found means using rubber thimbles with little dimples on them. I believe that postal workers use them on the fingers, but I used them on my thumbs and now call them thumbles. They do cut off the circulation slightly to your thumbs but as I only use them for a few short minutes just to put the rail joiners on I can put up with it and I know longer have cut thumbs. The photo below shows track in place and the large pieces of wood on top of the white hinged covers act as weight to stop the covers blowing open in high winds. There actually cut up pieces of track board from the first effort. I didn't want to throw them away and I can't burn them due to the arsenate treatment which if burnt releases highly toxic fumes.