Clay Mills Junction

I don't know what it is, maybe they are more visible at this time of year or maybe once your eye is in, you see them more when they were there all along and you just didn't see them. I've only seen one kingfisher before. I know lots of people report seeing them along the River Dove near here but I never do. My local canal seems bereft of much wildlife: a pair of mallard ducks, several swans and a pair of moorhens is all we saw last time. I don't know if it is too busy, too open or too near to the A38 for anything, or perhaps I get distracted too much as it runs alongside the railway. I'll take my bridge (thats my best camera) along next time I go to the Dove and see if anything makes an appearance. There has been, I think, a buzzard circling overhead recently. Too high up to tell though.

It seems to be lessening in frequency and magnitude the more I use it. Thanks for the link Mick, I haven't yet tried any of that but I will. The suggestion of binding in the drive matches my first thought. Perhaps there is something much more sensitive with Sound decoders. I will try that after I've re-lubed and given the loco a good run.

When I fitted the sound decoder to my MMRC Bachmann 37114 Dunrobin Castle earlier in the year I didn't do much running of it so didn't pick this up until I went to my Dad's and did some shunting around the depot. On occasion when changing direction and restarting the loco will surge slightly. I've done a little video on the window sill to demonstrate. It doesn't happen every time and there isn't anything I can do to force it. It doesn't seem to depend on whether the sound is on or off or lights are on or off. It also doesn't depend on whether the loco is stopped quickly or slowly or anything I seem to do with the controller. I've tried it with DC on a blanking plate and can't get it to do the same and it doesn't do it with a Bachmann non-sound decoder. The loco was run in when I first got it and it doesn't feel like there is any more play in the wheels than the other Bachmann Co-Co locos I have. The only thing I can do physically is re-lube when I get back to my Dad's and give it another good run. However, with it not happening on DC or the other decoder I'm disinclined to think it is the loco. I suppose the other thing I can do is try the decoder on 37506's chassis. And since it is intermittent I'm not sure it is CV related. Any suggestions welcome.

Yes, I was just throwing ideas, not necessarily good ones. Also, it was dumb of me not to think of this before, the whole point of kinetic couplings is that they are close in the straight ahead and push the wagons/coaches apart on curves. So they should almost be able to touch buffers in the straight without problems on curves. That is true, but it also seems to me that these kinetic coupler mechanisms introduce a vertical force at the contact point and that is inherent in the design. Ironically, including the kinetic mechanism must have added significantly to the development and manufacture costs.

Also wonder if Hunt Couplings might have something.

Bachmann have a decent one on their Mk2Fs. I solved the OR Mk3a coaches problem by putting them into a fixed rake with Bachmann Class 411 drawbars. This was reliable pulled or pushed but had the obvious disadvantage of not being easily disconnected and removed from the layout. The other advantage was that they are closer coupled than standard so look a bit better too. Those wagons look like they might need a longer drawbar to avoid buffer-lock, perhaps the bachmann 36-060 coach pipe coupling if you have any spare?

Are they kinetic couplings? Like the Oxford Rail Mk3a? That droop is exactly what I found with the OR Mk3a. With the coach, the coupling "boomerang" was held in place by the coach seating - not the best arrangement as the seating wouldn't stop the boomerang popping up and causing the same coupling droop. It looks like your coupling is held up at the front by a plastic piece held on by two screws. I'd have that off to see what is happening. There is also usually a spring at the back of the boomerang that drops off on the OR coach.

The lighting does give it an atmosphere, lots more lighting needed though. To a certain extent it hides the unfinsihed bits too 😂. My Dad had his original 3-rail Hornby layout from when he was a boy, we had an 8x4' layout when I was a boy and I had presents of various trains and locos during my childhood which I still have. Dad worked for BREL through my childhood, first at Springburn Works in Glasgow and then moved to BREL's Head Office in Derby before a spell at York Works. He moved on from ABB as it was then when it was rapidly contracting out of the rail industry. I call it Dad's layout because it is in his garage and I'm not there much of the time. Most of my current fleet stays at Dad's until I have somewhere to run it properly at home. Home has mostly been a workshop up until now. The two fleets mostly overlap, I have a bit more blue-grey stuff where Dad sticks to sectorisation era. The blue-grey stuff tends to come home with me though.

So, just to prove that the work I've been doing at on my Dad's layout is real. Here are a couple of photos with the main lights in the garage off and just the lights on the railway on. First is a view of the Western end of the station, both pictures were taken on my phone which makes the scene brighter than it looks to the naked eye, I think that the real light intensity is more natural than it shows in the pictures. The transformer for the lights is set at 9v rather than the 12v the lights are intended to run at so even with higher value resistors they are still coming across bright in the pictures. I've posted pictures of the 158 in Platform 1 before and behind it is my blue-grey HST set. Second picture is a view from the Eastern end and shows more of the platform lights and the concrete footbridge built from two ratio kits and some odd bits and bobs. There is still some detailing and lighting to be put on the bridge and it will need weathered. A retaining wall needs to go behind Platform 4 along the back wall and a backscene behind that. I'm encouraging my Dad to do the retaining wall soon so I can finish the station lighting with a row of single lights along it the same design as the doubles I've used on Platform 1 around the station building and between platforms 2 and 3 in the centre.

I'm at my parents at the moment. If I can get them both together and take a side by side I will. As I remember, the TTS setup went straight in to Quinag with no modification.

I never updated this thread after I fitted the speakers. So apologies. I tried a small megabase speaker and a single iPhone speaker in series (links below) giving 12ohms on the circuit. The megabase speaker needed filed so the casing is less thick but hasn't affected sound. I had to cut down the fan housing but kept enough of it so it retains the fan in place and you can't tell from outside. The iPhone speaker is so thin that it fits in the space above the PCB. It is currently pointing towards the exhaust ports, I suppose if I wanted more sound I could chop away the side of the ports but it seems loud enough. The megabase speaker seems balanced with the treble of the iPhone speaker. I'll try to get a video of it at the weekend if I'm home in time. https://www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/collections/speakers/products/25x25x7mm-square-megabass-speaker-4-ohm https://www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/collections/speakers/products/35x20x4mm-iphone-speaker-with-wires-for-dcc-sound-8-ohm

My Dad has two class 60s. They are different inside, those sold before TTS don't have space, those sold after TTS came out were redesigned with a space. As you told me, TTS decoders are 8ohm only so there are few speaker options. I think I'd be more likely to look at a flat speaker rather than butchering the engine room detail (one of the best details on the 60 in my opinion). Are the fuel tanks an option?

Progress for the garden railway today, but not on. I removed the row of big, thick, coarse paving slabs from the side of the garage, that is now all of them gone. I'm replacing them with some lighter slabs that were in the front garden. The previous owner of the house put them in when his sons had their own cars and needed more driveway space, I'm removing them to put it back to grass. I've got more work to lay them properly but they are roughly in place. For the turf to go down next year I need to build up the level of the soil, luckily I need to remove more soil from the corner of the garden to accomodate the blocks for the curved viaduct, so that solves the problem of where the spoil goes. Back up to Mum and Dad's on Sunday. I'm hoping that I can get a video of my lit HST set going through the lit up station area that I can share.

It made me sick. lol. I think I was 5 or 6 at the time.

Yes, I'd hope though that a price change at this stage would be final and indicative of release being soon. I do want an APT (as I went on a real one) and I do want a Class 91, I've put money aside for both. With a big squeeze on finances coming, I know these will be my last new purchases for a very long time.

I suspect some of the 2020 releases are not too far away now. e.g. the Class 370, the five car set has just had a £50 price hike by the looks of it.

Spotted this on my bike ride today. Not sure what class it is, but definitely a 3-car EMU.

A bit of disrepair isn't unrealistic for BR days. Is there a TSR in place?

yes, it isn't limited to any one scale or indoors or outdoors. My Bachmann 47712 doesn't like a lot of stuff, my Dad's 47710 is much more tolerant (47712 has less lateral movement in one bogie I can't figure out why and loosening the top screw on the bogie tower doesn't improve it). My Dad has one corner he doesn't want to re-lay but I do. It seems the cork underneath has expanded and caused the track to cant the wrong way (things lean over like a Citroen 2CV). Yet there is only one carriage that has a problem with it. If I re-lay it, I'd put maybe a 1/2mm cant (superelevation) the correct way.

I just meant 99% of the time we stand over our layouts looking at them from heli-view. I see what you mean about cess view now, I didn't appreciate what you were getting at before; where head height is about wheel centre height and very close.

I think we all view the real railways from trackside or bridge level. Can't think many of us were lucky enough to fly helicopters for trainspotting 🤣 so that seems a bit unnatural. The problem really is getting the camera in to a decent position for ground level. I do like "cab ride" videos too.

Ah, still likely to be power spikes. As decoders are designed to detect and run DC they'll be fine with the current of standard controllers. As long as your power source isn't a car battery 😂. If you get a blanking plate in there then you've lost nothing and don't have the danger of it blowing. The inline car bulb works with DC too. In fact my Dad's controller from when he had his 3-rail as a boy has one built in.

Do you have bus filters on your railway for DCC? Decoder frying tends to be spikes caused by momentary spike shorts across point frogs and stuff. Bus filters can absorb those as can a car brake bulb inline. The bus filter is just a capacitor and resistor so cheap and easy to make, I got the instructions from Brian Lambert's DCC page - haven't had a decoder blow on my Dad's layout since I installed them.

I still like Paint! too. They've only removed the icon for that but it is still there. Use the search at the bottom of the start menu for paint. You might be lucky and find movie maker is still there too.

Take the free stuff out of Windows so you have to pay for the replacement.