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Iain's occasional drivel, moans & groans


ba14eagle
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Hurrah :shock: The Sun has found its way back to West Wiltshire :!: (and I'm not working today or tomorrow)

Cleaned up the railway, which took some time, thanks to the birds who have been digging everywhere and throwing soil all over the track :x

Trains started running and 4 hours of frustration, only punctuated by cooking dinner, followed :x

The Mk1 set I have been working on, kept on derailing - same couple of bogies virtually every circuit - try them on the inner circuit tomorrow I think.

33025 - at first, a strange noise was being emitted from the sound chip when it should have been idling / slowing down. Luckily stopped after a while, but I will keep an eye on that - its only 18 months old and hasnt had that much use to be going wrong....

50007 - this loco has an annoying coupling which doesnt sit right and keeps coming out of the holder - it seems to be different to the one on 50044, so I dont know if there might be a retaining clip or cover missing...Anyway, I got fed up with it and so off came the body and the sound chip was swiftly removed and put into 50044. (I had ordered a class 50 & a class 45 chip from Howes a few weeks ago, only to find that they were out of stock. What made it worse was that they only told me this, when after 2 weeks I chased them up about the whereabouts of my order. They couldnt understand why I ordered them online, when the website said they were all out of stock - as I said, they werent shown out of stock when I placed the order or I wouldnt have been that stupid.........so, I cancelled the order - they didnt understand why :?::lol: - and I'm now thinking about trying the class 45 chip from Olivias Trains in Sheffield). This was the first outing for 50044 with sound but again it didnt go that smoothly. Somehow, the wheels on the loco had got really dirty since its last rip out of the stock box, after which the wheels, I thought, had been cleaned :? Put it on the old Woodland Scenics Roto wheel Cleaner - useless piece of rubbish - dont buy this product its a waste of money - you are better off with a rolling road and whatever your choice of wheel cleaner - fibreglass brush or cottonbud with brake fluid etc etc. After cleaning the wheels, 50044 now runs very nicely.

Lastly, I put out a short freight, but even these wagons kept derailing or uncoupling :roll: - better luck tomorrow :)

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And it has Ian :)

I ran the Mk1 set on the inner circuit today and it ran perfectly, without any upset. "What a difference a day makes".

I have also fixed the dodgy coupling on 50007.

I did a little bit of videoing of both sound fitted and non sound loco's - only problem here was my Polish neighbour who seems to enjoy making loud telephone calls, whilst walking up and down their back garden - start a video at one end of the garden and they are there - go to the other end and they follow you :x:lol:

Took some time out to help "crocodile" my daughters school up to see the Olympic torch relay - it was like the Queen was making an appearance - so many people and the kids were hyper. After waiting in the blazing sun for over an hour, it was over in about a minute! - and, I could have stayed at home and watched it past my own front door too. My missus reckons Im one of the most unsentimental people she has ever known, but even I had a few goose pimples at seeing history in the making.

Anyway, back to work tomorrow, so no more running until Monday at the earliest.

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  • 1 month later...

I had a short running session today - youve got to get in between the rain and work - havent you ;)

The main reason was to get a bit of running in with the 7F & 45 - both newly sound fitted. The video is currently uploading to YT... The 45 needs the volume turning down a touch - its still a little bit too loud.

Identified a couple of PerWay problems - a couple of points in the shed area wouldnt go over problem, with a complete lack of spring in the spring. Usually, this is just down to a bit of stray ballast, but today it was more than that. I ended up lifting both points and unfortunately, one has a broken spring and so will have to be replaced. The other would spring into the normal / straight position, but wouldnt go right over in the reverse / curved position. It turned out that a tiny amount of debris had got into the little slot in the underside, where the spring arm has to move into. Working the dirt out with a sharp knife, the point now works properly again. When I re-fix these, I wont be putting any ballast or glue anywhere near them - it seems to cause to much grief :!:

I also have a couple of broken rail bonds that will need the soldering iron's attention, very soon. :roll:

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Bachmann Mk1 couplings (and all similar 'cam' type couplings from all other manufacturers) are notoriously frustrating. They're okay if you've got only a few vehicles in tow but are prone to derailments once the trailing weight of the train increases. I've had no end of problems with these in the past.

What I can say (from my personal experiences) is that if you're also experiencing uncoupling of vehicles, especially at specific areas of the layout, then it might be a good idea to take a close look at those areas of your track. The slightest dip can be, and often is, sufficient to cause vehicles to uncouple. On almost every occasion where I experienced random uncoupling of vehicles there was always some remedial action necessary on the area of track where the uncoupling was taking place. This usually meant just adding some packing beneath certain sleepers to ensure the rails were level.

The fact that the coaches ran perfectly on your inner circuit would suggest there's a misalignment or dip in the trackwork somewhere on the outer circuit. Is there room to place a straight edge or similar lengthwise along the track?

Are there any gauges available that can be used to check track is level I wonder?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just got back from 2 days 'plane watching at Manchester Airport with my son, having indulged some time in one of our other hobbies.

Looking at some of these beautiful garden railways that are developing here, I want to move house, so I can start afresh :!::oops: My monstrosity :? is starting to look a bit poor......I know :idea: I need a windmill :lol::lol:

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ba14eagle said:

...Looking at some of these beautiful garden railways that are developing here, I want to move house, so I can start afresh :!::oops: My monstrosity :? is starting to look a bit poor....

What do you mean? - I think your layout looks excellent and anyway, you don't necessarily have to move home to get another layout!

Plane spotting....it's not really something that's ever caused a stir in me until recently. I'm still not a spotter but I do have one of those radarbox thingies that allows you to pick up the tracking signals from nearby aircraft. For some strange reason I find that interesting but I don't actually keep any form of log of the aircraft I've recorded. I know you can get similar tracking information from various websites but there's usually a 5 minute delay in their data by which time the plane's already passed by. Your own box shows the planes in real time so that you can easily identify planes flying overhead, providing they're transmitting such info. You'll probably know much more about that than I do.

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Mick - I use planefinder on the pc or on the mobile - as you say, it can be a little slow, but good enough. As far as the garden railway is concerned, I suppose I have just had what seems like a poor year - not much running , but too much maintenance. But this probably stems from less than perfection in the original construction :roll: (you can get away with more in large scales ;) )

TGB - Yep, seen plenty of videos on this. I beleive the model is at the Minatur Wunderland in Hamburg - home of one of the largest model railways in the world. Computers control everything. Their own YT channel features loads of really interesting videos of how they make the stuff - Ive favourited a few - best of all, the ones featuring the fire appliances. How they make those vehicles move about is something a bit more than the basic Faller Car system... Absolutely awesome. I really would like to plan a trip there, but as I have never been to Germany and have no idea with the lingo, I am a bit unsure :oops: I might have to get my Dad to come with me ;) - my folks used to live in Berlin, when he was in the RAF. Unfortunately, I came along after he left the service, so never got to live in the interesting places my older siblings did :mrgreen:

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ah this is the place...

Caught a pic... a bad pic mind you... of a WWII bomber flying over my house today. Figured you'd get a kick out of it, even if it's barely visible. B2_ errr... something like that... two engine plane single tail that's really tall.

griff2.jpg

i looked around for you some more. Found this link:

http://www.airportjournals.com/display.cfm/Centennial/0607025

i could swear my plane today only had a pair of engines, but my memory could be wrong. It was flying really low though so who knows, i think they keep a fair amount of WWII stuff down there. They even have some two seater fighter planes you can rent and have fake dog fights with. ( or they did not sure if they still do. )

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  • 5 weeks later...

After a good week of Ebay sales, I couldnt resist :oops: another loco purchase - Bachmann 37693 (32-376DS) in Railfreight livery. The sound has been removed, but this is not a problem as it will be fitted with either Olivias Trains or Howes sound. I was :D to pick this up for a reasonable price - I seemed to have been outbid several times on locos like this in the past.

I will now have to hook out some more stuff to sell, to pay for the things this money was meant to be spent on :lol:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back from an interesting weekend in London. Scared myself silly :oops: riding the Emirates Air Line cable car (things you do to keep the wife happy :!: ). I was ok for about the first 50ft and then hid under my jacket for the rest of the ride :oops: Also, we took a first ever trip on the Docklands Light Railway. I dont know how come I've never done this, but I really must be a bit of :geek: and go back to do the rest of the system.

Trying to improve my mood a little, I have made a start on some of my winter modelling - weathering & detailing my Newspaper train and then a couple of locos.

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  • 4 months later...

Beautiful blue sky today in Wiltshire, so despite the low temperature, I set about repairing and renewing some of my bonded joints. 6 down, 6 to go, 3 burnt fingers - ouch :x - my soldering skills havent improved :lol:

I have also been busy painting people to fit onto my station platforms. Not too many, just enough to make it look like a passenger service is warrented :!:

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I know what you mean Griff. It is bright but cold here in the north east corner of England. I have just cleaned 98 feet of track ready for finer weather and couldn't resist running a loco round, just to make sure everything was OK, you understand ;)

I have finally come indoors to warm up with a tot of malt whisky, but it was fun out there.

Great to see us all making stirring movements in the undergrowth, like animals awakening from hibernation (all bar Rossi, of course :D - he has been awake all winter)

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Went to "the big smoke" on Saturday. The place was absolutely heaving - obviously no triple dip recession there. The reason for the visit was that I had promised Mrs H that I would buy her tickets for the musical "Viva Forever" (story using / based around / told using the Spice Girls music) for Christmas - not thinking about going myself, but hoping she would find a friend to go with - alas not... :roll:

Now, I dont loathe or even dislike the Spice Girls music, but the show was to say the least - disappointing. It really did feel a bit like an excuse to get a few more quid in royalties out of people. So, my advice, if the Wife or partner asks you to take them is dont go :!: There are much better things to go and see!

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  • 1 month later...

Very :( "bobby" at the moment - my work location has a planned closure date of Spring 2014 and although I am looking for other jobs within the co. I keep getting shafted. I will have 23 years 10 months service under my belt, but will ultimately be made redundant if I dont move before the closure. Its criminal... :cry:

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