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Amblethorpe


chris
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Now this is an unexpected surprise! A video of Amblethorpe to go with the one from Dorking Garden Railway. Our forum has never had it so good.

Really enjoyed the video Chris - it's great to see layouts in the flesh so to speak. I assume you've cured the intermittent dead section?

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Excuses were over. Yesterday was was the day to rebuild the campsite. Usual techniques of scatter on PVA. Ballast, sand and static grass.

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The only problem I had was with my homemade static grass applicator. A faulty switch was replaced. Initially I installed push button replacement, but I couldn't mount it. I went for a toggle switch, which is actually a big improvement.

It was a bit of a rush job, intentionally so. I want my outdoor stuff to look as good as my indoor work, but I've learnt that just leads to frustration as the elements and wildlife take there toll. So I now try to crack on, get a good model, but without too much precision.

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59 minutes ago, jimbob said:

I hope your campers are obeying the lockdown rules! Excellent work as ever,

They should stay home and support this.    https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/greatbritishcampout?fbclid=IwAR1ZDqM4hic0qlsW4qguOvxImOkJSOlgO4zNmKwCd6GJrwa0Z1sKDda9bqc 

If you have neighbours camping in their gardens, or staying in campervans on their drives, this is what it's all about. Imaginary going away, paying £2 per night as a pitch fee, and all having a great time.

 

Edited by roddy
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The camp out is a great idea. Our two man tent is slightly larger than out back lawn and less than 10 metres form the ECML, my wife and I won't be joining in.

No much train running for me today. A massive Spring clean of the shed consumed all my day. It was time well spent. My shed has been running at over capacity for a couple of years. it's made running the railway less easy, so it's not been run often enough. Now its clean, tidy and safer I'll enjoy being in there, which will be a very nice change.

Only one issue arose. I smashed a pint glass of water in the shed. One train got a splash and a track flooded. But it was warm and windy so things dried out quickly without any damage being caused.

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Finally a day just for running trains. The forecast was for the weather to worsen as the day drew on. I decided to run trains form morning to late afternoon. Set up was slightly delayed by a damp out-field, sorry, baseboard, so scenics were put in place once the sun had removed the moisture.

For the first time this year Colwick Station was carried out of the shed and attached to the railway. It attached much better than I was expecting and trains ran in and out smoothly. I had forgotten that I'd made improvement to it last year.

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Due to fragrant breaches of social distancing the police were call.

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I was in a BR blue mood. Grabbing a box of a mates DMUs I got some trains running.

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Colwick was rather busy. Amblethorpe station also saw some action as I mainly shuttled trains between the two.

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These units are not the most reliable. They are also hampered by Hattons DCC chips, which have a annoying characteristic which doesn't help on units with a lack of pickups. The morning was fun, but BR Blue was returned to its boxes before lunch was taken. The afternoon would see more recent stock run.

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Lunch (leftover pizza) was followed by a Northern Rail take over. All my fleet baring the 153, which is in bits, headed to Colwick.IMG_8515.thumb.jpeg.d8081882204401cb25463b95191afce1.jpeg

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My Grand Central HST got it's first run of the year. It's missing a buffer, but I found it while sweeping the shed floor yesterday. Refitting it is a quick job fo this week.

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I was ruining into Amblethorpe and Barnmouth. I didn't insert the lift out section of track so didn't have the loop to play with. I chose this way of operating, end to 2 ends, because the lift out section blocks the path to Colwick Station and I wanted the to be the centre of operations today. So although Barnmouth is a through on the main, I operated it as a terminus mainly turning back in platform 1, but occasionally shunting into Platform 2 or the siding beyond 1.

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My charter train reached Clowick with Bittern in change. With the second tender in the formation the train is slightly too long from Platform 2.

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Scots Guardsman returned from hibernation and took the stock for a spin round to Barnmouth, while Bittern light engined to the service point at Amblethorpe.

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By the end of the afternoon I had a lot of stock around the garden and an empty shed. My wife enjoys the pack up shunt, she joined me as driver while I concentrated on singling. I still forgot to set the points right on several occasions. I'm out of practice.

Forecast isn't as good for the next few days. I've got a few tasks than can be completed in doors, so work on Amblethorpe will continue through lockdown.

 

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I've spent the last couple of days working on the garden, or what approximates for it. We have very few plants. Today we switched them from one side of the garden to the other. This has cleared a bed for a ground(dish) level On30 line. 

Afterwards I did find time to stick some pan scrubs on a fence panel that had been stripped of them when I repainted it last week. Could have been last month actually, time, it's loosing meaning.

This evening I've repaired the lift out section. It wasn't broken, but it was far from well. Some mechanical jiggery-pokery was required with saws and screwdrivers to get the two baseboards it links back to their original positions. Attention then turned to the tracks that lead onto it. Several chairs and a couple of sleepers had broken. In the end I realised that I had to replace the last 3 sleepers on each track with some taken from a fresh piece of flexi. Once they had been slid on it was a simple job to align the rails. It saved me having to replace a length of track.

Hopefully this will fix the railways main location for derailments. It has inspired me to work on the other spots that derail trains. This may lead to work on the permanent way or the rolling stock.

Edited by chris
grammar.
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13 hours ago, chris said:

...Hopefully this will fix the railways main location for derailments. It has inspired me to work on the other spots that derail trains. This may lead to work on the permanent way or the rolling stock.

Frequent maintenance of the track is a necessity outdoors and on almost every video clip I seem to discover another piece on mine that requires attention. It's almost impossible to lay track flat and level and for it to remain that way over any length of time but fortunately (and touch wood) I encounter very few derailments with the stock I regularly use.

13 hours ago, chris said:

...Could have been last month actually, time, it's loosing meaning....

Same here Chris - difficult to know what day it is half the time.

Great video above by the way, though the container train is running at a speed I'm more accustomed to on Worsley Dale. The HST would frighten the life out of me especially on the elevated sections!

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This list of jobs that have been put off is long. I've detailed elsewhere some of the DCC stuff I've been doing this weekend. The software I use has a roster feature which is a database you fill with all your motive power. I've done this as I've gone along, but as with all these things a bit of time to improve the quality of the data would help.

Along with text data, the system accepts two images of the loco. Quite how and where either of these images is used is unclear. What aspect ratio should be used is unknown. I persevered. Snapping and editing photos of my stock and throwing them into the system. I'm not sure how much it will help.

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On the plus side, it has got me to photograph my trains, something I've never attempted in a systematic way. I've started to add the to the Gallery.IMG_8604.thumb.jpg.12f2142c7e4b32e74aac4bfff8dbec23.jpg

This lead to close inspection of some of my stock. My couple of Lima 66s could benefit from the addition of their detailing parts. I cracked on with that today. Helped by the fact I'm reading one of those railway (mainly photo) books about 66s and  the others in GM-EMD loco family. Photos to follow.

A more useful feature I've tidied up is the loco groups. This allows me to filter down my stock so I only see actual trains. This is more important than it sounds, because I have a lot of DCC chips in trailer cars which have lights. These are all in the system so I can program them. The Amblethorpe group contains less than half my stock, which will make it much easier to use. I also have groups for my Tram layout and for my On30 stock. There's also a Thomas group.

When the weather warms up I'll be back in the garden making the most of my tidy data.

 

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I'm glad to hear you're making good use of the available time Chris. I'm sure there are other, more important, things many people would sooner be doing right now but things are what they are so we can only do what we can do.

Those little jobs like photographing stock, which I guess should be regarded as important really in case of insurance claims, and completing data in our databases, are things we can catch up with when it's not quite fit to be outside with the layout. I always thought a database would be a good idea for recording details of the stock I have, particularly locomotives, so that you can keep a record on what chips are installed and what speakers you've used, along with any other important data such as maintenance or problems you've encountered. I got myself one but rarely ever use it! I can't say that it's been due to lack of time because even the current lockdown hasn't made a great deal of difference to me - I'm doing more or less what I would usually be doing anyway. Now I find myself continually having to open loco's up to see what version chips I've previously installed and what speakers!

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The database that comes with the JMRI software is designed to hold DCC info.

The system can read what chip is in a loco, and all its CVs so you don't have to open them up. 

The photos and the groups are bonus features that are nice to have, but not usually something I do when I've added a new train to my fleet.

I'll write a thread about the database sometime this week.

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