I & HR

[traingeekboy]

Just so you know.

http://www.redstarrailways.com/

[roddy]

Did a bit of gentle pruning today to make room for the next two boards. Hopefully these will go in tomorrow so that will take me right round to the greenhouse. It was suggested to me last night that it would be nice to join the ends together and have a roundy roundy. Of course I agreed because I was going there anyway. Interested to see tomorrow how the two ends line up for level. I have been pretty carefull with it, but strange things can happen between bubble and eyeball.

While construction is still underway, I have taken the opportunity to change the name to the Ivy and Honeysuckle Railway, as there is a lot of that to pass as a passenger.

[roddy]

The two extra boards are in and fixed. It's starting to look as though it has a purpose, rather than just being a shelf around the garden. Today I have stuck down two pieces of roofing felt. I tackled two awkward places that are curved for the bridge approach. What a palaver, especially as the second piece is behind the shrubbery. I made a bigger mess of myself than when I have done full roofs with a tar boiler. One more awkward one to get at and the rest should be plain sailing being the two straight runs down the side fences.

I've been seeing a thread about stopping smoking. Now that's hard. Well it is for me anyway. I have been smoking rollies for 50 years at the rate of half an ounce a day. Thats close to £5 with the papers. All the usual stuff doesn't seem to help at all. I can cut it to half consumption if I really concentrate, but get no further. I curse myself for picking up the baccy tin as soon as I came home from hospital last Autumn. Five weeks in there unable to smoke, and I really didn't miss it. That just proves to me that it is just habit. A doc said to me some years ago that make your own smokers find it harder because of the ritual involved in making them, and pipe smokers are even worse. He could have a point. Fortunately, I'm not suffering too much from it, as I managed to run the Great North Run aged 60, 61, and 62 with no running history since leaving school. I suppose the only way will be to stock up on sweets and go cold turkey. Weight is not a problem as I'm still 3 stones lighter than before last years troubles, and I was 14 stone then at 6 ft tall.

[traingeekboy]

I quit cold turkey and didn't smoke for eight years.

My first step was playing a game with myself to see how long in the day I could go without having a cigarette. It became my new habit. Wake up, see if I can last till 1pm or so or even later.

I did this for a while then I had a cold turkey no smoking for maybe 2 or 3 days. I used sugar free gum and tooth pics to replace the old habit.

I did this game for a while. If I screwed up one day it was no big deal, I could start fresh and guilt free the next day. Then one day I played the game and didn't smoke for eight years.

Then I had a divorce... ARGH! I smoke way too much again, and my new girl friend professes that she will never quit.

[sykarost]

Can I just say while on the subject of smoking. I smoked fags from 14 to 40 then switched to a pipe which i enjoyed (the rituals as well) for about 15 years although I had made several half hearted efforts to quit. However, the clincher for me was when my then eldest Grandson (who was 7 at the time) asked me to stop as he did not want me to die !! That shook me to the core & I binned everything within a week & have not smoked since & don't even miss it. My chest & lungs are clear as though I've never smoked & my Grandson is now 18 and made me very proud today when he got his exam results & is now off to Uni. Guys, it can be done but there has to be an incentive!!

[roddy]

Trackbed laying continues slowly. I found that B&Q have a sale on some decking boards. It looks like rejects, but at a saving of £2 per board they will do. Duly upended their stack to find the straight ones with no twists and now have a total run of about 60ft with another 15 to go when the Sweet Peas have died off. The shelf around the garden is starting to look more purposeful than just a shelf. I still have about 25 ft to fix the felt to, to complete what's there so far. To be honest, I've run out of steam a bit. Nice as this hot weather has been, I find it drains what little energy I have at the moment, and I have also been continuing with the garden work that has needed doing, but the planting of a couple of dozen shrubs in the front garden pretty has well taken care of that. All down to maintenance and mowing now. I bought enough boards to finish the job including the sidings that I will be putting in the brick shed so I really have no excuses not to get cracking. I shall certainly be well on target to lay track as early as possible next year and be running trains after that. I'm already seeing foliage problems. Where the lines run through and below climbing roses and honeysuckle, there is an almost constant drop of dead flowers and petals. That stretch will need some watching.

Incidentally, I have just run a board acrosss from one end to a nail in the middle of the sweet peas. A board from the other end to the nail proves that I am absolutely cock on the bubble with my levels. Not bad for an impatient old geezer with varifocal specs that can sometimes make sighting through something difficult.

[roddy]

We have been back to Summer weather for the last week. Rain, showers and the odd thunderstorm. Between the showers I have cleared out the brick shed where my sidings will be, and after removing the brick from the inner skin, laid the base for those sidings. I have also glued down four metres of felt to the outside boards leaving me another four metres to fix. So it's progressing slowly.

I have just read though Georges Cherry Parkway thread and noticed that he may be planning a Forth Bridge. I must have missed that first time round, but feel that I must rethink my own thoughts on using that as a template to be fair to George. There are lots of other nice bridges around for inspiration. Of the two bridges/removable sections that I must have, one will be a simple affair such as a standard girder bridge, but the other one I would like to be a bit special.

Sweet Peas are dying off already which is a shame, but when they are gone, I can fix the last board into position, and the last curve which I have roughly cut out already. I need to visit a shop somewhere to buy two sets of points and a crossover so that I can check the geometry on that final curve. For some reason, my head is not getting to grips with the Peco points/crossover thing, but that seems to be the norm for me this year, so a trip to find a Peco stockist is a necessity. Now that Modelzone is no more, the nearest is about 20 miles away.

I need to start thinking along the lines of electrickery soon. I shall be sticking with DC. I'm not going to muck around with buss wires, but will bond each track joint. Most of the bonds can be made indoors in pairs of track. Two bonds between two 36" lengths, with two bonds on one end ready for the bare end of the next pair means minimal outside soldering. I shall have a double track, each one being controlled with it's own controller. The double track will disappear into the shed and become one track to the sidings. I shall need to have an isolating break so that the sidings can be operated by one or the other controller. Should all be simple enough, but I have no experience of this, and my knowledge is extremely minimal. I shall be operating at a distance of 10 or 12 ft from all the points, so point motors are a must, together with a wandering lead to the operating console. Lot's of Winter reading to be doing.

On another note, I have an appointment with the Surgeon in about three weeks time. I hope to get an idea of when to expect my next stay in hospital. All plans can be made around that date and the recovery period. No doubt it will be 14 days of boredom and hospital food, and it will be several months before I can tackle anything heavy again. Soldering joints and modelling bridges or refurbishing wagons whilst sat at a table hardly qualifies as heavy work does it?

[roddy]

That's all of the felting done barring the missing few feet that will probably be done in about a fortnights time. What an awful job. I don't think that I would do it again this way. I think that a good base could be made to last by the use of tanalised timber (pressure treated) plus a good coat of fence stain to improve the colour. That has a 20 year life which I'm sure is a lot more than the felted boards. Never mind, it's done now and looking OK with neat joins and no bitumen spillage.

[traingeekboy]

I await the photos.

[roddy]

[traingeekboy]

Nice little train viewing room you have there. I can't wait to see more.

[roddy]

The house is very high above the ground due to the hill that we are built on. My next door neighbour has a single step to her front and back doors, yet I have five steps. The garden has a little right to left slope on it because I levelled a lot out when we first moved here. The far end of the garden is very much narrower than the house end because we are on a corner plot. That is not a perspective thing from the camera.

I really didn't want to interfere too much with established planting or structures, and I think I have got away with it pretty well by flying over, through, or behind those things, yet retaining straight track with mostly gentle curves. There are two sharper curves, behind the water butt to the right, and behind the statue at the far left. They shouldn't matter because I want neither long trains or fast trains. I shall be quite happy sitting the other side of the little fence and watching something running in each direction and a choice of three more ready to change over with in the shed just off pic to the right. There will only be two sets of points (just behind the water butt) and four more in the shed, so nothing very complicated. Each ot the two tracks will have it's own controller, and the shed will be isolated from them, but be able to switched to either one or the other of the main tracks when needed.

To think that it was towards the end of September when I asked my wife to bring me some railway magazines to read in hospital (and couldn't read them because my head was too drugged up, and the hospital had lost my glasses) and then last Christmas when I decided for sure what I wanted , it is quite surprising to see it almost ready for tracklaying. I'm still in no rush to get a bit of track down. I have a few expensive bills to find and I don't use a credit card unless it can be paid off the following month. I would rather spend time at it and do it properly first time round. I would be permanently unsettled if I relied on rail connectors until I got round to the bonding. Droppers to a buss bar couldn't be justified really as lineside clutter in roughly the 1930's. Points and signals would have been operated with rodding rather than electrics. So I shall stick to bonding the rails. Where the two bridges have to be removed, I'm thinking of wiring loom connectors used in cars. Quick and easy to connect and disconnect.

It would be nice to operate points manually, but I think that there will be too many bends and cranks to get round for it to be efficient. It's surprising what can be done with Bowden cable and some rodding though. Food for though there! I would love to have working semaphore signals too, but they have to work, and I doubt that they could be robust enough. I think you can understand that come my time with an operating railway, I shall be happier maintaining stock and running trains, than forever maintaining the trackwork, and if friends visit, I don't want excuses like "well it's been OK up to today and where's my pliers or soldering iron".

[traingeekboy]

There is a lot to be said for functional minimalism. I too want to make sure everything runs perfectly. I used to think derailments were just part of the hobby. But if you make sure to sight down the rails and remove kinks, the trains just roll with no problems. Of course points are always a little picky, but that just comes down to making sure your wheels are gauged properly. I spent a day on all my stock doing that not too long ago and it was time well spent.

The connectors are a good idea. I have been mulling over how to easily connect my bridge section for some time.

[roddy]

For my straight lengths of track, I shall ping a chalk line down the centres, and fix the track pins on the line which will wash away at the first rain. A chalk line is merely a string coated in a fine chalk and held tightly between two points and pinged. It leaves a fine chalk line dead straight. Commonly used in the building trade. Curves again can be laid out with a garden hose or a bowden cable, or even the springy wire used to hang net curtains. Hope you know what I mean as terminology changes as we cross the Atlantic. I shall be using Code 100 Peco. I do have some old Triang wagons, and if they play up, I shall fit them with new wheels. I thought of the car connectors when I moved an old wiring loom for the umpteenth time in the garage the other day. Sorted through it and found enough to do both bridges. That's my sort of recycling.

[traingeekboy]

I "Snapped" chalk lines on my streaight sections as well. For connections though, it's best to sight it by laying head sideways near the rail and looking down it. Once you try it you'll see how well it works.

[roddy]

Oh yes, always double check. There's nothing wrong with a belt and braces approach.

[roddy]

That's it, all done and ready for track. Strangely enough, now that it is all felted, complete with two removable pieces for access, I can see that there is no need for fancy bridges at all. The boards flow nicely round the garden and the two pieces can remain either flat, or have fancy bridges built to replace them. Something to do when boredom sets in.

The garden is finished front and back for now. Just some weeding as they grow and general tittivating that gardens always need. I now have some time and weather to get on with tidying my car ready for a big meet of fellow enthusiasts in October. There is no repair work needed, but I really do need to give some time tocleaning the underbonnet and chassis areas. Some are dedicated enough to use cotton buds and toothbrushes and more potions than the ladies have in the bathroom. I shall not be going to those extremes, but would like to see it much cleaner than it is. Polish up the aluminium bits and a little paint around the highlights and so on. I do have new rear suspension to fit, but that's not a necessary job, and the soft top could fit a little better so may get some adjustment work. It's not so much the adjustments that are difficult, but the removal of the seats and roll bar to make enough room. But that's all another story for another forum.

Meanwhile back to the drawing board to decide a wiring plan, and an operating system for the points. I would like to keep it as a simple rod operated system, but that will need a fixed operating position with a permanent "signal box" console fitting somewhere. This hobby really isn't just a case of playing trains is it?

[roddy]

Ordered all my trackwork the other day. Postman came this morning with --------------- packets of track pins. No track, no points, no crossovers. It feels like Christmas has been delayed. How my arthritic fingers will manage those little pins, I don't know. Pair of pliers I should think. Who remembers the handy gadget no longer available the held pins magnetically and just pushed the pins in? I suppose the Heavens will open when the rest arrives next week, and I shall have to sit looking at it all in it's boxes. Better find the soldering iron and get it warmed up.

[Riddles]

The "Handy Gadget" is still readily available. Search on line for "Pin Pusher" or call in at your nearest Maplin branch if there is one handy.

A word of warning though. They only use steel pins, which are attracted by magnetism, and steel rusts. I think Hornby pins are steel but I'm not sure about Peco.

Hope your track turns up soon.

Dave W.

[roddy]

Riddles said:

The "Handy Gadget" is still readily available. Search on line for "Pin Pusher" or call in at your nearest Maplin branch if there is one handy.

A word of warning though. They only use steel pins, which are attracted by magnetism, and steel rusts. I think Hornby pins are steel but I'm not sure about Peco.

Hope your track turns up soon.

Dave W.

Good Heavens, thanks for that. I have tried describing it in shops to be met with blank faces, and I've searched online. Must have been using the wrong words because as soon as I looked on the bay, there they are. Thanks again.