Some Alterations Done

 I'm still poking around where the incline is. The new incline is working well but the set of carriages which caused me to change it still has some problems. To be correct, a couple of carriages have problems and it appears that the chassis is twisted by not very much but enough to cause a problem, not just on the incline but in other areas too - mainly on curves.

Yesterday, I decided to complete a job that I thought should only take ten minutes. I wanted to add a siding at the coal mine for a couple of extra hoppers. I have a hopper from the loco depot and an American hopper, which was a gift from an American friend, that travels to my Tathra station for unloading. I could be good to unload some supplies at the mine as well. I did think that it would be a good spot for my explosives van until it was pointed out to me that using dynamite in a coal mine would kill everyone. I'm sure other supplies could be dropped off there.

As I like photos, here is the process.

Before.

I marked where the point is going and used a razor saw on the ends of the track to mark on the track where to cut.

I then removed the length of track and believe it or not, cut out the middle. It seemed easier than trying to measure small bits of track.

Job done. How long did it take? About half an hour but about half of that was putting in the siding after finding a suitable piece of scrap cork. I then planed the top of the baseboard so that I can attach a facia board with a bit of height to prevent accidental knocking off of trains to the floor. It hasn't happened yet but I reckon it could be a possibility.

 

Before I took the last image, I also installed the windows int he coal tipple and reassembled it.

I've a busy week ahead with work and I reckon my fifteen minutes a day will be running trains.

Until next time.

New Incline

 Last Sunday I wrote about having trains running by Friday. That didn't happen. I had to order some more cork off ebay which arrived on Thursday. I painted it yesterday and it's ready to go onto the layout. The incline has been installed and I padded out a section with some green foam which I bought at Bunnings a long time ago. It now looks like this:

Compare it to before.

This time I have more space for the track. It will be laid directly onto the cork on top of the plywood incline. In the image above you can see where the incline is exposed. It had picture mounting board on it, if fact the rest of it still does and you can see the same closer to the camera. I used this method on my last layout and it ran faultlessly. Like last time I used 4th radius set track on the inner curve, however, this time I also used it on the outer curve with some short straight sections in between each double curve section to help maintain the space between the tracks. I also used set track spacing which is wider. I did this to speed up track laying of a slightly tricky bit. The cardboard was wider, but it hung over the side of the Woodland Scenics foam inclines. I propped up the edges with some foam core board. This wasn't always spot on. I'd rushed the job originally and spent way too much time fixing bits if it.

Hopefully, by this time next week, trains will be running again.

Until next time.

Stuff Has Happened

 In the last few months a lot of stuff has happened. But if I didn't blog it, did it really happen?

The last post finished with more track painting. That was done. 

I put in a section a section above the mainline on the top level for a little town scene. I've now inherited all of Dad's Metcalfe buildings, so there is a row of shops roughly placed on the top.

The next stuff to be done was the baseboard next to the station. This was put in place and buildings taken out of storage. I seem to have enough buildings to build a small city - which was the idea with the first layout in this location. I've placed a few buildings on the layout to see what it looks like. See the first picture.

It's a small square with a market. I think the bus stop might need to go but realistically, the main purpose was to empty a couple of boxes.

On the rear of this square is a small goods yard, utilising Dad's Metcalfe buildings from a small shunting layout that he enjoyed building. I though it would be good to try and replicate  part of his layout. I've done my best to get something that is fun to shunt. See the next picture for that.

I've adjusted the good shed to be parallel to the other tracks and that can squeeze in an extra bogie wagon. The yard can hold 6 bogie wagons and will be shunted by a X200 rail tractor. I've yet to steal some set track points from Dad's layout.

I've also spent a lot of time running my layout. It runs really well with the odd issue.

And, living in Sydney, I went to the Epping Model Railway Club Exhibition a Rosehill Gardens. I wasn't planning on buying much but SDS had some FO carriages on special.

They run really well except for one spot - the odd issue. It's on the incline near the door of the room and a number of cars were coming off on the same spot. It's the same spot as a few other issues. It has been packed a few times and the track isn't as good as it should be. The incline changes from a Woodland Scenics foam incline to a wooden bridge back to the foam incline. I took up the track and relaid it. It seemed to work better but it failed on repetition. I adjusted wheels and bogies as well. All to no avail. Earlier today the area looked like this:

The bridge was glued at one end and when the support was placed underneath it, the support lifted the other end, nearest the camera just enough to cause some issues. I decided to fix all the issues in one go. The inner track of the incline is too close to the other tracks. This caused some clearance issues with the scenery. I'm going to bring the tracks out a bit more so that I can fix the scenery issue. This means that I'll need to realign some ballasted track from the junction and add a bit more board as I may have cut the board to narrow originally. 

To do this, I have cut a new section of plywood running replacing the bridge and the incline. Hopefully, in the next couple of days, I'll be able to cut some timber supports and paint the new board.

I'm hoping to get trains running by Friday night.

Until next time.