More greyness!

 Having woken up seemingly an hour earlier then normal due to the clocks going forward I peered out of the window into the greyness of the mist that enveloped WMD HQ. However I did not put me off going for a bike ride which brought my total for hi year up to 946 miles. Not brilliant but better than last year at this time. There was a glimmer of sunshine so I thought that it might brighten up for an afternoon ride but no! More greyness of clouds and drizzle! Well that is the delight of the Easter break. You never know what weather you might get and it is certainly better than two years ago today when I looked out of the window to be greeted by this as I blogged about - click here.

Anyway, having generated enough enthusiasm to get something done I decided I really needed to start on making the joints in the track between the baseboards on my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout. On the first baseboard that I did this on back in July of 2023 it looked like this.

Those are plywood bases to bring the copper clad sleepers which are glued to them to the right height. The post about that is here. I am going to use the same method on the rest of the baseboard joints so the first job is to cut some plywood bases. Luckily I had an off cut of suitable thickness in the WMD wood store!

Out in the murkiness of the garden I cut the necessary strips using a fine bladed saw - always best for cutting plywood.

With the strips cut they were then cut to the required lengths which I had actually managed to measure before starting this work!

Once sanded they were then painted with, what else, but grey paint!

Even Milly the cat has seemed a bit grey in her  basket. I think though she has the best idea on a day like this - just relax inside! Tomorrows not looking any brighter and I am the Rocks By Rail Museum tomorrow working outside on the Easter Monday Quarry Day! Could be another grey day!

Distracted!

Following on from finishing the current stage of ballasting on my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout I thought I better run some trains to make sure all was well. However, in one of those easy to experience but difficult to explain reasons for moments, I ended up distracted and running trains on my USA switching layout. 

Part of the reason for ending up playing with operating this layout was never having tried this Bachmann Soo Line GP40 loco on it.

It may only be shuffling wagons about but thoroughly absorbing and enjoyable! I do like this layout too!

Well having been distracted yesterday I better get myself back to doing what I intended to do, today, but that could all change if I get distracted again!

Looking forward to cloud and rain?

 

Sometimes a picture is better than words and this one of clouds and rain perhaps illustrates best the weather in the UK at the moment. I did not realise until this morning when I heard the news report that last night Storm Norman crossed the UK . I think we have had that many storms over the past few months that we have just become accustomed to them.

Anyway there is always an upside to a situation and that is if you cant do things outside you can get on with indoor jobs. Now, whilst Mrs. Woody might consider that an opportunity to reduce the size of her ever expanding indoors chore list for me I took it as an opportunity to finish off some ballasting on my 00 gauge Last Great Project Layout.

As I had put petroleum jelly on the point tie bar they remain operational as the glue sets and the orange electrical ducts have been fitted so hopefully all is well! Just have to run some trains to check it out. Maybe I might look forward to some more cloud and rain if I get to spend some more time in the Man Cave!

Reunited!

I was reminded of that old hit track from 1978 by Peaches and Herbs, Reunited (on YouTube by clicking here ) when I arrived at the Rocks by Rail Museum and I was reunited with the lawn mower!

Nearly six months since I last saw and used it and it has left me shattered and aching! The grass was wet and long and it was raining which made for a battle to get anything cut. I use the work 'cut' loosely as it was more like vegetational butchery - which is something I am quite good at! 

So why didn't I leave it for a dry, warm and more grass cutting friendly day? Well this Easter weekend the Museum opens its doors to paying visitors and the place needs to at least look as though it is cared for. Despite the weather the quarry area is looking very tidy with a great deal of cutting of hedges and grass which Pam and Pete have been involved in between painting the inside of the Sundew cab. The path leading up to it is still like a stream though! However we can hope for that elusive warm and dry weather!

Even if it rains visitors can at least view the indoor exhibits and the ever resourceful John has been out with the floor paint again making the place look really smart. I just hope that I can remember that just because it is green it doesn't need cutting with the mower!

More video capers!

 As ballasting model railway track is not the most exciting thing to write about I thought that I would do a YouTube video on it! There is a bit more to it then that including some trains running so if you fancy seeing WMD's latest epic blockbuster film here it is!

Back to the ballasting!

Yes! With the track glued onto the underlay its time to start ballasting again. Not the most exciting job but it has to be done! There is a few days worth of work so I better get stuck in! just hope the ballast is stuck when I finish!

Seeing more progress!

Having had a good weekend playing operating trains on my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout, especially my bargain DCC sound fitted Class 47, it is time to make some more progress on building it! To that end the far corner has seen the track underlay glued in place, the track and points wired with power feeds and the track weathered before being glued down ready for ballasting.

The underside of the track underlay had a good coating of PVA glue.

Whilst that was drying I soldered the various power feed wires onto the track. These pass through the baseboard and will, when I get to turn the baseboard over, be connected up to the power supply. With wires in place I weathered the track using a brown mix through the airbrush - makes painting something like track so much easier!

Some of the weathered track drying. I masked up the critical electrical parts of the point sand any fishplate joiners in the track to avoid paint interfering with electrical continuity. Those areas will be brush painted later.

With the track dry it was time to lay it onto the glued underlay but not before I had applied petroleum Jelly to the tie bar of the points. It prevents the glue from the ballasting gumming up the point movement.

The track was glued down with more PVA to the underlay once the power wires had been fed through holes in the baseboard.

With all the track glued it was weighted down with anything handy, including model locomotives!

Not sure how long it will all take to dry but hopefully I can get this section ballasted soon to see some more progress!

It certainly was a bargain - much more than I thought possible!

In yesterdays post I was rather intrigued to find that the 30 year old or so Lima train pack that I bought for what I though was a bargain price of £72 had what appeared to be a Hornby chassis under the loco body with the words 'DCC Fitted' printed on it. Now if it was a DCC fitted loco then the price I paid for it together with the three coaches would indeed be an even better bargain. The only way to tell if it was actually DCC fitted was to take the body off.

Taking the body off gave me quite a shock! I thought that I might be lucky to find a DCC chip fitted but I found this!

Yes - that is a fully DCC sound installation! And it works as this video clip shows! 

This has to be the best bargain that I have had for a long time and I am really happy for what was an impulse purchase of a 30 year old train pack turning into a modern day sound loco! 

Don't know if Mrs. Woody feels the same way but I can just turn the loco volume up if she complains!

Hope she doesn't read this!

Something a bit strange or is it more of a bargain than I thought!

Well it wasn't my fault! I was just idly surfing the internet when I came across this on the TMC website.

Now there are some railway modellers who will highlight that these models are probably now over 30 years old, not the most detailed and don't run as smoothly as modern locos and to a greater degree they are right. However Hornby, who now own the Lima brand still use the original mouldings on much of their RailRoad range of models and to be honest, when seen from a few feet away, it is difficult to tell the detail differences that these have with more modern models. Running wise, the old Lima pancake motors can be serviced and made to run reasonably well although they will never crawl silently like the modern can motor with dual flywheels. You may prefer the modern version of the loco and indeed the coaches in this train pack. The modern version of the loco will set you back about £175 to £225 depending on make or you can buy the current Hornby RailRoad version which is the same body moulding just with an updated chassis ready for DCC for about £90 to £120. Coaches are available at about £45 to £60. If you went for the cheapest buying option you could put a modern version of the this train pack together for about £225 but more likely it would cost more like £350. I paid £72.

Opening the box saw some very encouraging signs. You don't often find the original instructions and other paperwork with something like this. It does point to it having been loved by its previous owner.

All the coaches and the loco look immaculate with all their buffers in place.

I took the loco out to have a closer look and this suddenly caught my eye. 'DCC fitted'. Now that is a bit strange for a 30 plus years old loco!

It was not advertised as a DCC loco but clearly the original Lima chassis has been replaced with a more modern Hornby one. Whether it still has a DCC chip in it remains for me for find out when I have the time. If it has, and bearing in mind Hornby DCC chips are around £20 to buy, than this could really be  much more of a bargain then I had hoped for!

Thinking that I may have to service the chassis I had also bought in some specialist grease for this model. If I don't use it on this then I will on others!

Oil is well or maybe not!

One of my play on words titles but it refers to a day at the Rocks By Rail Museum where I volunteer. I get involved in anything and everything which is great as you learn so much about things you would never normally come across. Take my latest visit. Rob had decided that the oil store really needed a tidy out and I agreed with him!

Not a pretty sight! Rob had already cast out a load of empty containers before I arrived.

This is what greeted me when I looked in.

After an hour or so looking a bit more organised and at least we know what oil we have. I never knew just how many types of lubricants are produced which was something I learnt! Anyway oil is well!

Whilst that was going on Dan, on light duties as he is recovering from an operation, was washing down the point switch mechanisms which will require lubrication afterwards - now where do we keep the oil?

Meanwhile the ever talented John was demonstrating that you can indeed paint a floor with a sweeping brush!

It works too! Something else I learnt!

So after the oil store what else did I get up to? Well I was giving Rob a hand to do some welding but we had run out of gas! I therefore ended up giving Andy a hand to deal with the mysteries of the septic tank and why it was failing! I won't go into the details but I learnt a lot about the workings of septic tanks, aerators and pumps and unfortunately oil is not well as the pump appears to have failed! That is a job for the septic tank company though - thank goodness!

Getting to the point when you can actually see progress!

With the baseboards joined and baseboards screwed down I can start work on getting the track permanently laid. That means more wires and soldering! Never my most liked job but it has to be done so I started simple to get my brain back in the zone as it were. The inner most curve was wired up by taking it to the bench.

With it on the bench soldering is much easier! I did also get the wires round the right way to match what is on the layout already. Colour coding and knowing what those colours mean actually makes wiring a lot easier!

Ready to go back on the layout.

That went fairly well! Hope the rest do! Once the wiring is al done then I can think about ballasting which will move the layout on and actually looks like progress! Its just getting to that point that takes the time!

Working smarter not harder as I get older 2!

Further to yesterdays, working smarter as I get older, I have to admit to yet another failure to adhere to that phrase! I had been struggling with the drill bit which was slightly undersize for the bolt I was using. I used the drill itself as a sort of grinding tool and a round file to open out the hole. Then it struck me! Why wasn't I using the flat drill bit that was staring me in the face? I fitted it and found because the shank was longer the drill was easier to use and it opened the hole up in seconds! The other hole also took seconds to open up and the third and fourth holes less then five minutes to drill and fit the bolts! Dooh!

Anyway, lesson learnt - think harder!!!!

With the boards joined I also need to screw down the base board tops which were still loosed in places! Again, another job I put off! However at least it was not the struggle I had yesterday unbder the baseboards!

With the tops screwed down I could cut the slits for the point motor pins to plug into the point tie bars. A series of holes drilled, joined together by using a blade to cut the material between them and then opened out with a small flat file. 

Two points needed the slots cutting which was done fairly easily - it must be my lucky day! With that done I cut the foam underlay to size and split it over the baseboard joint. I have also cut away pieces to allow for plywood pieces to be glued to the baseboard at the board edge onto which copper clad sleepers will be glued. These will allow the rail to be soldered to them giving a rigid joint at the baseboard joints to the tracks. It worked before so hopefully again! Just need to work smarter not harder as I get older from now on! 

Working smarter not harder as I get older!

I often highlight thing n this blog with the phrase 'Working smarter not harder as I get older!,. And as you get older you learn by experience - usually! I say usually because what should have been a half hour job to bolt two baseboards together on my Last Great Project Layout ended up taking two hours just to do half the job! If I had been smarter I would have bolted the baseboards together when I built them. It would have been easy with nothing in the way. Instead, and for reasons I cannot recall, I left it at the time thinking that I would do it later. Well a year and a half later I am doing it and its hard! I had to clear stuff from under the baseboard just to get access. Even then with the way the boards are supported I had limited access. 

Eventually I got the first hole drilled.

Two hours later the first two bolts are in and my back is out! Ouch!

 Just the other two at the other end of the board to do and hopefully my back lasts!

Hush, hush 2!

Life is full of all sorts of non model making matters at the moment, many of them related to items on Mrs. Woody's list of chores for me! That list must be like the universe - ever expanding! Anyway, what time I have I am doing small, accomplishable in an hour or so type jobs. So another loco came out to be DCC fitted. I thought that I had this for about a year but looking back through the blog |I found that Woody's memory was not that good as it was 19th January 2021 that I blogged about getting this! Gosh! Where does time go when you have so many Mrs. W chores to do!

With box out of store it was onto the workbench.

There is a great deal of packaging but some useful instructions!

The DCC chip fits in the tender which makes life so simple - just remove the coupling and undo one screw and the tender top is off reveling the DCC socket.

With the blanking plug removed the LAIS 8 pin chip was fitted and a 9volt battery applied to the wheels just to see that I had it the right way round - amazingly I did!

Process reversed and loco ready to be programmed.

With it on the track and coupled up to some LNER teak coaches it looks wonderful and runs beautifully. In real life it must have been a striking loco to see which makes the fact that none survive all the more sad.