You never know what a day will bring!

Whilst at the Rocks By Rail Museum I had to take delivery of some further dirty ballast delivered by this rather nice looking rig.

Just goes to show that you don't need fancy paintwork and acres of polished chrome to have a good looking combination.

Before he tipped the load I got talking to the driver. I am good at talking! He was a fascinating guy who back in the 1980's used to do runs with trucks down to Italy, Spain and Morocco as well as several other European countries. If you follow this blog you will realise I am a bit of a truck modeller as well as having had professional involvement in haulage so we also had some interesting chat about some of the older trucks such as the Volvo F88 and F12s that he had driven along with Scania 111s and Fodens as well as some USA trucks! It was a great 30 minutes or so and I was really pleased to have been able to spend some time with this guy. Just goes to show that you never know what a day will bring - especially at the Rocks By Rail Museum!

It all points well!

I was pleasantly surprised when arriving at the Rocks By Rail Museum today to find that things on the trackwork front have moved on well from last week with the point now back in place which all points well for the track to all be relaid before the Easter reopening.

There is always a need to think about and discuss th next move with jobs like this!

Also preparing for the Easter opening my work on grass cutting continues with vengeance. I did recut some areas done two weeks ago as there gas been a fair amount of growth despite the lack of rain but I also ventured down the Nature Trail where if I do any further mowing it will no longer be a nature trail but become a well maintained garden! Well that was my excuse for calling it a day! 

What better than to have a five minute break in the sun with no one around!

The only problem with going down the Nature Trail was that I could look back up the line which reveled rather pointedly that there is some work require to level it back up after the Winter!

Oh well! Means there is always a point to being a volunteer!

Formulating a plan!

Back to model railway layout building and in particular My Last Great Project which needs to move on a bit faster than it has. To that end I am looking at the station baseboard where there is a small urban station in front of the hidden sidings for the two main lines. Unfortunately the hidden sidings are just not hidden yet! So, work has started!

The plan, always good to have one of those even if I don't always do that, is to have a wall behind the station area hiding the hidden sidings with something on top. I do have a plan for that as well but as yet it is still in formulation! However to further formulate I need to at least start on the wall.

Starting with my favorite brick paper from Metcalfe, some measurements indicate that I can make full use of each sheet.

Having cut some mounting card to size I cut some brick paper sheets to suit.

I used Spray Mount to stick it to the card. Great glue but it needs to be used in a well ventilated environment like outside! So, outside I went and I used a clothes peg to hold the brick paper as I sprayed it - just hope Mrs. Woody doesn't notice!

Back inside the sheets were attached to the card.

Just to see how things looked on the layout it was temporarily place in position.

It looks a bit basic but in my mind I can further formulate that plan now!

Failure!

Fresh from the success of repairing the Hornby Class 156 DMU and fitting a DCC chip into the Lima Class 117 DMU I thought that I would grab another loco that required a chip. Should have been a simple job but this one has, at the moment, ended in failure!

I bought this las year at the Bingham Model Railway Show for a bargain £25.

It is a great looking little shunter, ideal for my USA switching layout.

With the body off it should have been an easy job to solder in a DCC chip to the circuit board.

I had never run this model as the original owner had removed part of the circuit board so that the motor was disconnected from the pickups. I decided just to check all was well before going any further. 

A 9 volt battery is enough to power a model loco. The motor turned over but jammed after a second. reversing the polarity did the same thing. 

I had an inkling as to what was wrong so one of the bogies was dismantled revealing this.

This is a problem that besets locos of a certain vintage when the use of plastic gear wheels instead of metal became popular. The plastic eventually fails resulting in the part splitting which causes the issue of the motor jamming or a rough running loco if it still moves.

Replacements are both rare and expensive if you can find them (£48 for four gears on eBay!) so repair is the initial option. Superglue can work so that was my first step.

Unfortunately, my trial on one of the gears failed! The next option is to sleeve the shaft of the gear with some brass tubing. The WMD Stores strangely did not have any of the right diameter!

So, for the moment, the model is back in its box awaiting me finding some brass tube of the right diameter. Failure for now but maybe not in the long run!