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!

When I'm cleaning windows!

Today , in a bid to earn some much needed bonus points from Mrs. Woody, I cleaned the windows. Nothing extraordinary in that but she is able to see what I am up to outside more easily now. However, whilst I had bucket, sponge and squeezy out I did clean my Man Cave windows forgetting that Mrs. W would be able to see even more clearly what I was doing in there! However it is done but interestingly I discovered something that I had read about but not directly experienced. Chris Leigh of Model Rail described a couple of months ago how his Bachmann Pullman 6 car train had developed cloudy windows where the sun caught them. He had the train on his layout for a number of years but had not noticed this issue until recently. I duly noted what he had written but I was not expecting issues with anything I had until, as washing one of the windows of the Man Cave, I peered through the now crystal clear glass to spy the shunting engine on my USA switching layout now with cloudy side windows! Getting the loco off the layout showed that the clouding was only affecting the side facing the window of the Man Cave and hence the sun.

Sun side and cloudy!

Shady side and clear!

Not a lot I can do about it apart from learn a lesson! I have however removed the loco to a shady part of the Man Cave and I am looking at other possible issues but it does appear that it needs to be direct sunlight to do the damage. Maybe I just shouldn't clean windows so that the sun can't get through but I don't think Mrs. W will accept that!

5200 miles and putting a wagon back together.

5200 miles was the target I set at the beginning of the year for the distance I was going to cycle this year. It is mid October and I clocked that mileage up today well actually 5201. That leaves me with about 11 weeks before the end of the year - that is frightening in itself as to where three quarters of the year has gone and no doubt someone will tell me how many days to Christmas before to long! So I could simply put the bike away and have a restful and warm time staying inside until 2023 when I start cycling again. Or, I could stretch myself and try to break last years total of 5544 miles. Or I could actually do something a bit more stretching and go for 6000 miles. Despite the attractions of the first two options the Woody mind (and remember according to Mrs. Woody that is a strange place!) has decided to go for 6000 miles by the end of this year. So I have 799 miles to do which is not that much when the weather is warm and the winds light but as Winter approaches and the temperature drops and the winds rise, getting out becomes at my age harder! So it will be a good challenge! 

Meanwhile back in the warmth of WMD HQ I had to deal with a victim of my recent Man Cave upheaval. It is almost inevitable when you do such work that something will get damaged. In my case I was pleased that all that has been damaged is one wagon that fell off the USA switching layout. The strange thing is that it actually did not really break. It just broke into component parts which was very lucky! It was even luckier that I found the two pins that hold the bogies to the base.

The parts literally just clipped back together.

Until it was a complete wagon again. I took the opportunity to give it a bit of a clean as well and the dirty cotton buds in the picture below shows it did need it.

Back on the layout looking slightly better than before its accident! Having cleaned it I guess I should really weather it to make it look dirty again!

 

Coupling Up!

The other day I had a session just playing trains on my Last Great Project Layout. That involved watching the trains run around the layout - very therapeutic and relaxing! I also had a play with my USA switching layout. This layout is very much about shunting wagons about. The importance of couplers between the wagons and locomotive is always a matter that raises lots of chat and debate between railway modelers. UK outline stock is usually offered with a variant of a coupler which goes back to the 1950s or possibly earlier. It is termed as the tension lock coupler and to put it mildly it is ugly and out of scale. It couples reliably but uncoupling is another issue. There are uncoupling ramps available and some electrical ramp systems but they all have issues. The photo below shows a really nicely detailed class 33 locomotive but with that tension lock coupling on the front it looks somewhat strange and not what you see on the real thing. As modelers, most of us just accept it and I guess we turn a mental blind eye to it.

Meanwhile our American modeling friends have enjoyed the delights of a coupler that actually looks like a real life coupler. It couples reliably and equally it uncouples reliably with the use of a magnet which can either be installed out of sight under the track or incorporated as a crossing point. This photo of one of my USA locomotives shows how much more realistic it looks with what is known as a Kadee coupler.

The Kadee coupler has a metal pin hanging under it that is repelled by a magnet - that is it moves away from the magnet. The two photos below show the pin being repelled on the loco as it crosses the magnet which is part of the level crossing on my layout.

If you can imagine the same action happening on an attached wagon's coupling which will move in the opposite direction then you can see in the photos below how the locomotive and wagon uncouple.

The further beauty of the Kadee coupler is that once uncoupled you can push the wagon to where you want to park it on the layout - wonderful!

Why don't UK suppliers put this coupling on UK models? Well there are all sorts of answers but I guess we have just had the tension lock coupling for so long that it is unlikely, because of compatibility between existing and new models, that modelers would take to a new coupling with all the costs of converting old models to couple up with new models. Meanwhile I will enjoy the coupling up delights of the Kadee on my USA Switching layout.

WMD out and about and an experiment in filming!

Todays post is mainly imagery. Not much modelling done as here in the UK it is a Bank Holiday weekend - the last before the 25th December - (I am not mentioning that word yet but no doubt by September there will be adverts for it!) so I have spent a bit of time out and about.

One thing I did do whilst back at WMD HQ was to film some operation on the USA Switching layout that I last talked about back in April. The WMD Trainee Film Crew attempted filming a local driver undergoing training on switching duties! Some of the better clips are in this film which you can watch by clicking on the white arrow head. The Trainee Film Crew will have to do better next time but at least its more exciting then watching paint dry - just!

One of the places Mrs Woody has wanted to visit for some time are the walled gardens at a place called Easton just off the A1 in Lincolnshire. Usually Mrs W's choices of places to visit are very good and she didn't fail in that in finding this place. 

Up until the early 1950s there was a manor house which unfortunately and like so many others, was demolished. The gardens survived but became derelict until restoration work started in 2000. They are now lovely and there are 12 acres to explore. The website has full details and you can visit it by clicking here. In the meantime a selection of photos below which always make you wish you could model the landscape as exquisitely as nature created it!

With all that grass you have to included some modern way of maintaining it and this is one of two robotic lawnmowers - nice! Now if only Mrs W could see the virtue.....

Switching the USA Switching Layout!

Last week was a bit of a modelling desert in as much as I had other things I had to get on with. It happens that way and model making is a hobby so it does take a back seat on occasions. However over the weekend I did manage to get some of my USA H0 stock out and have a bit of a play with my new layout. To some enthusiasts 'play' should be 'operate' but I make no pretentions to knowing what I am doing with USA railroads. This layout is very much about switching as the Americans call it but better known as shunting in the UK. You have a few freight cars on the layout and switch them into the various sidings and you can also build up a train of freight cars to be theoretically taken away if there was a line out of the layout to a fiddleyard. Its all very therapeutic and takes your mind off other things! I will go into more detail another time. 

The pictures below showing the stock on the layout will probably leave some knowledgeable USA modelers in despair or fits of laughter given that I suspect that there is a real mishmash of eras and regions that could never have been seen together. However I am doing it for the fun of it and I am getting a great deal of fun out of it. 

Loco wise I have a few USA engines but this layout suits the Alco S-2 Diesel switcher by Bachmann. This one is DCC sound chipped and I use a Bachmann EZ Command controller which is ideal for this layout. Anyway, enough of the talk lets see some pictures.

USA Switching Layout

How I wish I could claim to have built this layout! I can't though! However I do now own it following a purchase from a wonderful gentleman who built the layout during lockdown and I collected it today. I bought the layout on the basis of seeing some photographs and whilst I would normally recommend seeing in person before buying, the photographs were more than enough to satisfy my senses that the layout was built by someone who really knew what they were doing. Meeting said gentleman and seeing the layout for the first time proved my senses were more than right! There is some fantastic detail on this layout and it just oozes atmosphere of those small mid west places in the USA where the railroad dealt with the freight of a predominantly agricultural economy. Love the little cameos and the way the whole layout flows. Every time I go back to look I see something new.

Why did I buy this layout? Good question for someone who already has a host of projects on the go. I have a small collection of USA locos and freight cars (note that they are freight cars not wagons in the USA) built up over the years mainly because I have holidayed in the USA in the west and mid west in some real off the trail places and their railroads ( note not railways!) hold a fascination for me. I have never really been able to run them and on my bucket list was a layout just like this. Given all my other projects it was a no brainer to me when this came on the market that I could get a fabulous layout and actually run my stock rather than await some distant future when my other projects are complete ( if that point ever arrives!). 

I will be having a running session in the near future but in the meantime I have been looking, admiring and in my mind I am back in the mid west USA where I had some fantastic holidays! Here are some photos.