A few little things done this week

This week was a tad busy and as such I didn't get around to furthering the scenery around Kensington Hill Station. I was however able one evening to have a closer look at what work I needed to do to my CFCLA EL Class (EL51) loco to get it up and running after the Select sound chip debacle and the preceding dismantlement of the out of the box circuit board. It is a bit of a mess. The space under the shell is bugger all so I will have to look at something slim line as I am 99.99% sure that I have Buckley's to get the circuit board operational again. I have also zapped a couple of the flush mount LEDs. I have a spare Digitrax DS125 decoder that I could use. This motor decoder is very small as it is designed for Z scale but can be used in HO where space is a premium. It however only comes with two functions other than the motor functions. So specifically aimed at lights. I am thinking of connecting the forward headlight, front white marker lights, rear red marker lights and forward ditch lights in serial so that one function basically turns on on the front lights other than the front red marker lights which is OK as the front red marker LED is one of the ones I have zapped. The other function would be for the Rear headlight only. This is probably OK as it would be hardly used as prototypically this class of loco only ever ran cab forward. If I get my @rse into gear over the next couple of nights I might have it ready by Wednesday. As Wednesday is Australia Day and a public holiday I might be able to get to the club for a run. If not for EL51 I could give 4494 a run with some rollingstock. Lachlan might tag along as well.

On the subject of 4494 mentioned in my last blog, I am thinking of writing an article so stay tune on that thought. I have approached Continental Modeller and they said they might be interested but would need to see the article and photos. Fair enough! If not good enough for CM, then I would approach AMRM.

As for Lachlan's layout we did spend about 3/4 of an hour on it Saturday arvo, planning roads, the lake he is so very fixed on having, doing some more static grassing, and preparing another section with scatter before the static grass is applied. I am using Lachlan's layout as an experimental canvas in trying different techniques I have read about and seeing the outcome before applying it to Illavearf.

Well it is only three months until the club's new HO layout plans are to be submitted for consideration by the committee. I am thinking of putting something in but as I am not very experienced in designing very large layouts, I might be barking up the wrong tree but hey it is something else to fill in the evenings with!

And BTW Selleys Mould Remover works a treat on mildew. I was surprised how much of the stuff there was. Something for those with MDF storage trays or boxes, look under the foam tray inlays as the mildew was hiding there as well. As for the box, look under the box and the inside. Hopefully some fine weather will prevent the mildew from returning to soon.