Auscision EL Class shenanigans

What small amount of free time I have had late (families can really get in the way of a hobby!) I have spent trying to sort out how to best fit my Loksound Select decoder into this loco which has bugger all space in it for the fitting of the decoder, speaker and all the associated wiring! Well I think I have finally sorted out the placement of all the bits and bobs after numerous trial fits and some customisation work. Photos will follow once I KNOW this works. I broke one of the light wave guides to the front white marker lights so I have to come up with a fix for this. Simple gluing the pieces back together is very difficult. I might have to look at using some fibre optic lead and move the LED to a light box to allow the fibre optic sufficient movement. I was hoping to get some from a friend who was going to the Toowoomba DDMRC show on the weekend, but the retailer didn't turn up to the show, so I will have to wait a bit longer.
No new work on Illavearf or on Lachlan's layout for awhile now. Busy, busy, busy!

Rats in the Shed - it must be winter!

Well since the last post the weather has become colder and now the winter itinerant rats are back for some warmth in the rafters. I knew something had moved in when on the weekend of the 30-31 May I opened the man cave and the dog started going into full hunt mode. A certain aroma was apparent and on further investigation rat droppings were evident. So I got the ladder and climbed up into the rafter storage area and sure enough a rat's nest was apparent. Confirmation on late Sunday 31st arvo when I had another look after hearing some scurring sounds above me and there was a wee rat making haste out of the shed under the roof sheeting. So out came the rat bait and trap.

Each morning this week I ventured out to the shed to check for any kills. Nothing. They obviously don't like the peanut butter in the rat trap, but they sure like the ratsak. Green sh*t everywhere. By Saturday I needed more bait and obviously the ratsak was just not cutting the mustard, so onto another poison, Talon. Its supposed to be the bees knees and kill after just one feed. No carcasses on Sunday, and by this morning all the Talon had been eaten! I've either got more than one rat or this one is a super-rat that only kryptonite will finish off. That or a cat, which I don't have! The dog wouldn't be too pleased!

On the modelling front since last post Illavearf's Kensington Hill has finally received a coat of brown paint over the plaster. So scenicing can begin as soon as I have purchased some flocks, etc.

My main project in the last couple of weeks has been trying to install a Loksound Select sound decoder into my Auscision EL Class loco. Not an easy job. I had to resort to further newsgroup queries, and fortunately Marcua Ammann replied with a couple of suggestions. Now I just have to sit down with a microscope or at the least my magnifying glasses to wire up the decoder's very fine wires to the much larger wires in the model. I might have to sacrifice prototypical operation with decoder functionality, but this is probably not going to be an issue as the EL is a mainline loco which shouldn't be doing much yard shunting work. Hopefully this week I can get this done and have it ready for club day on this Saturday. Once again precious time will tell.

I'm back! - So what have I been doing since the last post?

Since the BMTS post I have been on leave. Rather than retype the rather large article I have written for the club newsletter, in summary the family and I went on a road trip south to Dubbo in NSW. Along the way I did some rail spotting and took a stack of photos. I was looking for inspiration for a NSWGR based exhibition layout. Narromine, west of Dubbo, looks promising.

We also did some poking around Werris Creek,

and Narrabri.

Whilst in Dubbo we visited Traintasia, the local hobby shop which also has a German inspired layout.

On the modelling front, I finally tacked and glued down Lachlan's track so he can start pottering around. I took receipt of two Loksound Selects for my Auscision EL class and Trainorama NSW Class 44. I tried to install the EL's chip on Wednesday down at the club but ran into space problems inside the loco. I put a post out onto the Loksound Yahoo group, so hopefully some suggestions might come back. Now I also have to turn my attention back to Illavearf and get a bit further on this layout as I have been neglecting it for some time now.

Brisbane Model Train Show

I went to the BMTS this morning. Some great layouts or layouts with some great ideas. I took quite a few photos and have yet to go through them to identify the standouts. Die Bahn, Hagley, Princetown, Thornhill, and the London Metro based layout were all very good. I might be biased but I must congratulate my club's N scalers with our fantastic N scale exhibition layout "Pine Rivers". The HO layout "Brendale" was also commendable.

Lachlan's baseboard constructed

Over the ANZAC Day long weekend I was able to snatch a couple of hours to complete the baseboard for Lachlan's layout. I will show a photo once I have secured the track and painted ground brown on the plywood. Hopefully this will be sometime over the Qld Labour Day long weekend (this weekend) but the Brisbane Model Train Show is also on, so that might distract me! It will then be handed over to Lachlan to scenic as he wants to.

Lachlan's layout baseboard construction begins

The only thing I did this weekend was yesterday afternoon. On Saturday I had been thinking about the most convenient way to build the support legs for Lachlan's layout, which would be collapsible and at his height, but not too low for me to help him when required. Then a Eureka moment occurred. I was looking at nothing in particular in the shed when my eyes stumbled on my pair of saw horses. These are the cheap metal leg, wood top ones that the hardware stores sell for $40-$50 a pair. The legs are collapsible and they were the right height for Lachlan and me. So Saturday arvo I went off to Bunnings for a recce. All sold out. Sunday afternoon I went down to Brendale Building Supplies and they had a stash. The sold them to me at the catalogue price of $45 for the pair, even though the catalogue doesn't come out until the end of the month. What a great shop! Also four 1/4" bolts, nuts and washers were purchased. By late Sunday afternoon I had bolted the under-baseboard (a MDF sheet) to the saw horses and hopefully next weekend I will be able to affix the top ply baseboards to the MDF sheet and have the layout ready for tracklaying as Lachlan is eager to get into the scenery!

One day I might get back to Illavearf! Maybe if I have a free evening this week I might get out to it, time will tell.

Lachlan's new train

Well not much happened this weekend other than going to the club on Saturday arvo as I had to work Sunday! Lachlan had his birthday earlier in the week and scored a Walthers Alaska Railroad Coal Wagon 6 pack from his Pa (my Dad). So we took it down to the club to see if we could get onto the big layout for a spin. We were fortunate to be able to get onto the layout under DC mode for most of the afternoon. This was great and it rarely happens on a meeting day! So we coupled up the wagons to his ARR GP40 and put the caboose at the end. It looked great. I accidentally dropped one of the wagons onto the concrete floor. Fortunately it landed coupler first. The Club Prez soon had the broken one off and a replacement Kadee # 5 installed in quick time (thanks Bruce!). One of the wagons had a bounce happening. So this was removed as it was affecting the running of the train. So closer inspection required of this wagon to see what the problem is. Could be a dodgy bogie, warped axle or possibly a flat spot on one of the wheels.

No modelling from me this week, so here are a couple of pics and vids.

The Thin Controller!

ARR train through the sidings.

ARR train across the bridge.

ARR train through the sidings - 2.

Until next time, happy modelling.