It's progress Jim, but not as we know it.

It's been a slow month on the model railway front all in all. All the other jobs around the house and garden, plus a busy time generally and the death of my Granddad have all absorbed my time and energy.

But still I have managed to get a few things done. Firstly I have fixed the problem on the fiddle yard and the trains now pass each other without clipping. Secondly, I have ripped up the town level ready for putting back in AT THE CORRECT SCALE height! Thirdly I have cut a new backboard to separate the fiddle yard from the layout.

I had trip to the Nottingham Model Railway Fair the weekend before my birthday where I managed to get an early birthday present in the form of a new loco - a Class 42 Warship in Maroon called Hermes (Graham Farish) - late 50's early 60's era. Strictly speaking it is not the correct region in comparison to the other loco's in the fleet, which caused much ummming and arrring about whether to get it. Then I remembered I liked it and didn't care that much... and it was the right era anyway! It looks great with my rake of chocolate and cream coaches. It's been fitted with a Digitrax 6 pin chip. Fitting of this diesel was a much easier affair than the Class 108 DMU (which is still functioning by the way). However, the loco does seem to exhibit some erratic behaviour sometimes, especially when the speed is changed gently. Sometimes there seems to be a lag between commands taking affect, even with regards turning on and off the lights. I can say I ever noticed this with the Bachmann chips but then again, I never saw the momentum effect using Bachmann chips either and its definitely evident with the Digitrax chips. I think I need to look into programming the chips to different settings. I will experiment with a Bachmann chip at some point to see if the problem goes away.

Speaking of Bachmann chips, good old Rails of Sheffield have continued their excellent customer service and will replace the blown chip once they have more in stock. Plug and play chips should not blow.

And now, bed....

Track testing, the DMU fry-up and other mistakes

Tested the track this weekend, uncovered one problem in that I have put the two main tracks too close in one section of the fiddle yard (I did wonder, but I hoped I was wrong!)



My solution (I hope) will be to ease the outer curve out. The other solution would be to make the inner curve tighter, but a, I don't want any more tight curves, and b, I'd have to cut more cork, and its rather neat at the moment!

A part from that little issue the new look fiddle yard is a success! Even the radius one curve into the station sidings works nicely. In spite of its tightness all the locos traverse it with ease. It may not look pretty but, hey, its a fiddle yard, so who cares?!

I've also started on making space on the fiddle yard board for controllers and (eventually) transformers (and possibly switches?) to control and power the layout. When I say start, I mean I drilled a hole in the base board and frame to feed through the power cables and wiring to the track! Small acorns and all that...

And onto the DMU... The DMU dummy car's lights had stopped functioning. I assumed this may be a loose connection, but in fact I found that the Bachmann DCC decoder had died. I replaced it with another from a different loco and hey presto it lit up again.... sort of - during the period when the shell was off the lighting was changing colour randomly and flicking on and off and the merest movement. I put the shell back on and thankfully it did settle, but I'm now wondering if the dummy car has a short somewhere that fired the chip.

Anyway, I am now looking at getting a new chip, and I have been recommended to get a TCS or Lenz chip due to the excellent manufactures guarantee. Its like my mother always says, buy cheap, buy twice!

Other mistakes...

I have realised my judgement of scale for n gauge is way off in some cases. Take the upper town level for example, its far too high, about twice the height it should be. So that is the thing to be changed, along with the fiddle yard back scene as I have changed my mind about the dual hieght look, and the portals are far to big.