1-10-2017

Hi All,

Back on schedule again, but don't think that means you will find out what happened.  There were so many there that I ran out of fingers to count'em, let alone keep track of what every one was up to. But we did not fall over each other - what an improvement!

I know that Barrie called in briefly, to check progress and pay his subs.  Alan, who had recently been working to join the occasional members group, was there.  Helen was not, and the biscuits that I took along were a poor substitute.  Jane came by to rip George away all too soon.  Paul started to move a mountain (into place) and Geoff the Sec continued with his shelving project.  Geoff the Pres was welcomed back - boy, did he get out of Las Vegas at the right time! - and gave Dale assistance with fascia strips.   Martin installed a trestle bridge, Derek crawled around the floor wiring things up, and Greg did not.  Judy brought me up to date with her campaign (that's longer than a battle) to get our show listed on the Shire website.  Dave contemplated the new town planning requirements for John's Falls and I saw Rod looking dangerous, hammer in hand, while he spoke severely to track pins that were sticking up.  I installed point motors at Sayer until the three-way point defeated me - there's always next week.

At tea I tabled the letter from the Shire confirming this year's grant.  Then Geoff the Sec forgot that it was the first Sunday of the month, and did no more than point out that it is time that we came up with a name for our nameless branchline station.  So please give it some thought and share it with the rest of us.  Those present know that Geoff's favourite at the moment is something aboriginal, such as Gingin.  Or was that Gin Gin?

After tea we cleared (some) stuff off the track, and tried to get things running.  Some locos behaved, some have been taken away for maintenance.  Next week, more clearing up and further efforts to make the room look presentable, and to get things running reliably for the open day on the 14th.  

See you on the 8th

Peter

24-9-2017

Hi All,

This getting to the point where it is not so much a report on last week, but is a reminder for this week!

I don't think anything major occurred.  We had two chiefs, but Martin keeps such a low profile as to be practically invisible.  Paul brought in what he called a rough mockup of the lighthouse for Port Gary.  Most of us would have have been pretty proud of it as the end product.

Last week I noted that one of the points was happy to accept Hornby rolling stock, but consistently de-railed our USA locos and cars (wagons).  I put such notes in these reports to see if some one out there has a solution.  Our low profile Vice President came back with the news that glueing a thin strip of plastic to the guard rail had worked on his layouts in the past.  As is happens, that was what I was going to try - but it is so reassuring to hear that it is a proven fix.  The point at the club is now fixed.

The Senior's Open Day is bearing down on us (14th Oct) and I believe that we intend to get some trains running on Sunday.  Much better to show things working than to explain why they are not.

See you on Sunday - and remember to put clocks forward

Peter

17-9-2017

Hi All,

Tuesday evening already - I had better knock out a few words before the short term memory fails me altogether.

So, with only one Chief present, the Indians were able to get on with things quite nicely.  Truth to tell, we did need the Chief - he had the keys.  When we did get inside it was plain to see that that Derek had put my borrowed keys to good use during the week.  You can always tell where a sparkie has been at work - there is a trail of bits of wire and insulation.  Quite unabashed, he carried on doing the same all afternoon.  Following on from a comment by Derek about USA diesels derailing when he tested his wiring, I re-aligned a curved point and swapped another that had its actuator boss cut off from the wrong side.  The re-alignment did not help.  Both locos and wagons (freight cars) of USA origin continued to derail, whereas Hornby stock would fly through.  The problem appears to be that fine scale wheels are not held into the curve by the guard rail, so that the outer wheel can ride up on the frog and derail (bl**dy insulfrog).  It may be down to the difference between 3.5mm and 4mm scale but, whatever it is, more work is required to solve the issue in perpetuity.

Oblivious to all this, Dale finished clearing out the long room and later in the day, after George and I scavenged anything even slightly useful, we cleaned the floor and gave back to the Seniors the table tops that had been cluttering up our new store room, plus the two tables that had been in the middle of the new room.  We are out of there, folks!  Alan Droscher was even there, to help us celebrate.

On the new layout, Grant and Rod finally solved the riddle of how to connect the branch line to the Port Gary wharves.  Greg lent moral support to Derek (i.e. I did not see him crawling around under the benches).  Helen indulged her penchant for tidying things up - somewhat inhibited by cries of "Don't put that away - I'll never find it again".  George shuttled back and forth with quarry bits.  Judy helped with anything that she was asked to do.  Ernie was with us initially, deep in discussion with Dale, then left early with a commitment to watching a footy match and the intention to build a farm house.  

Spoiled for choice at tea - chocolate cake from Helen and little berry cakelet things from Jane (I don't know what these things are - I just enjoy them) - conversation turned to such burning topics as how hard it is to break into the pill bottles for the pills that we all seem to need these days.  And also every other child proof container that we seem to be stuck with nowadays.  It remains a mystery to us all - how did we survive to our current ripe old age?

If I survive another week - see you on the 24th

Peter

10 - 9 - 2017

Hi All,

As promised it was demolition day.  I think that everybody - bar Derek and Greg - had a spell in the long room, tearing down the remains of our learning curve.  

Our two sparkies devoted their time to laying in wires and continuing the discourse on raspberry pies.  For the rest of us it was out with the electric drills, who's got the bit for these bl--dy square head screws, ouch I didn't see that screw tip sticking out, pass me the crowbar - no make that the hammer, and give us a lift with this.  By time to go home the long room is clear and clean, apart from one lonely piece of bench, Geoff the Sec's trailer was loaded high and wide if not handsome, and a  bunch of old men were wandering about saying "Don't know about you, but I'm st-ff-d"

We had the sense to break off at one point to sample scones with jam and cream, and talk earnestly about same sex marriage - no one present had any first hand experience, so it was a bit one sided.

Our thanks to the effort put in by Geoff tS, Dale, Martin, Judy, George, Helen, Rod, David, and the sparkies of course.

Next week we should be back to building rather than destroying.

Peter

3 - 9 - 2017

Hi All,

Nine of us turned up to play on Daddy's Day.  Not all were Daddies.

I arrived a bit later than usual to find half the mob there and already busy.  The stealth team had been in during the week and had poked, prodded and muttered incantations until the Digitrax booster began to boost.  Derek was following up this warm and fuzzy moment by connecting point motors to his revised power supply and demonstrating that crossovers now switched back and forth.  Sadly, at the end of the day, he left muttering about LEDs, AC loops, and having a drink.  Rod was playing Charades - the answer is that he was pretending to be a Crown fork lift truck,  (picking them up and putting them down) as he went around fixing the points that had been laid with metal rail joiners to the frogs.  Martin arrived with prefabricated walls for Mousehole Gorge, and Port Gary marched in, tucked under Paul's arm.  The bar for scenery standards on our new layout is being set pretty high.  Helen and Judy came, which improved the afternoon tea prospects beyond all measure.  I eventually finished nailing down the Sayer yard - as far as I will go until the turntable arrives - and Geoff the Sec did the same with his branch line tracks - as far as he can go until the coal flood loader arrives.  And we all managed to keep Dale busy with a stream of "have we got?  have you seen?  where is?  what do you think about?"

Over tea and coffee, after our inaugural monthly committee meeting, conversation revolved around exhibition layouts - triggered by comments from those who had exhibited at, or taken kids to, AMRA's Show at Caulfield.  A success from AMRA's side - big attendance - which brings its own problems with parking, moving around the venue, and catering.   Also rather inward looking, not much for kids, and too many trade stands and exhibits that were not well presented.  With "the holiday mob" making up the bulk of our patrons we have to strike a different balance - and this has drawn favourable comment from many of our exhibitors in the past.

Next week is planned to be a working bee, with a blitz to clear the long room - most of what is left is destined for the tip.

See you then,

Peter

27 - 8 - 2017

Hi All,

Another quietly industrious day at the Club.  We welcomed new member Bernie, who will not be reading this because I don't have an email address for him.  In fact, it is possible that nobody has.

I had gone in thinking that I might "help" Derek with the command station / booster problem.  However it seems that Derek had decided that Greg was the man to solve this, and so devoted himself to wiring Stanley Creek point motors to the first of our new control panels.  Looks very smart, and very practical.  Funny thing - I tested the points and motors as I installed them, using a little 12v plug pack.  When Derek connected them to the 16v dedicated supply they did not work.  Various theories are being explored, fortunately none involve requisitioning my plug pack.

Rod continued to lay track at Mousehole, eventually saying something along the lines of "Oh, was I supposed to put insulated joiners on these points?"  I saw him later, laying track at John's Falls, and did not ask what had happened in between times.  Geoff the Sec, having finished with the nameless station, was also advancing on John's Falls from the other direction.  Helen arrived with about 10 feet of USA rolling stock and a nice Co Co diesel, and tried to run the consist.  Essentially, what it proved was that locos need clean wheels.  Judy had also arrived, wrapped in as many layers as Helen, and complaining just as much about the cold.  Bernie, having spent some time trying to figure out what we all doing, went off the the long room to help Geoff the Pres and Dale with their wrecking/dismantling activities.  There is now a sizeable space in there.  The layout of the Sayer freight yard has now been settled, an exercise made more interesting by having eight right hand points but only one left hand point to work with, and track is starting to go down.  Both Sayer and Mousehole await the turntables that Greg has foolishly offered to assemble.

That's all, folks - see you in the Spring (that's next week).

Peter

13 - 8 - 2017

Hi All

On a beautiful winter's afternoon we had a near complete turn out of our very own G men - Greg, Grant, George and Geoff - lacking only our other Geoff.

Greg, back from his inspection of countries to the North, "assisted" Derek with transferring the Digitrax Command Station and Booster from the old layout to the new.  And then they tried to connect these to the new layout in a manner that would make things run.  Greg is probably still waking in the small hours screaming "Why does it say 'Trk=Idle'?"  It made me so glad that all I did a few weeks ago was to hook up the Zephyr unit, and simply run trains. 

This week, I stuck to my plan and finished the track at Stanley Creek Freight Yard.  Even installed point motors, right up to the time when the penultimate combination refused to work.  Three point motors later, I fear that the point is the root of all problems.  So, having had the immortal cup of tea, I went home.

Martin continued to combine pieces of cork into a facsimile of rock faces along the walls of the chasm that has opened up between the quarry and Mousehole.  George, after a brief session at the quarry with a very tiny saw, went off to join his fellow G men on the learning curve.  Looking in there later on, I found that they had spent the afternoon turning a once nearly finished layout into some thing that looks like Donald Trump's preferred vision for North Korea.  We are now well on the way to handing that area back to the Seniors Committee to fill with their own junk.

Don't forget it is our AGM next week - don't worry, it won't take much longer than our average tea break.

Peter