Modellers, rivet counters and DCC

This weekend I met a fellow train modeller who exhibited none of the traits I worry keen modellers might have. Let me use the term rivet counters to separate the ones I worry about from the modellers who do have social skills, are not obsessive over details, and do not make one uncomfortable after more than five minutes in their company.

This modeller is a member of a train modelling club in my vicinity who runs DCC and knows other who do the same. This raises some interesting questions. Given an invitation to visit the club, am I willing to subject my modelling skills (or lack thereof), modelling philosophy, railway knowledge and perhaps most importantly the family budget to being part of such a group? Will they all be as sociable and personable as my initial contact? Will there be rivet counters who will deride my 15" radii in HO scale, my not complete vale gear on my 0-4-0 dockside, the TYCO(c) trains from my childhood that now enjoy Kadee(c) couplers and metal wheel sets but still have the original crummy detail? Stay tuned, the evening of the first Wednesday of every month may become booked up in my calendar, if I am brave enough!

The other big question that comes to mind is of course, to DCC or not to DCC? Cons: cost, difficulty of fitting decoders in N scale locos, cost, poor soldering skills, cost, fitting sound decoders plus speakers and cost to name the big ones. Pros: the possibility of sound! (huffing and puffing when starting, screeching loudly when stopping and Westinghouse(c) air pump wheezing away when idle, the mind boggles and the ears tingle: samples of Tsunami(c) brand decoder sounds here) carriage and locomotive lights acting independently of whether the locomotive is moving while still being consistent with direction of travel, low speed control even better than pulse control, and the big win: independent control of multiple locomotives on the same piece of track (no more twin cab control that attempts to emulate this but relies on each train being on an isolated section.) This is the dream of those who wish to follow prototype operational practice: double heading, helper locomotives only for the hill run, trains dancing a full ballet as the system moves goods and people from place to place...

Currently the answer is not to DCC, yet. While work proceeds on getting the current N-scale shelf layout more scenicked and up and running again, re-tracking and scenicking the N-scale Christmas project (when the track arrives...), scenicking the HO 4' by 3', setting up an Auto Distribution Facility diorama, planning the larger HO hole in the middle layout plus there is that thing called living that also seems to take up so much modelling time. Funding those projects and real life are also the current priority. Speaking of real life, that's it here till next time folks!

P.S. A picture of what is definitely one of the smallest decoders, courtesy of those clever Germans at ESU/LokSound

And for those with a ruler, it is 13.5mm x 9.0mm x 3.5 mm. For the Australians in the audience, it is slightly thicker than a $2 coin BUT in length and breadth fits inside the coin in the picture which looks dimensionally similar to an old Australian 1 cent piece!

Thomas, trays, timber cutting

Well at least it's closer to the Friday night than last week's entry ended up being. So the Thomas part: my daughter has had a chance to run her Thomas without issues on the over and under HO layout. Hornby's 0-6-0 Thomas has quite a long wheel base for the 15" radius inner track on the over and under HO layout so track joins needed to be tweaked for smooth running. Of course this has pay offs for all locomotives and rolling stock too, everyone runs better over those joins now.

The over and under HO layout now has a tray underneath courtesy of my most recent Bunning's outings: some 12mm plywood and some pine edging/reinforcing. The tray allows me to store unused rolling stock on a piece of track under cover also storing tools, spares, parts and so on. The plan that has already started is to then clear off the tops of the workbenches so that they can be workbenches not just storage.

The second piece of 1830mm * 945mm ply has been divided up into two Ls and some carefully planned pieces to create a layout 1260 * 2115mm with a 630 * 1485mm cutout in the centre where scenery, backdrops or even a male 30 something waist line will fit.

The lesson about measuring twice and cutting once was learnt when making the tray which needed to be shortened after being initially cut, that would have left me with more spare for the auto loading facility :-( As to the cuts I made to divide up a whole board into the layout with cut out in the centre, I made all the cuts I had thought I needed but when laying out the pieces, things did not look right: I had to cut off "E" as marked on the pictures below (not very to scale, the shapes are the important part) Now if you have a look, it is possible to mark out cuts that did not require an extra cut for the "E" piece, BUT this would have required a cut that did not start from an edge and would have required jigsawing or similar, not a nice quick cut with the circular saw.

So while I wait for my bridge track, I have track plans to consider and how to layout the auto facility diorama...and bridge work for my N scale shelf layout when I feel keen enough.

1830mm * 945mm board marked out for cutting:

Resultant 2115mm * 1260mm layout with hole for operator and/or scenery in the middle (width of each layout section is 315mm):

Non-Friday musings

The plastered augmented bridge abutments have had a wash of brown put into the cracks in the stone but due to the greater depth in the plaster cracks, the wash has accentuated the depth difference further. As a result, I wish to deliberately add some grey to even out the perceived depth so that the plaster stonework appears to match the stonework in the moulded plastic abutments.

In turntable news, I am trying to get a good feel for the colours that an operating turntable would have had back in the glory days of steam. The trick being that colour photography and the glory days of steam only overlapped slightly, and like so many things, nobody felt that some things were worth taking colour photographs of until they aren't there anymore. The turntable at Cheyenne that turns UP 844 and UP 3985 is the spiritual parent of my turntable, even if it is probably larger and has the hut and is much fancier but the Walthers 120' manual turntable beats any of the other N-scale turntables bar the new and fully sick Walthers 130' turntable that costs multiple hundreds of dollars, not the $50 something I spent :-)

Still waiting the arrival of the Micro-scale bridge track but that was as expected.

Recently spent too much time at Bunnings again and they had some 1830mm x 945mm x 12mm 5 ply and I picked up two: one to augment my 1200 x 900 HO table with an under shelf. The remainder of that panel will also allow me to do two things: 1) create the engine servicing terminal with the turntable, round house and coaling station, and so on. 2) create a setting for my HO auto facility mentioned in a previous blog entry. The other panel will one day allow me to do another HO layout with ever so slightly larger radii, maybe even the 18" that NMRA says you should not go below. Also the extra length will allow for gentler grades, longer trains, space inside the loop for switching interest, all the good stuff.