New arrival, nameplates and changes

One year on and all sorts of things are firming up.

The whole idea of the Lake Constance/Bodensee inspired railway - to enable me to have German / Austrian and Swiss stock int eh same place at the same time.  I've been researching that with a bit of a what if as some of the islands compare favourable with the Rügen Islands and Wangerooge both of which have railway networks. More on that later though.

One of the nice things about Austrian G scale is the Austrian U class.  The Zillertal loco (0-6-2T) was an early purchase and had a nice feel to it and a comfortable size (340 mm long) and ever since then I look longingly at the others as they come to ebay.  Within the others there were two particular favourites, a Green lined yellow or a Grey lined red compared with the black of the Zillertal.  Well, when I collected the things detailed in the Long overdue update Part 1 I saw a Grey U class.  After some thought I thought I'd go for it, and its been chipped with the dedicated Massoth chip.  Its a tiny bit pre-loved (like lots of my stuff) with tiny details like a broken whistle but I've bought my stuff to run, not become shelf queens.  

Unfortunately darkness fell before I could get any really good pictures or video outdoors, so this is a quick indoor shot as I checked out all the functions on the chipping.  

This should double head with the Zillertal too: hopefully at the weekend I should be able to check if that is feasible.  More pictures of the Austrian Stock when I cover the Lake Constance. 

Tonight also saw a bit more more of turning things around.  The Spreewald (see the Boys just wanna run trains post) was given its own dedicated sound card, which meant that the sound box van was now redundant on the same ID number.  

A long while back (just after christmas) I took delivery of some custom nameplates from Narrow planet following them featuring on the Elly, James and Keith light railway where James had been doing some scratchbuilding.  I need to do a photo of what I had done, but they included a set for Ann to "name" her own loco (Projekt X having gone on the back burner a little) and she's chosen one of the Borsigs..

I still need to fix the nameplates on (rather than using white tack) and I know (before the purists say anything) that the running number is completely wrong for a narrow gauge loco (which should start 99) but this number will have some meaning for Ann. There's a makers name badge as well which I haven't fixed on.  

The Borsig is LGB factory chipped (but with no sound), so I altered the box van ID to match the loco Id, so there is sound.   There will be a slight issue as the whistle button ID is 1 which is also the same as the smoke generator but that will just have to be lived with for now.  With no specific chip for the Borsig (the original has been in a warehouse I think since 1982 and not fired up) then it may be one of the last locos to be given sound as an alternative is chosen.  

   

One year on: Of magazines and help

As a complete newcomer then its been a learning curve since day one.  (I'm working on my post of things that I shouldn't have done or bought).

One thing I intend to cover is what books have made it onto my bookshelf but first I remind people of the magazines and some helpful videos.

Garden Railways is the American bi-monthly magazine and I was bought a subscription last year for my birthday and I really look forward to the magazine coming through the door. I've even bought a couple of back issues on specific topics.  What I discovered today is that they have put some introductory videos on line.

Whilst from a more English perspective there is The model Railway Channel which has put the Mark Found videos up on the internet.  There's a link to part 1, but there are lots on the whole series which I didn't see first time round.  

And then there is the English published Garden Rail which I always have a look at and have been buying most issues, but if there is too much live steam and/or brass scratchbuilding then I have occasionally not bought it and put the money into the train fund instead.  

Unsung Heroes

At the one year stage then it's taking stock and lessons learned etc.

One of the things was my 'unsung heroes".  I got both of these fairly early on, both second hand and both off ebay (on which I think have been lucky loco wise, and not bought any problems.  I'm somewhat wiser on rolling stock, where mistakes are fortunately somewhat cheaper).  And they weren't extremely expensive either.

When I want to check if track is live, or run something quickly then these are the two engines that I reach for most, especially the diesel with its handy compact size, shape and handling.  There doesn't feel as if there is too many fragile bits to come loose.

Boys just wanna run trains....

So, after a week's holiday in the Outer Hebrides which was train (if not railway) free, then on the first weekend back AND a dry Sunday then I wanted to be able to run trains.  Ideally show off in video the new track cleaner and bo-bo diesel that were pictured in the last post.

So, we had one quarter that is nice and level on decking as a result of previous labours.  The rest was a bodge job to get a circuit up and run trains.

Alas, I learned some lessons.  First of all the track was grubby - no surprise there given the amount of rain we have had.  Much more important was a lesson about points (turnouts) - some of the ones down haven't got motors or manual switches - which means that they are free to move.   With a bogie engine (bo-bo) or truck (Snowplow) this seems to meant hat after the front bogie has gone over the point, the blades decide that they would like to move.  This causes both a derailment, and in the case of the bo-bo a short circuit.

I did get the bo-bo to push the snowplow with a brick in it for a quarter circuit though until it encountered a point though.  So, there's clearly enough "oomph" in the engine for the job for which it was bought which is good.

Because the night was drawing in, and therefore getting cooler and damper, then we had a derailment caused by a slug on the track.  I'd like to report a fatality but unfortunately we just have a bit of a squish...

Unable to show off the new toys (and the Pulsed smoke Stainz may have stopped making smoke) then it was out with the newly revised chipped (Massoth XLS - so with Sound, rather than the more basic decoder it originally had) Spreewald and a carriage with lighting..