Sunday 7,30,2017

Quarry trestle and approaches were on today's work schedule.  We knew that the trestle and it's approaches needed feeders, but it got more involved when a certain triple axle engine derailed at the West end of the trestle. The hand layed track was a little out of gauge but fixing that did nothing to fix the problem. The executive on site decided to remove the rails and replace them with flex track. The approaches were raised and re-alined to match the new track height. New feeders were also installed. Meanwhile Sparky found that reversing the polarity to Wellington and Elsewhere solved the problem of engines stalling after crossing the gaps of the reversing loops. The gap on the tracks into the tunnel leading to the passenger station in Wellington were reworked so they were across from each other.  All of the feeders to the loops and Wellington and Elsewhere were checked, but no solution to a short in either town kicking out the booster was apparent,  Help DCC experts.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff July 25, 2017

After some research Sparky found out that there should be a ground wire from the quad units to the boosters. Once installed all sections shorted out properly while doing the quarter test. Other things he discovered is that there should be good power on each side of the gaps on the reversing loops, and that these gaps should be directly across from each other. Another interesting fact is that if your engine speeds up unexpectedly it may be that it has entered a section of track with low power. Apparently when the engine loses it's signal it speeds up (hope I got that right).
Meanwhile back on the layout several types of trains were busy moving freight with some engines out on test runs. Next Tuesday is a meeting/work night. The list includes wiring the 2 trestles, checking the wiring on the loops, checking the wiring at the loop gaps, start rewiring Springbank, repairing rolling stock, and track cleaning. See you then.

Tuesday Night at the Huff and Puff July 18, 2017.

With only a few members on hand, only a couple of trains were run, but on the other hand at least 1 new engine had lots of room for it's trial run. No problems were encountered with the areas rewired. Below is a picture of  Zorra Cement being switched.

Layout Cabview Now On Utube

We have recently taken a cabview tour of our layout using a Sony camera with a wide angle lens mounted on a gondola. This offers a unique perspective of our efforts to both members and visitors. Simply google Woodstock Model Rail Layout 001 to enjoy the ride. Let us know how you liked riding "behind the scenes". 

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff July 11, 2017.

The curve uphill from Oxford has been regraded and is much better now. We are running a trial where you pick a numbered tile and that is the train you run. The idea is that the different trains will all get run by everyone. We'll see how that goes.  More buss wires pulled for the wiring crew on Sunday morning. Still a little more to do on the upper mainline, then we will start the lower mainline This project will last for months, if we find it is making a difference, but even if it doesn't have the desired effect we have already found some unexpected problems that have been corrected.

Work night July 4th 2017

After the meeting a couple of projects were taken on. The curve uphill of Oxford was regraded as it had a dip in it. The turnout at Northdale was looked at. Rewiring also continued on section 8, between the upper loop and Springbank.  Now explain this. The system was turned on and we had a short somewhere.  It turned out to be the turnout to Zorra Cement Silos. We had soldered on new leads to the out side rails of it, there was already leads to the center rails. These center leads were backwards so we just cut them off, voila, no short. Why didn't this short out Before? My guess is there was just not enough conductivity through the turnouts points, this may mean we will need to replace them, we will test it to see. So 1 more day to complete section 8 will make it 3 days to do 1 section, times 12, yup a lot more work. The moral of this story, do it right the first time!