Garden Railway Forum

gregh wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 5:25 am I put together a short video of some of my crashes over the years.

Ouch! Makes me feel better about some of my mishaps though - I had 8 out of 10 wagons on their sides at one point yesterday!

When I assembled a pair of Brandbright hopper wagons I wanted a slightly wavy edge to the steel side as though they were battered. I couldn’t work out how to do this with the supplied laser-cut plywood sides so went to some trouble to make up styrene-sheet replacements before using a heat gun on them to distress them slightly. The first (furthest away from camera) was a catious attempt and captured the effect I aimed for; the second (nearest camera) suffered from over-confidence when a few seconds too much heat concertined the side instantly.
The narrative is that it took a tumble down an embankment, but I am sure that HMRI would insist that it would be retired. However since they havn’t visited since the opening inspection . . .

Andy

I would call that a triumph, not a disaster.

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 5:16 pm I would call that a triumph, not a disaster.

It took a lot of work to make acceptable From above it is revealed just how buckled it is

Andy

RylstonLight wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 5:09 pm However since they havn’t visited since the opening inspection . . .

Aaaaaahhh!!!! Shall I put you on the Inspectors list for a visit then, Andy?

BTW, I do like your rusty weathering effects.

philipy wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 8:26 pm

RylstonLight wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 5:09 pm However since they havn’t visited since the opening inspection . . .

Aaaaaahhh!!!! Shall I put you on the Inspectors list for a visit then, Andy?

Arn’t they mandatory before approving a line for re-opening. Slow but steady progress is being made prior to the cutting-the-sod ceremony on the Rylston Light Mark 2.

Andy

Well done, the wagon can still carry the load so in a commercial sense no reason to stop it working. Brilliant pic. again.
Really looking forward to Rylston Light Mark 2.
Grant.

Excellent work! The Coal Board used to have a knack of doing similar things to it's rolling stock!

Andrew

Okay, I felt it was a tad over-done by error, but you’ve all reassured me still believable. In fairness it is part of the PW fleet. Thanks everyone. Andy

I have seen worse on the Skip wagons that take the building rubbish away.

Great job I feel though and they do look well weathered...

Loving those hoppers and workshop. Just perfect.


During my Rubies' last overhaul, I decided to repaint the loco. To this day, I still don't know just how Accucraft finishes their locos, but it's the toughest coating the works have yet encountered. I figured it was powdercoat or something. But it was still chipped, glossy, and I wanted satin - the plan being to de-grease the chassis in enamel thinners, scotch-brite the original gloss finish, then etch prime and engine enamel. Returning to the thinners bath a few hours later, I was dismayed to find I now had several more days of work to do, scrubbing the half-lifted remains of the original finish, out of every nook and cranny. Areas such as behind the wheels and eccentrics were left alone and painted over, as for whatever reason, they weren't as badly affected by the thinners..

Upside is, I believe starting from bare metal made for a nicer finish in the end.

On my old line, the curves were sharp, the inclines steep and the pansies too close to the track.
Vyvyan took something of an offence to all three.

Electrics:

wired up my 5" gauge CoCo "Taigatrommel". 300Amp Controller, six axle-hung motors, 1.65m over buffers.
After finishing the main cable (24 cores) and connecting it to the two sockets where the handset plugs in and the three bits of stripboard, one in each cab, one in the dummy tank, and checking the lights I wanted to see her move for the first time.
Just see her move......once.
So instead of wiring properly with the right diameter cable I used alligator clips to "just check if both bogies go the same direction".
I know they can stand about 2 Amps.
So a first test of running up and down the 2.5m track on the bench was successful.
Looks good! Huge loco! Most have much power.
How about leaning against the front to get an impression how much power she has.
Thought, done.
Leaned against the loco front, gently opened the throttle.
A short buzz and lots of smoke followed.
The motors wanted power, the controller applied power and the alligator clips could not take it.
On some the wire and insulation were completely vaporized. Took some time to get all the smoke out.


Same on my O-gauge tinplate layout. Was fed up replacing mini-fuses after every short-circuit.
So I bought resettable automatic fuses. As I wanted to run thrains I mounted them mechanically in place but only wired them up using alligator clips as I wanted to improve the wiring in that place and this would take longer to do and could be done the next day.
After playing for some time I thought about testing the time it took for the multifuse to react.
You guessed it, the alligator clip afted faster than the fuse.
Smoke, curses, same procedure....

Some great Fails coming through. Keep it up lads!

First run of the Prussian P3.1 in 5" gauge.
Firing was a challenge as the front half of the grate slopes downwards.
All the coal slides to the front so it is not easy to keep a good fire on the whole grate.
The fire must be high, but not high enough to block the flues.
Got the system after an hour (or more).

Nearing the end of the running day the fire was taking more and more coal.
Strange.
I kept firing but the pressure went down. After a few more laps I noticed lumps of coal on the track.
WTF?
Drove the loco over the pit, dropped the fire.
After moving the loco forward I took the grate out of the pit and found that two thirds of the bars had gone.
A friend had made that grate. He just tack welded the bars and somehow forgot to do the "real" weld afterwards.

The loco is running fine with the new grate.

Oh heck, that was an heck of a lot of coal lost after that "bit of a mistake"

Hello!

If you've just read my plum train post on my (WH)WHR thread, you could be forgiven forgiven for thinking it had been a joyful and trouble-free run - which couldn't be further from the truth!

Problem with the gas meant I ended up re-lighting several times, a dislodged battery saw Russell charge off up the line at lightening speed of its own accord, the lighter wagons bounced themselves off the track (fortunately I've recently sourced a big sheet of lead!) and the loco also derailed several times...


This was quite a discrete derailment, I thought, with the engine simply settling itself gently down in the foliage...

Russell's pony trucks are a bit of a nightmare really. My understanding is that on real engines pony trucks are supposed to smooth the ride by leading the engine round curves, but on this particular model they seem to excel at finding the smallest flaws in the trackwork, curling themselves up under the bufferbeam where they're a b**ger to retrieve, and then flinging the loco off the track! All part of the fun...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Good job she fell on the mind-your-own-business Andrew..

Hi Andrew,

That's possibly one of the most prototypical derailments I've ever seen!

As Rod said, the natural 'cushion' was well placed!

Andrew

Soar Valley Light wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 9:05 pm Hi Andrew,

That's possibly one of the most prototypical derailments I've ever seen!

Yes, I thought that - I was strangely pleased with it!