Elmer Lane 3 - real word curve testing

 DB continues:

So, Elmer Lane, with a more-than-180-degree balloon loop, all able to be squeezed into a car... Well the whole turntable and roundhouse thing wouldn't work very split down the middle across two modules... but is it practical? There's only one way to find out.

Lengths of second hand Peco code 55 flex were unearthed and the soldering iron fired up. It only took one joint at the head of the curve, the other pieces of straight flex were just fishplated in. The curve had four or five staples applied to keep it tight

Then the Digitrax DCC was dug up, it took me a few minutes to remember how it all worked, but soon enough, some of my DCC locos had what might be their first real spin in about 13 years. 

First up was the challenging test train: a light 1990-built LC up front with a glued-stuck Microtrains coupler (connected to a long body-mounted DX coupler that will want to throw out on the curve), some lightweight four wheel and bogie wagons (all with fine flanges), including a KP with a loose weight rolling around inside it, the light and long GT car carrier, my new flat UK and the featherweight laser cut plastic ZH, and then at the back, heavyweights and top heavy wagons - resin castings and the new Trackgang Zs and old CF. This pic taken just before coupling up for the first run.

And... no drama to report at all, except I could only get one of my DXs running at first, so it had to take the train, alone and slowly. Success! 

Then when trying to push it back around, a stall, with the middle of the train in the middle of the curve, and the DX's wheels spinning. But no derailments. I knew this floor wasn't level,  but I didn't realise quite how much. Some books were employed to lift one corner a bit, but to no avail, the mighty DX was beaten on the uphills.

The day was saved by DG 2376, on a heavy Kato PA-1 chassis. Man that thing can haul. Up and down no problems. It was only when packing away the train it was found that my GT has a splayed bogie, so the one wheelset that was left on the track when I picked it up probably wasn't rolling at all. 

After this, it seemed like a good opportunity to play trains. something I don't do enough of.

Here's the single DG on a coallie. The heavy CBs are in the middle (they have pizza cutters which rub on the metal wagon floors), and an even heavier Trackgang CF is at the back of the lightweight CWs. No dramas pulling or pushing uphill at quite decent speeds. This train looked nice behind the two KiwiRail DXs when I got the pair running and multiple-united together, although they run slow.

Not entirely prototypical, maybe the DG should be blue

The TranzAlpine then came out, and this is a pretty heavy train with a high centre of gravity as the cars are solid resin, but they have nice metal wheelsets, so I had no qualms with the DG and later the faster DFT pushing this uphill around the curve at unrealistically high speeds. 

So the verdict is that even my creakiest old wagons in a worst-case consist seem to run fine around this sharpish curve. And so they should really, this is flextrack laid out in a smooth, flat circle with a single soldered join, and an 18 inch/450mm radius curve isn't crazy tight. With a more sensibly-ordered train (heavies at the front, free-rollers at the back), I can't see this curve being a problem unless there is way too much speed and herky jerky operator error.

More worrying was that many of my locos didn't work, or took a while to get working, or barely worked at all.

A few may have an incorrect address programmed on the decoder for some reason, such as DG 2330 and DJ 3067, both of which were DCC-ised not long before all this stuff was packed away. I didn't think to get out a programming track to see.

None of the Atlas SD35 chassis under the Da/DBR/DCs worked well. Cleaning and better electrical connections between the decoder and metal split frames are required, although I did have DC 4559 and 7132 (both blue) on the Tranz for a while. 

DF 6277 and DX 5448 ran jerkily, and DF 6064 could barely turn its motor with lots of humming, so something must be binding in there. These are all old Kato chassis with decoders that were hardwired in 1995 for my little 'Wellington' layout, built after I purchased the Digitrax. Amazing to have an electronic anything that still works after 30 years and will even drive modern decoders.

The two KiwiRail DXs on Atlas Dash 8 chassis with clip-in decoders are nice and smooth, but must have their VMax set quite low, perhaps to run with slower locos? Their maximum speed at 100% is preeeetty slow. That should be fixable easily.  

The stars of the show were undoubtedly DFT 7132 and DG 2376. And the curve. 

.....

However, I don't want to get too distracted by this until I have finished the hard work of Studholme...