Playing Trains with Trackgang at the Christchurch Show

The BOP Trackgang NZ120 layout from Tauranga ventured south for the Christchurch train show held over the weekend (4-5 October). DB thought it would be rude not to go up and help out Russell J and John E from Tauranga, and Aaron W from Hamilton.

The milk train on the Trackgang layout, with highsiders on the inner mainline. Note the sidings for display.

The show: its a pretty impressive show. I don't have any actual 'facts' for you, but we were told that the marshals had to pause the entry door a few times on Saturday as the hall can only accommodate 2000 people at once. That seems like an exaggeration, but there were a ton of people in, especially on Saturday. Many faces reappeared on the Sunday too. Rainy weather all weekend helped.

The Layouts: I'd guess there were 15 or so there, but I didn't allow myself enough time to browse properly. I'd also planned to buy knife blades, styrene, some of Brian R's Scenic Textures stuff, a DM coffee mug and rummage through the N Scale offerings, but large chunks of time pass surprisingly quickly at exhibitions until I turn to a zombie towards the end of the day.

The hall at the end of the second day, when pizza was put on for exhibitors, which was a nice touch.

There were a few impressive Lego trains running back and forth using colour sensitive photo detection to change direction using different coloured blocks between the lines at each end.  There was a small London Underground station which was a neat 'slice through the earth' concept. I'd love to see a way of having more tracks in this (a pair of lines at 45 degrees on a lower level with passengers changing lines and levels).

There was a cute wee British N scale offering that had four trains running on two tracks, and an American N modular one had a nice wharf and cargo ship scene.

Half of Twin Peaks

I've always liked the German/Swiss 'Twin Peaks' layout with its multiple levels of action, loads of lights and animated skiers, cars, chairlifts, skaters etc. There is plenty to look at in every little nook and cranny, and the automation is very impressive. A wee Z scale layout was super smooth and quiet. 

I would liked to have had a closer look at Lawrence B's Rewanui when it was running, with the tablet-controlled points and remote uncoupling for shunting. The scenery at the south end under the bridges is coming along nicely, and its sector table is a work of engineered art. As are the overhead lighting supports.

Big little Swiss Tigerli.

A few other NZ scenic beauties were present. Grant M's Three Mile Bush is a lovely bush tramway with Climaxes and other Heath Robinson-like contraptions hauling logs around. There was a vertical boiler that could emit puffs of smoke on demand, and plenty of bird sounds emanated from the bush. This was a real crowd pleaser and I believe it won best in show. 

3 Mile Bush with a log train chasing a light loco

Local group One Track Minds had their big 1:64th modular layout there. The scenery is really well done on this, but I never noticed too much action on it. Perhaps I was looking over at the wrong times, or maybe its just too difficult to efficiently run bidirectionally and cross trains at the stations. 'Sometimes-NZ120-modeller' Victor G had some superbly weathered Sn3.5 locos here, including this gorgeously rusty DXC 5293 modelled before its repaint. I've been meaning to try something like this for a long time. Inspiring. 

Sn 3.5 rustbucket weathering by Victor. Marvellous.

Ian P had his neat little NZ120 Kaikoura layout which is another crowd favourite that was mentioned in the blog two years ago. Small, reliable, plenty of action, and its easy for him to interact with the attendees from within the donut. While not 1000% prototypical (it is a model after all), it captures the locale perfectly, and this is what draws the crowds. The two circuits of track and the moving cars and trucks keep people amused as they look for 'Oaro' and 'Nins Bin' and other recognisable features along the coast.

Coal train on the Trackgang layout.

Trackgang BOP:  I didn't know much about the layout before this weekend, but can now report that it's a brilliant exhibition layout. 

• It is double tracked all around, so again, while not a million percent representative of most of NZ's lines, the reason people are attracted over to layouts, and then stay, is to see action. Having two tracks makes this much easier, and for the majority of the two days we had five mainline trains running at once, some of them quite long.  
• One track was powered with DC, the other DCC, which is entirely practical. For a few minutes early on the Saturday we had to diagnose a short in the DCC, but the DC trains could keep running. On Sunday, the reverse happened and there was a brief short in the DC - this time the DCC trains kept running, so nothing was lost.
• There are three long (about three metres) staging tracks behind the backscene. Brilliant. This allowed (primarily DCC) trains to be set up behind the scenes, and then swapped in and out and then be stored to give locos a rest and provide some variety in what was out on the mainline.
• There were two or three passing loop sidings on each circuit at the 'urban end' of the layout. This allowed medium or shorter trains to also be stored and swapped out on the 'visible' side of the layout - more for people to look at. 
• There are also some industrial sidings at the urban end of the layout, and one clump became the loco depot, where we could display a bunch of locos that were not in use on trains. We also sat wagons in the sidings for show, whether they ran well or not. Another popular spot was a log unloading area, with long wagons, a log truck, piles of logs, and log handling payloaders. 

The urban end, with loco display and log yard beyond the footbridge.

• Turnouts are remote controlled from behind the low backscenes using rods, and switches that power the frogs. 
• Above a tunnel there is an 'airport' where a collection of Air NZ, RNZAF and Safe Air 1:144 planes were displayed. This was a popular spot with many folks who also have an interest in aircraft.
• There were lots of little scenes that kept the kids (and many adults!) amused. Deer in a gully, people walking, sunbathing. Sheep, a nearby dog kennel, a hedge trimmer. A few people spotted the Tardis, a DeLorean, or cars from the Fast and the Furious. These little cameos kept people looking and walking around the layout. 
• The 'non-urban' three quarters of the layout has winding curves, bridges and road overbridges. These areas were nice and long, showing NZ120 at its best, with long trains running through scenery. The highsider coal train had more than 40 wagons.

DM in action. Note the clever crowd barrier - the sticks plug into holes in the layout fascia, which is robust enough to take any mild shoving. Note the wee dude - counting wagons was a popular pastime for the youngsters, especially with the highsiders!

• The modules themselves contained some nice ideas in their construction. Robust and foolproof circular electrical connectors connected all the wires between modules, and the plugs were clipped in place under the modules when disconnected. Loose leg pairs simply plugged into holes under each end of a module. Hinge joints at each side of a the join with L shaped pins made assembly easy and means you don't need fiddly adjustable feet, as any one set of legs in the pair can take the load. The modules made the commute from Tauranga in a small box trailer equipped with racking. Modules have a fascia with holes to plug a rope crows barrier into (see pic above).

Inter-module wiring. Legs are all numbered, making setup easy, with the black painted end on the crowd-facing side.

Clipped up when unplugged.

Such features enabled the layout to be up and working within 50 minutes. This included unloading modules from the trailer, walking them into the hall, laying them out in order, putting in the legs, making the physical hinge joins, laying an extension cord and plugging in the electrics, attaching the black cloth skirt, and installing the integral rope crowd barriers. Then (some!) buildings and vehicles were placed. Getting out of the hall after the show ended was just as quick. Getting the layout up quickly gave us a change to set up and test a few trains so we would be ready to roll on Saturday morning.

Assembled and almost ready to plug in. Nice fascia. The airport is above the tunnel at the far end, and is yet to be populated with planes.

This was an enjoyable and stress-free layout to operate. Plenty of action, ample staging, loads of places to display non-operating stock, plenty to keep people amused, and most important, it was utterly reliable. There's nothing worse than operating an erratic or untested layout at an exhibition when you are holding your breath on every circuit, or any time someone attempts to run through a turnout. 

The one or two glitches we had were quickly fixed. Pretty good for a modular layout that has come almost 1000km in a trailer, that was set up on a subtly un-flat hall floor, and of course the temperature and humidity changes significantly during a very wet day with a hall full of breathing people. 

Some of my Digitrax locos didn't behave as expected on the NCE system, so were sidelined or placed elsewhere. Sometimes a disobedient wagon might behave better when spun end-for end, or  moved in the train if its coupler height was out, otherwise it was removed. The odd repair was able to be made. We ended up with eight or nine reliable trains on deck at once, and these could pretty much circle the layout for hours with out any issues.

Locos and a railcar on standby.

With the NCE's recall button, it was fairly easy to control three trains following each other around the DCC circuit - running one at a steady pace, and slowing or speeding the other two trains occasionally by one or two clicks to have them keep their distance. But you had to pay attention. Being distracted for a minute or two by some sideline chat with a punter might see two trains try to merge into one. 

On the DC line, faster trains had to be stopped periodically in an isolated section to let the slower one pull ahead. And having most of the loops and sidings able to be isolated as blocks has other benefits, for example, switching off one of the staging tracks to avoid upsetting the rest of the layout while putting on a new train.  I should do this on my modules. It seemed to me that the NCE dealt with shorts well. Of course the 'loco depot' area was switched out so we could put a mix of DC and DCC engines there.

Da with livestock. Note the fine power poles made from brass.

Trains and rolling stock on the BOP Trackgang layout over the weekend included: 

• A very cool milk train made from MMW etched ends and frames combined with sections of 'slightly un-polished' handrail tube. 
• A striking 3D printed Standard railcar fettled by Russell. There's nothing like a red railcar to catch the eye of the passing punter. 
• A Murupara log train behind a pair of old Dgs
• Tasman Forestry and Kiwi Lager locos.
• Two TranzScenic trains, including one pulled by a Tranz Rail bumblebee recabbed DG! There was also a KiwiRail Scenic Journeys white twinset railcar in attendance.
• A nice red Da hauling livestock wagons provided something a little older to look at. In hindsight I should have tried that Da or a grubby Dg pulling my three red passenger cars around to see if they ran.
• A few other 'mixed freight' trains ran over the weekend, including one DBR-hauled, and local man Jonty B had his DXR in on Saturday. This had an impressive LED ditchlight setup. 
• And the 'old' and 'new' coal trains were pretty reliable (and relatable to most of the local audience). A couple of the hoppers would derail when they dropping into the staging area. This was away from the public eye, but I'm kicking myself for not swapping those wagons around to see if that could have been cured. Not that we swapped that train out often. The highsider train reached 44 wagons at one stage, with Aaron's LCs being absolute works of art - brake hoses, etched side chains, handbrake levers, and... little loops on the side to tie your tarpaulin ropes to!  Wow.  He also had a couple of intricate etched container wagons that were very impressive. 

Note the side chains, handbrake levers, brake hose, and the rope tiedowns on the sides on Aaron's Trackgang LCs!

Almost prototypical - a  bumblebee recabbed DG on the Tranz passes a milk train that has been pulled over. Over on the DCC tracks, another Tranz passes going the other way.

A quick check of the NCE manual. I've never used this system before, so was of no help! Visible is the highsider train looking good on the reverse curves at 33 wagons, before Aaron's LCs were added.

Tranz Rail freight through the S curves on the Sunday.

DM again. Signals, relay boxes and crossing bells are fine details. The containers are Aaron's twin-layer etches.

NZ120 in full flight.

NIMT viaduct.

The DBR's freight train (Aaron Wall pic)

Popsicle DX (Aaron Wall pic)

Most of the stuff that I operated has never been used before in anger because this is the first exhibition I've run NZ120 on since 1995. And I loved it! Thanks to Russell, John and Aaron for coming down, putting up with me, and making this possible. Now to finish off my modules....

¡Hola! The 3-Foot 6 DM Class - 4

 In which DB says, "about time". 

On Thursday, I found the courage to return to the DM project, just in time for it to head north to the train show on Friday. 

The DM provokes mixed feelings all around. Its nice to have something clean and new to photograph, but it will mean the end of the DX and DC class that we have loved for for five decades or more.

The model is also a mixed bag, so I both love it and hate it. The 3D print is very nice in places (especially the cab and headstocks), but its a bit off in the long hood detailing, not that mattered, as I printed up sides and moved the roof around. My shell has a slight bow in one of its sides. I've also found this a very challenging build, although some of that is my own fault.

Some nice etched handrails arrived from Lewis (made by Aaron Wall) a few weeks back. As known, these are gorgeous, yet a bit long in the x-axis. I believe there are new re-scaled ones available now or coming soon. This set is one of the early ones, so you have to dispense with a segment from each corner if you want to have enough of a gap for the crew to board via the side steps. You'd have to be staring at both the model and a prototype picture closely at the same time to notice. 

You also have a decision on to make on how to mount them. This may affect at what angle, and even for how long, they remain mounted. Ideally the lower ends of the pointy bits would be longer, and fit into slots pre-made in the side sill, or even better, a leaf could be taken from the Z scale playbook, and the yellow side sill itself could be an integral part of the etch. This would make mounting dead easy and provide the best chance of them being straight and resistant to being bent when knocked.

It may not be immediately apparent as the black GP above is not shown in a large photo, but the sidesill edge, the handrails (long and short hood), and the battery boxes under the cab are all part of the same etched strip here. Easy to assemble, always lines up, always stands at 90 degrees, and resistant to breaking.

But be that as it may. 

Back to NZ120land. I added some brake hoses, put in some MV Lens 'lights', and finally got around to glazing the front window. I did a much better job than I did on the back end window, including a strip between the window segments. Looks ugly, but viewing from this close is prohibido anyway.  That blue builder's plate is a bit '3d' from this angle!

I trimmed the handrails and superglued them on using some stripwood to hold them a constant distance out from the long hood until things had set. As mentioned, I'd like to have put the mounting pins into slots in the sills, but getting slots in the right places would have been a messy and time consuming job, so here they are out proud. A bit ugly, but a some yellow over the top makes them look a little better.  

The chassis is an old SD90 with a hardwired decoder. It seems to run nicely enough. A fuel tank and bogie sides come with the print, but I decided not to use them. The tank is a bit of a squeeze on the chassis, so it broke (and it was bowed anyway). I may use the bogie sides in future. 

My fuel tank is from an Atlas Dash 8 out of the spares bin, with the 'near end' being a part from a Japanese shunter top, chosen because it had a decent sized square grille that looks a bit like the aluminium cooling radiators on these. Now that I think about it, I don't think the prototype has these on both sides...!

A million other little detail things were done. Blue Stadler makers plates (under the cab on the LE's side) were added, as were silver tips to the brake hoses and taps, the four side steps, and various roof antenna. I also added a bit more detail on the cabtop air conditioning units. The inside rear of the 'good' cab wall had some 'smoke' applied, as it was a bit bright with its white styrene and yellow overspray.

I was going to tart up the bogies using the supplied sides, or even improving these SD90 ones with some sandboxes on the inner ends and parking brake units on the outboard ends, but time is short, they are dark black, and you don't really notice. 

The model could do with some numbers on the front and also the white KiwiRail logos on the Stadler design trademark black chevron, but this will do for now. 

So now that it's done (about time too, (told you I'd say that)), do I love it or hate it? I certainly like it a lot more than I did on Thursday morning.

Train Bins™ for Travel and Storage

DB picked up a few mid-sized Sistema plastic tubs when they were on special a year ago, and has been pottering away making foamboard inserts of various shapes and styles for quite some time now. 

Weights take out any natural warp in the foamboard base

My base layer is a stiff plastic floor tile as the plastic bins have a natural fishbelly depression in the centre. On top sit two or three layers of inserts. 

 The coal hopers have had little bits of plastic bubblewrap stuck between them, and there are bits of kitchen towel deployed in places too to cusion the inserts from the sides. 

This weekend these splendiferous Train Bins™ will make their first trip north in anger to visit the Christchurch Train Show.

Loco Testing, 1...2...3...

 DB powers up:

In the past few days, I've repainted 5 tarpaulined four wheelers and a KP, added another layer of decals to the ZH, made up/recycled three new container wagons to 40-foot boxes, replaced a broken Peco chassis and half a dozen broken couplers, oh, and made those two extra AOs for the TranzAlpine. A few missing handrails and broken headstocks were re-attached or refabricated on some of the diesels.  There's nothing like the chance to run a few trains in a few days to motivate some action.

In fact it feels like I've been doing everything and anything that I can to avoid cranking up the Digitrax to see if anything actually works. 

Yesterday I started some testing. I didn't bother testing the DXCs, as they are pretty reliable. 

The DGs were up first, as old-cab 2376 was also such a great performer at the start of the year when I was planning Elmer Lane. I figured that new-cab (once 2330, now 2007), with the same Kato PA-1 chassis and clip-in Digitrax decoder would operate identically. Nope. Couldn't even detect the decoder. Disassembled and reassembled. It looks like I'd put the copper strips in upside down. These transmit track power between the bogies and decoder, so they were not making contact with the latter. Eventually I got it going, but 2007 wasn't working nearly as well as the original cab. Much slower, and a bit erratic.

At this stage, I needed to look up the Digitrax manuals online, as its been a dozen or more years since I have tried programming and couldn't remember how to get it into programming track mode (run/stop+F0 if anyone else needs to know, then Disp and Set).

With that figured out, I checked that I hadn't set the VelicityMax and VMid CVs on 2007's decoder. Nope.

It was time for another pull apart. I seems the driveshafts and worms aren't seating that well on the bogie gears. After comparing the two locos innards, 2007 was reassembled carefully and everything clicked into place.  Finally! Progress. The two ran beautifully. They had no problem pulling the 30+ wagon 4-wheeled coal train around the ballon loop, and then pushed it back. I then tried this pushing and pulling with the engines at the back end of the train (flipping the positions of the locos and van). All good, so it seems this curve behind the roundhouse should be OK. 

The Atlas SD-35 based locos were up next. I vaguely remember these being a bit reluctant, skitzy and slow, and 4559 and 4421 certainly didn't achieve many millimetres on our last outing. 

DBR 1213 was first. It unexpectedly ran really well!  DC 4421 was stubborn and erratic, but after some running in and wheel cleaning ...ah the smell of carbon brushes and oil takes me back to Hornby models of the late 1970s...  After five minutes, this was running nicely. Sweet.

Ideally DC 4559 should pair with DFT 7132 on the Tranz.  Again it was similarly hesitant, but with the same treatment was soon humming after a few minutes. 

So that means it should run nicely with 7132, but alas 7132 was only running about half as fast as 4559. After some prodding into the Digitrax, it seems I had set the VMax and VMid on this one to slow it down. I'm not sure why. For some reason I thought the SD 35s had the Altas slow motors, but that wasn't the reality here, so I moved those two CVs up on the DFT a few times until the two MU'd together nicely. 7132 is a Kato SD40-2 dating from about 2010, so runs well, but periodically has that annoying screech that some Katos have. I might try oiling the worm bearings. 

DA 230 was the last of the Atlas SD35s, and it ran quite well on its first go without needing much encouragement. 

Old DFs 6277 and 6064, both Kato SD40-2s with hardwired decoders, wouldn't do anything other than sit there humming, but I'm not sure whether they are worth digging further into further, but I might have a look tomorrow.

DJ 3067 is a tough one. It was decodered just before I stopped with NZ120 in about 2013, and I couldn't get much out of it at all. Periodic flickering of the lights but nothing more than a quarter of a second of action out of it.  This was the big disappointment of today's testing, because the loco top will have to be pulled apart to get into the chassis and decoder. Obviously there is a wire or contact that isn't doing its job.

DI 1843 has a frankenstein chassis. It runs quite smoothly, but is pretty slow. The way the body twists when the direction changes makes me wonder if there isn't something binding in there.

Blue DX 5448, on a Kato U30C with a hardwired decoder was a surprise, moving well on its first try. This used to sit on a Bachmann Spectrum Dash 8, so it has no rear headstock. Given its success in the Moving Department, this and some rear brake pipes, were added...

DC 4939 is sitting on the same Kato SD9 chassis that it had on Otaki to Cass, also with a hardwired decoder. These hard-wired jobs were DCC'd about 1997 for my wee Wellington layout. This ran perfectly too. Unexpected!

DXR 8007, made a screeching sound. It turns out this Atlas Dash-8 chassis, with its modified DXR fuel tank, has no decoder! As I use two digit addressing, there will be an obvious issue as '07' is now taken by DG 2007. Its a trivial task to add a decoder, but this really needs some bogie work as well. I might concentrate on the DJs instead.

So today I did. I had 3067 running 'moderately well' after a few minutes, so then started to decoder 3021. Seems like a long time since I pulled it apart. It is. 

After about 5 straight hours without a break I still didn't have it going. Initially the new (Digitrax Z decoder from 2002) couldn't be seen by the programming track. Pull apart, check. No luck. Try again. No luck. 

Decided that my chassis-to-decoder link, via the old mini headlight board, wasn't connecting. Drilled holes for screws and made up some brass tabs.

Still no luck. Touched the chassis to the programming track and could finally see the decoder. Aha the bogies are filthy, covered in black gunge inside. 

Pulled them apart, cleaned them thoroughly. Put them back together. Shorts. Pulled apart. Checked a few bits, put some Kapton tape around the motor leads.  Shorts. 

Pulled apart, put electrical tape around the whole motor. Shorts. So far the DJ has taken up 5 hours of my time with no success. Bloody hell. 

I put it aside (before I threw it across the room).

Instead, I decided to add a decoder to my 'third DJ chassis'. Borrowed one from DF 6064. Modified the chassis and applied the decoder in about 20 minutes. It works!

But it has a different style of motor runs about ten times faster than 3067. And I didn't succeed in slowing it down. I slowed down the DGs so they run about the same speed as 3067, but that DJ is pretty noisey and sometimes erratic. It probably needs a clean, but that would take a pull apart.

The DI runs about ten times slower than everything else. So much for the South Island fleet!

AO11 - Encore!

 DB adds:

Back when my TranzAlpine saga started, I had high hopes for a really long Tranz. The longest one I photographed was 12 cars and two vans. 

I stopped at 4 cars and my two vans. But I've always kept a few spare cars in reserve, retaining the best 4 of the solid resin 56 foot car blocks made way back when. 

This week I decided to give them a coat of blue.

After a count up of my spare Kinki bogies, I figured I could only do three additional cars, having just used a set of bogies under the FM van. Further availability of parts and time made me scale this down to two. In the picture below, there are some decals, reflecting mirror windows and dark window outer materials that have been sitting in the ziplock bags behind for a dozen or more years. Here the underpieces start to go on. And then the windows.

Within a short few days, these two new AOs had their unders done, bogies and windows installed, and decals applied. The final step was the addition of the hokey inter-carriage connections made from basswood. Finally, a decent length TranzAlpine for Greymouth!

Just need to sort out some detail for the back end carriage now. I should probably put a Microtrains coupler on that end too to allow it to be hauled both ways.