August Update
A bit late but better late than never.
August saw the 'completion' of the shed to the point of occupation. Electrical fit out was complete, including RBG LED lighting for sunset/Night running, we added curtains, air conditioning and the mounting of a BIG A*se Smart TV to play Railway Videos to entertain Operators stuck in a siding waiting for other operators who are naffing around in a yard, rerailing cars that have come off on those wretched double slip points that are never lined up in the correct route, despite them having had clearance to move to the next town. You know the model.
Anyhoo, the room is now set to start building the Great Southern Division. I have set up my small switching layout along one wall so that I can test locomotives and have a 'little play' while glue dries, or when I just want to play.
Operating System
During August I receive two YD 9401 Modules from my contact in The Netherlands and converted one of my DR5000 Command Stations to a YaMoRC YD 7001. What does that all mean. Well as many of you know I converted my Operating System to the Digikeijs in 2022 to run Loconet. This was to allow me to run JMRI alongside Traincontroller (TC) side by side. Great theory but it didn't actually work for me as I am not a Computing Engineer. Despite many hours on Forums, I could not get either JMRI or TC to talk to the DR5000 via LAN. They both worked beautifully by USB, but you cant have them both on the same USB address. Anyway long story short, Digikeijs went broke, the Chief Engineer, Karst Drenth set up his own operation called Yet Another Model Railway Company, YaMoRC, and produced a WiFi, LAN module for the DR5000 that works. Karst is fantastic in providing advice and support through the YaMoRC ioGroup, and there is a whole forum of Experts who have helped me get things up and running. The irony is, with the YD9401 upgrade I no longer need both JMRI and TC running as the Wifi upgrade allows Operators to connect their phones directly to the YD7001 and have full functionality with TC.
SAR 930's
During August I had the opportunity to repair some Trainorama 930's in ANTR Livery for Geoff M and SAR liveries for myself. I also had a play with Geoff's Auscison C Class which had duff ESU sound decoders in them. The 930's were chipped and given NWSL gears to replace to troublesome Traino gears and the C Class were rechipped with TCS Non sound Decoders. So my fleet has now two new 930's bringing my fleet to 4.
Layout Design
I finalised the drawings for the layout incorporating Geoff's suggestion of a loop between Wirrega and Blue Lake, extending the distance between the two towns and reducing the grade between the two. I will commence construction with Blue Lake as that will be the Datum from which all other lines will depart. It will also be the town with most switching opportunities, giving me something to play with when I have to deconstruct the temporary switching layout. My goal is to have Blue Lake laid and operational by the end of September.
3D Printing
With the transition from N Scale to HO I have decided to enlargen my 3D Resin Printing capacity. So I have procured an Elegoo Saturn 2 8k printer. Its 10" build plate should be able to handle the biggest HO scale Rolling stock bodies in a single print. All I have to do now is do the design work. Why oh why did the good Lord only put 24 hours in each day???
I have changed my Model railway email address as I will be losing my Adam account soon. My new address is gsdrway@gmail.com
That's all for now, Talk again Soon.
The Commish
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