Another save...

                                      

So this arrived today. Looks like a Wrenn body, which is fine as they sit perfectly on the Dublo Bo-Bo chassis. So now to find a suitable chassis...

Whilst this model may look fine, it isn't! It's one of the collection of "interesting" re-hashes that I've mentioned before. One of them has already been reborn as another Deltic and as much as I like this model, the body doesn't sit properly and there are no body fixings, it's just sitting on an extended Bo-Bo chassis. I think this is a Lima body but I'm happy to be corrected.

...So after about 30 minutes, the class 20 is back to being a class 20, with a nice shiny body. Not exactly genuine Dublo but it'll run like one!

Keeping it simple...

Spent several chilly hours in the loft preparing the portable layout for its next outing in February.

This means removing all the DCC bus wiring and reverting everything back to good old DC. Sounds simple but with the volume of electric points I had added, plus the need to simplify the layout at one end (trains couldn't get into some of the platforms without derailing) it ended up taking ages.

After much head scratching I decided to tone down the amount of electric points used, to keep them all would require hours of additional wiring to install the track isolation and signal control. Some will be retained for the station area where the signals are, and for some sections where it can be difficult to operate them manually. All the rest have been removed and I'll make use of them in the loft layout.

I needed a complete rethink of the main station, the outer line ran right at the edge of the boards, this means that derailments along this stretch could potentially be very costly if they fall over the edge - not great for public display either. I also wanted as little disturbance to the radius of the curves as possible and avoid using points right after a corner - this is where all the problems arise. The points are now located before the bends when the trains approach, this should make everything run much, much smoother than before.

So the track has now been relaid, from 6 down to 5 lines, the 5th will also comprise the TPO apparatus. I used spare track as a setting guide, with a spirit level to keep everything nice and straight.

Sadly the loft floor is the only space in the house big enough to allow me to couple the three end boards together. 

Doesn't look much yet but add in some station buildings, footbridge and signals...

Tank engines (you can never have too many)

Left to right: Repainted Southern body  fitted to the newly repaired chassis. A genuine Dublo LNER tank. A 2 rail acquired from a friend's deceased relative, restored to 3 rail running. Finally another original genuine Dublo tank.

So I now have four operational 0-6-2 tanks in my collection.

After sourcing another loco listed as spares / repairs, I finally found a decent chassis to pair up with my green southern repainted body.

The loco had a dud armature, not surprising as all three axles were pretty tight, so a good clean, grease and oil plus a new magnet and second hand armature got it up and running and sounding quite sweet.

Once finished, I decided the give the other green 0-6-2 some attention is it was running quite slow by comparison to my latest repair. A quick blob of oil to the three axles was all that was needed. They double-head perfectly!

I then decided to try double-heading with the other two 0-6-2s and found they were also significantly slower and noisier than the others. More oiling and tweaking of the worm gear solved this, along with some minor adjustments to the brush springs.

I even managed a triple-head but this isn't recommended, the A3 wasn't that happy and power had to be applied carefully.

Just need a couple of new front couplings to finish.

What I got for Christmas...

This almost feels like writing up my news on the first day back at school after a Christmas break!

So Father Christmas worked his magic again - I must have been good!

No locos this time, just as well really as there's a mounting pile of "projects" awaiting my attention, as well as continuing the work on the loft layout and re-doing the portable layout one last time before its exhibition in September.

So, I'm now the proud owner of not one but TWO, DOUBLE level crossings! - Something Dublo never made. One has been sourced from a supplier of "neverwazza" items and the other is more bespoke. Basically my brother sourced a single crossing on Ebay and set about modifying it and having it sprayed. Apparently it was a team effort but it looks great. I'll get some pictures of both crossings next time I'm in the loft but I've already decided that one will be installed permanently in the loft layout and the other will be shown in the portable layout, I'll modify the layout to accommodate it if I can't find a suitable spot!

Really pleased to have these in my possession, I have a few single crossings but nowhere to put them so both of these will come in handy.

Work wise, nothing much has happened in the loft for a while. Combination of high workloads and tiredness means that when I have been in the loft I've basically just been playing trains or trying to tidy up. I still need to complete the inner loop and wire all the points so I've had to contend with running a simple goods train with 80033 & 80054 doubled-heading. Quite satisfying to see these run on an A3 but demonstrates the benefits of ensuring that the locos run faultlessly. I can't praise Neo magnets enough as they make a huge difference to the current draw.

No work done on the two 0-6-0 locos I acquired before Christmas, still a bit of head scratching as to how I'm going to mount the third rail skate underneath - I haven't been beaten yet. There's also another Bachmann project (or two) to come...