WMRA open day - last run of 2015

For the tenth and final outing of 2015, we were back at our home club's twice-yearly open day.

We've done several of these now, previously they were used to test modifications and tweaks. Today we tested the completed (yesterday) additional three car EMU and the latest scrapheap restoration - Duchess of Abercorn.

The additional three car unit (I'll post a separate write-up shortly on it) ran well but it quickly became evident that there was no need for this set to be motorised - there is sufficient power in the original EMU to haul its own three car set, the other unpowered three car set and this one as well. So after a quick "running repair" the chassis frame was swapped out in favour of an unpowered one. After several uncoupling incidents, I worked out that the nine car set ran best with the motorised set in the middle, pushing three coaches, hauling its own unit and pulling the other three. In this formation at ran relatively well.

The Duchess, after a sticky start and a minor issue with the tender coupling, ran incredibly well. Considering that this one was destined for the skip barely two months ago, it's come up really well - the grey primer making a great base coat with matt lacquer applied to give a little bit of shine. This was put through it's paces and left to run-in - a nice addition to the layout which I'm really proud of.

As it was only a short day, we didn't fully stock the layout. A few minor track faults were quickly traced and resolved but a major one developed, this time on the shuttle; normally the most reliable part of the layout. For the shuttle to work properly, the entire shuttle track system must be entirely isolated from the rest of the layout, no common return wiring here so the track has a physical break between the shuttle and the rest of the layout (although it's almost impossible to see it)

After much head-scratching and tweaking of track, the only resolution was to split the boards and isolate them individually. This is the second time where a track fault has resulted in separating boards. The 37 pin connectors installed between the boards do work well but are permanently connected once the boards are locked together, making fault diagnosis very difficult. One solution would be to install isolation switches in the common return wiring, which would effectively isolate an entire section but as previously stated, the shuttle is independently wired - if I had employed this method I would still have had to split the boards. The most effective way to resolve is going to be to move the connectors further back and interconnect them using male-female connecting leads. Another project for next year.

3:30pm came around in no time and we were quick to pack down and load up. That's it for 2015, next outing is in February, which sounds like a long time away but in reality is less than two months away!

Having been out ten times in 2015, I already have seven confirmed bookings for 2016. I think we're going to be busy...