Changing Tracks

To be quite honest, little has been done on Victoria Street in the last couple of months, There has been a career change, so after near on twenty five years on being in the maintenance engineering caper, including the usual field of self inflicted injuries (mashed thumbs, nasty lacerations, the odd sprain and/or strain and burns!!!!), my working life has taken another direction.

With the new gig, as they have a rather stringent social media policy, all I can say is that they operate differing shifts, run large 1:1 equipment and deal with all aspects of humanity*.

So when I finally get myself into some sort of pattern, the planned backlog of work will be tackled.

 The two yellow lines of facing points (Melbourne)

signifying a compulsory stop, so to observe the

setting and intended direction the tram will take before

proceeding. (like in life, look before you leap)

Photo courtesy of Vicsig.

 

 

*the diverse and interesting people of inner suburban Melbourne.

 

From under the wires,

 

Glenn

 

Stepping out of the comfort zone

Occasionally you can get a little bored of running on your own layout, so when the opportunity to give my girls a gallop in greener pastures came up, I thought why not.

The crew at Melton Model Railway Club also have dabbled into the NCE DCC/JMRI wifi caper, together with the Free-mo Au mob have had a couple of run days on their collective temporary layout.

So myself with a road case of DCC fitted trams and my NCE Powercab, hit the road and headed west to Melton.

 The city and the bush.

 Running away from home.

 Hunting in packs.

Loitering with intent.

Mixing it up.

 Even the old X1 went for a run.

 After some dramas with wifi router, everyone went retro with power/pro cabs plugged into the layout.

So all in all, a great day with a fair minded concept of a modular layout that gave the girls a good sustained run higher than half throttle over a decent length of track, thanks again to Adam and the crew at Melton for the opportunity to have a cracking run.

Not from under the wires this time.

Glenn

Time to get organised.

Several projects have been horribly neglected since becoming besotted with DCC, materials for other projects have stockpiled to the point that the domestic authorities are in the process of intervention.

PROJECTS THAT REQUIRE ATTENTION!!!

•  The illumination of Victoria Street, so far only one module has been completed, The Railway Station. The rest of the layout still resides in the dark ages.

• The animation of the crossing gates.

• The construction of several other classes of Melbourne trams, these will include the W2, X2, VR, PCC 1041 and a Z1/3, plus the reworking/painting of several existing models with the correct decals and the installation of DCC friendly lighting.

• The construction of 2 to 3 more modules featuring back scenes such as residential, educational, and industrial to compliment the current retail, recreational and railway aspects, all with simple trackage to offer longer operational running.

• The updating of the track wiring for DCC, and the elimination of terminal strips in favour of plugs and sockets.

So there it is in simple point form, I have to spend more time at the work bench and less time phaffing about  on the laptop, which reminds me of a couple photos I recently uploaded to flickr of shots in the dark.

 As shade of film noir.

 Now in living colour,

and at the other end of the 'only' lit module.

From under the wires,
Regards Glenn

Life and Art

I try to capture the essence of Melbourne life in Victoria Street with street scenes from a time ago.  People, places, signage all play a part in creating a narrative of the time. While most scenes are created out of my memory. One in particular, is one I intend to model possibly when exhibiting and I need to go for lunch or for just a wander.

The scene played out yesterday (24/1) in full 1:1 scale in Racecourse Road, Newmarket.

Note the scorch marks on the impact beam courtesy of 600 volts.

(Herald Sun Newspaper)

This event happens too often, 3.7 metres (12 feet) is not that great a clearance; however, it always seems to catch out truck drivers regardless of the advance signage, clearance gauges and warning lights and this causes all sorts of traffic mayhem for locals, the route 57 tram and the rail line above.

So at the end of the day, some truck driver will be looking for a new career.

Play safe, work safe.

From under the shorted out wires.

Glenn.

P.S.Happy Australia Day.

Settlement Day - The aftermarth.

Settlement Day,(1) a term used by bookmakers in the racing caper, on that occasion all balances were settled between each other, then the true account of the race day could be recorded, usually one or two days after the meeting.(2) a term used by me to describe the eventual outcome of Christmas Day, 'outlay versus return'.

The running of a blog spot is not only for my amusement and to share my efforts with like minded souls, it is also a great insight into your wishes, aims and outcomes that your significant other can mine for gift ideas, as I found out.

Armed with a smart phone, the bride with two kids in tow, secretly hit a premium model railway store in a Melbourne seaside suburb with a cunning plan.(however that the two kids under four managed not to either spill their guts or tear the shop apart, is the biggest mystery)

So instead of making do with the usual Christmas takings of card, plastic box top and other potential materials like, the tokenistic flashing LED Christmas crap found in some Christmas crackers(only marginally better than the paper hat and the bad joke). The family delivered a couple decoders (*6 light function!), some cars and other bits and pieces, in the end a great result.

So what is the future for these 6 light function decoders.......Here are a couple of ideas, trams with indicators....

 

 PCC 1041

 

 

even better now that I have plans.

 

and an early Z class.

(note the classic 70's colour scheme..cool!)

 

 

So, now I have a few projects that need attention this year, which will drag Victoria Street into the fashionable 70's.

 

From under the wires,

 

Glenn

 

 

 

 



That time of the year again...

A bit more than a week out from Christmas, and how much of the past year has flown by. As part of the online tradition, here is this years Christmas Card.

Above all enjoy the season, tolerate your family and try not to spoil the kids. (Who know, Santa may slide a few more decoders into the stocking), so therefore keep safe, try not to eat anything bigger than your head and hangovers still do hurt.

From under the wires
Glenn

The Pancake Parlor

As the DCC transformation of Victoria Street continues forward, the conversion of my fleet of W class trams powered by the cheap and cheerful Bachmann Brill trolley mechanisms has offered me some few and interesting moments. As these trams are powered by the rather retro 'pancake' motor as opposed to the more 'recent' can motor, there are a few things that need to be sorted out.

The power pick ups of the Bachmann Brill trolley assembly need to be isolated from the brush assembly for this DCC concept to gain traction, as the pancake motor is fed by contact prongs that touch either of the two halves of the motor bogie. (This unreliable method of electrical transfer has led to many a premature 'death' of a Bachmann Brill trolley).

My method of fitting DCC to these dinosaurs is to disassemble the pancake, remove/isolate the prongs and direct solder the orange/grey wires to the brush assembly, and connect the red/black wires in parallel to either side of the motor bogie and to the non driven bogie. It ain't pretty, but it works.

With the DCC conversion of the two Cooee Collectable RTR W class (964 & 812), the installation and programing of the decoders was easy, being can motors and smooth running at low speed; however the Bachmann Mechs (800 & 870) are completely different. Not only is the wiring unique, but all the phaffing around required when sorting through the CVs, for they can need a good kick in the arse to get going, then need a subtle touch on the throttle to stop them racing off at breakneck speed.

The other issue with installing decoders in the Bachmann Mech W class is the amount of real estate these units take up inside of the saloon, even more so when installing the lighting options as well. The W5 800 with its open three door drop centre section, per side, full of punters, really set the mind thinking of how to install a decoder, offer directional lighting and saloon lighting, all with one end of the car taken up by a pancake motor bogie...... (in the end, I think I may have nailed it.)

 

W5 800 (Bachmann Mech with NCE D13SRJ Decoder)

 

 

The underside of W5 800

 

 

So that's what I have been up to lately.

 

From under (amongst) the wires.

 

Glenn