The arrival of the electrics

It's here! The Auscision 85 class turned up recently and it lives up to expectations. Despite the obvious differences in engine sounds between diesel and diesel-electric locos, the sound file is fantastic - particularly the Nathan P5 horn. Can't wait to hear it on the SDS 81 class now...

I placed the 85 on to a coal train from the operating sequence to test the loco out and to confirm that the placement of uncouplers around the layout was still correct. Reassuringly, the 85 fits in the headshunt, clears the platform and traverses all of the sidings with ease.

While doing this I discovered that I'd forgotten to drill a hole for an uncoupler on the main, next to the first wagon behind the 85 in the above photo. I fixed that this afternoon with the holesaw. Drilling the hole from underneath the baseboard towards the track is still a test of nerves...

It's also nice to know that the mouse-hole exit to the fiddle yard fits electric locos with enough room for the overhead wiring catenary too.

I also recently acquired a Bergs' U Set! 

I wanted to have another passenger set to run on this layout and felt that a railmotor wouldn't quite cut it - despite the fact that the 600/700 class railmotors were providing the bulk of services on the Richmond line during my era, as well as CPHs working in multiple units and alone elsewhere in the suburban network. The U Boat (as they are commonly known) set is shorter than my V set, which means I can fit the whole set on a single road of the fiddle yard traverser, as well in the platform road of Mount Wilson and still clear the main for a coal or goods train to depart.

The Bergs' U Boat's are much better to my eyes than the Southern Rail Models versions. Although the SRM ones come complete with lettering and insignia already applied unlike the Bergs' version, the roof profile on the SRM variants are eliptical, as opposed to flat with rounded edges where the roof joins the sides. Decals I can do myself, but the roof profile is deal-breaker. I still need to buy a decoder to convert the set to DCC, but that will be a job for the future. I don't want to work on rollingstock too much at the moment until I've got the basic scenery done on the layout.

Very happy with this set though.

This weekend I adjusted the height of my traverser fiddle yard and worked out how to align it to the Mt Wilson yard module. It was a fairly simple task, but one that was standing in the way of putting the track laying tools away.

Even though I had measured it again and again before building Mt Wilson, seeing the coal train fit into a single road on the fiddle yard with plenty of additional room (which means the CTS hoppers will fit too!) was a nice sight. One less thing to stress about.

I also had a go at building the control panel this weekend, mainly as a way of avoiding installing the uncouplers and wiring them up. I'm really not looking forward to that job. Unfortunately, it only reinforced to me that the control panel can't be attached to the layout until the uncouplers are installed and wired. 

Ugh.

You guessed it. That's the next job.

The only wiring task left after that is the fiddle yard, which will be much more straight forward compared to the rest of the layout.

Until then! 

Cheers,

Ben