Lighting
Wagon loads
Paint people
Glue things down
The previous week, we had been a bit concerned about the warmth of the power adaptor for the new LED lights. Geoff had checked the lighting load of a 3m strip of LED's and found it exceeded the adaptor rating, hence the overheating. He subsequently contacted the supplier, who immediately offered to provide three higher rated supplies. However, thinking operationally, Geoff then proposed that we break the 3m lengths into two to give 3 x 1.5m strips each side (2 bright and 1 warm) and feed them from separate adaptors. Apart from the loads being comfortable they would be separately switched. Failure of any individual strip could be balanced by switching off the corresponding strip on the other pelmet. More supplies were required, but by chance, another supplier had an offer with supplies at less than £2 each.
Geoff had also been busy on the lighting framework, extending the pipe supports and fixing the gutters to them. The ends had also been adapted so that cables can be fed through the pipes to feed the lights.
Finally, a central joint/alignment mechanism had been made to align and stiffen the joint.
Laurence continued to scour the layout and glue various scenic items down, whilst Stephen painted the paving areas he'd repaired the previous week. Stephen then painted the glossy bits of epoxy glue around the cow's hooves which had been annoying him. He then went on to add wagon loads to four of his ore wagons. The cream 'rock' material came from John's original stock and was what was used in the aircraft workshop where he worked to soak up oil spillages (similar to cat litter). After carving and fixing two layers of polyboard to fill the bottom, the ore was fixed using diluted PVA with a drop of washing-up liquid, in the time-honoured way.
With Geoff's four, we now had two complete trains of fulls and empties.
As usual, stock on the layout meant a little test run and this week was no different. The first time full ore trains had been exchanged between the quarry and mainline.
