On an allied subject, Stephen noticed the semi-transparent box with the tea-stained blocks in looked a bit odd. On opening, black mould was growing on the blocks! They will be thoroughly dried and the mould sanded off, or the other way around.
Finally, we got around to discussing what we should do next on Wednesdays. Whilst options generally were not limited, something for the layout should come first. Another board/diorama? The estate quarry? A single board (for now?). We threw a few ideas around. Maybe too soon?
On a tangent, Geoff had offered to explain DCC to Stephen in detail, and use the layout as the testing area. However, the main station, and Johns pointwork in particular, had a John-ism that ruled this out. The tie bars were made of solid metal (un-gapped) and were silver-soldered to the blades, which caused momentary short circuits as the points were changed. This caused a minor break in the power supply and paused any loco that was moving at the time. The 'temporary' solution was to keep all loco's stationary when changing the station points. There was also a diamond crossing with insulated frogs, which caused a problem. Both of these issues had ready solutions, which will be tackled in the forthcoming weeks.
