Saturday Ramble: off topic extension of previous post.

 If the comments on the last post are an indication of the reaction, then there seems to be a measure of misunderstanding about what I was saying.

Two strands at play here: the initial was if I liked the concept of the trade show, which in itself is part of a more general questioning about exhibitions post Covid.

My second off-topic question was not whether exhibitions or trade shows should be held in leisure centres or whether these buildings should be there, more a question about society in general which I find more than puzzling. This could be outlined as follows:

Back in the mists of time I played outside. This would today be considered child abuse; urban environment, lots of traffic etc. I also walked to school from age eight; on my own, also regarded now as unacceptable. That is partly a more political issue, but the upshot of this was that I was built like a rake. Not an ounce of surplus body weight. I was forced to play sport at school  - hated it. So that doesn't really count. The critical bit is the first two, walking and playing in the street. Building ramps for bikes, climbing over and onto various walls/trees; a traditional childhood that has all but vanished along with home-cooked food; but no body fat. 

Angle that against now, the above has been removed on safety grounds and we have children who are already obese on entering primary school, get driven everywhere, and particularly to leisure centres et al in the name of exercise, which had they walked to school they wouldn't need. I now understand that state school lunchtimes have been cut to 20 minutes, all in the name of extra education; educating children who can barely walk and who are now actively prevented from kicking a ball around at break time.

My fascination last week was not specifically about this general background, but dietary. As far as I could tell, there was not one healthy freshly-prepared option available, unless of course you count the pre-packed salads; in these cases so loaded with additives and dressings that they become as high in undesirable ingredients as mine and Mr. Hill's pre-packed jumbo hot dogs which were on reflection, almost the least worst option.

So what is at play here? Are we just blind to the irony of driving a child to the gym and then feeding them a sugar mountain straight afterwards? For that is exactly what it appeared to be from where I was sitting. The government is supposed to intervene here, but this is a problem that has been created, as far as I can see, precisely by government directives and the forelock-touching to the powerful processed food industry. They would say that people are encouraged to exercise and eat properly, providing that they do not do it for free, but do it in a monetised setting where just the opposite takes place. I'll leave you with one final thought: car parking in hospitals is usually chargeable even if you struggle to walk, but car parking in the monolithic chapels of processed food and the bastions of sugar-loaded leisure centres is free.    

Exhibition or not?

 Guildford on a wet Saturday, what could make things worse?

Mr. Hill and self noodled off to Surrey. A trade show for the O gauge persuasion. Essentially an exhibition in reverse: lots of dedicated trade stands and a small number of layouts dotted about, all in a lower ground floor of a busy leisure centre. I'll come to that bit in a moment. The only similar event I've been to was last century and in Telford. Bigger, but I can't remember much about it. This was, well, dunno, can't quite put my finger on it. The combined purchases for the day were three whitemetal figures. That may give you the answer you require. 

I'm baffled by this sort of establishment. In a break for sustenance, I observed the surroundings: manly families, mainly white middle class (it's Surrey) mainly in various leisurewear attire. How did we get to this point? If you want this sort of thing, it seemed hard to beat, but the café fascinated me. After time running and jumping about, you are offered a selection of 100% ultra-processed ingredient filled snacks and sugar loaded drinks in plastic containers. 

We drive our children to school, don't let them play outside, then drive them to exercise under sodium lighting, but not daylight, then feed them the worst possible diet, then drive them home. Am I missing something, or have we got something terribly wrong? 

Hand warming for Christmas.

 I while back I said no more 9mm track. Then I built a small 09 scale layout. Then there is this. There is link wiring to do and then there are questions. Will it be operated? Unlikely/only minimally. The 009 layout has been hawked about by young Burnham on a couple of occasions, but this would be regarded as unusual. The pointwork remains at this time manual, but I have considered using the Peco switches and switch stand thing with the 'new' smart switches as an almost retro-step. Remember this is theirs, not mine. I am just the instrument.

Some of the early feed wiring fell into the realm of 'entertaining'. I've not managed to this for a goodly number of years and ran a follows:

The brain has two applicable reactions in this situation. 1. grab something which is falling. 2. keep hand away from the business end of a soldering iron as it is likely to be warm. In the split second in question, my brain confused these two reactions and placed them in the wrong order. I now have less skin on my finger than I did before the moment in question. Don't let anyone tell you that half a century of experience makes you better at the job in question.

Saturday Ramble: Selling things on

There was a layout exhibited over the weekend; let's call it Duckling Ghyle. Well known, but for some reason I'd never seen it in the flesh, despite it having been around for decades. Disappointed? Most definitely. 

The modelling was superb; impossible to fault. The display and operation were frankly appalling; off the scale. Achingly slow and partial front operation meant that 3-link couplers were fiddled with in the view-line of the audience. I'm really not a fan of this. Either work at the front/end and go auto, or work from the back and lean over. I can accept the hand of God no problem, but I don't want someone's arse in my face with every single shunt move. 

The problem as I see it, isn't this directly, it's the selling on; and this from a modeller who sells everything on. The original builder has a concept in mind and if he/she is thinking about this properly, it will include an early idea of how the thing will be operated and from what position, even if it is a home layout. Selling on removes this mentally carried part of the concept. I have no doubt that the current owners were competent in many ways, but the slight alteration in display removed this initial operating/layout whole concept approach.  Result: total failure, despite the very high modelling quality. 

I suppose that what I am taking away from this is that if you buy something, you have to be careful that you think carefully about the operating concept as a whole, and don't just purchase the visual modelling. Any reflected glory that you are hoping to obtain will soon be wiped out in seconds if the original operating style is not adopted. 

What do you think?

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Thoughts on TT track

 

 

Deep into the ritual of track laying with the TT. 

There have been some hiccups. Well, more U-turns. OK, if I'm honest, it really wasn't working and I had to change my entire mindset. Was this a product fault? Obviously I cannot say that, but there are some changes which I have had to adapt to. 

Normal procedure is to lay track the same way that I have for years with a back up/operating lever in the form of a DPDT slide switch. This works really well with most of the Peco range. Things are changing. Now we are in to fully swayed toward DCC product design. Depending on your placement within this, this could be a good or a bad thing. Below is a medium radius TT point. It has a funny frog and compared to my standard brain level OO code 100 point it has lots of funny wires running crossways underneath. 

It is non-isolating. This is deal braker. It's totally live whichever way you set it. I tried by-passing this, but gave up, and also gave up on using the DPDT switches. I had to change my head around.

If you want say, the left hand road to be a dead siding, you have to create a new section with an isolating fishplate and a switch. If it's part of a loop, a whole new switched feed section. This for old head DC running.

However... if you assume in this case that it's a one engine in steam branch, you're laughing. No need to isolate anything except in the storage yard. Metal fishplates all the way around. So that's the way I've gone with it. The points are for the minute operated manually (or once a year) but slots have been cut so that motors could be retro fitted.

The plain track is also a new design; code 55 like the N gauge range. This is really code 80 with a different profile. The non-visible lower curve is moulded into the sleeper base rather than sitting in chairs on the top. This makes the whole thing quite chunky with close sleeper spacing. Compared to our old friend code 100 OO she makes for a much more robust beast altogether. This was another head shift as I couldn't visually use copper clad sleepers at the baseboard edges. The track is so robust that I think that the two pins and glue approach should be ample for all but the most violent use.

Conclusions: Different. Needs a new approach and certainly the most robust track I've ever used. Before I started this I did some web research to see what the TT 120 boys were doing. The vibe is definitely leaning toward trainsets, in that there is a lot of train set boxed stuff. This is largely very oval and mainline in practice. Also unsurprisingly there is a fair amount of entry level DCC. I get the feeling that it will take a while to move away from this to other places, a bit like rabbit warrens in 009 in the 70s. There is however a large groundswell, more than I expected. Certainly worth considering with the trade support rapidly growing.

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