Meeting 23rd July 2011

At today's meeting Allen and Andy finished installing the mark 2 turnout motors.  We also replaced the control arms on the first batch with the new improved strengthened versions.  Allen is now selling the turnout system as a kit - check it out at the Minimum Gauge Models stand at your next Narrow Gauge exhibition.

	Peter had finished the improvements to the turntable to sort out the warping of the deck.
	The turntable is aligned by a single bull-dog clip which bridges the angled aluminium strips

Several months ago Ken built a really lovely three-way point for the timber-yard sidings, but the complexity of it has meant that it is rather fragile - it is difficult to strengthen, so reluctantly we have decided to replace it with teo separate turnouts.

We discovered a small problem with our uncoupling magnets. We have used pairs of small "rare-earth" magnets, with their tops level with the sleepers, to operate the KD couplings. They work fine with the bogie stock, but when we tried to reverse some standard Bachmann V-skips over the magnets they proved too strong and tipped the skips.



The problem seems to be that the V-skips have a very short wheelbase, but a long overhang to the coupling pin. The magnets make the wagon pivot on the front axle.

So, sorting out the magnets is our next priority.

And then Andy started planning another extension to the layout.....