This month, we took delivery of an Rbe 540 which looks a bit like a railbus (see the photo here). The safety equipment (decoder) was fitted to the loco, and seemed to be ok. Shortly afterwards, the loco started malfunctioning. The driver would set a steady speed, and the loco would slow down, speed up, and even stop and reverse. On the funny side, the loco lights would turn on and off seemingly at random! The loco had to be withdrawn from service for a couple of weeks while its equipment was checked. (Thankyou to Mackay Models (see links page) who changed the decoder for me without any fuss at all.) DCC fitting story for the Rbe540 is here.
Before the decoder failed, I found that this loco could not cope with my 6.5% gradients and 200mm radius curve at the south end of Intres station unless it was pulling only two coaches or less. Obviously this was a strain for the loco and I would have to avoid using it on this route. Instead, I decided to remove the mountain line altogether. The new trackplan is shown below.
Within a couple of days, this line was replaced with what we call the no.2 line, a simple level circuit with connections to no.1 line and the storage yard only via Intes north and Intres south junctions. See the track plans here. The crossover to the south of Intres has been reversed, to allow trains from the storage yard to pass using the no.2 line in Intres station. Intres yard has also been redesigned.
Outstanding construction work...
Above: General mess.
Above: Shiny new control panel installed and commissioned. Points are set using the push buttons. The buttons control a particular group of points (eg a cross over or both ends of a loop). The lights indicate which route is selected. It is a bit of a cheap and cheerful job, but that's what the brief was.