Train repairs

When we were down at my parents over the Christmas holiday period and we had the train set out and running for the bairns (and me and dad!), we got a few of the older trains out to play with. These are the trains that I played with when I was a youngster, alongside the Intercity 125 that we didn't get around to getting out.

The only trouble was that a couple of the trains were not running very well or in one case not at all. So, what do you do when a train isn't running? What else but strip it down and play with it! Which is exactly what we did, stripping down a total of 5 trains, although two of them required nothing more than a quick clean up of the contacts and an oiling, before they were back to full health and running perfectly around the train track. Of the other three trains, two took a fair bit of work cleaning up the contacts and wheels, oiling up the various gears and cleaning out all the fluff and gunk that had accumulated over the last 25 0dd years.

BR Type 35, stripped for cleaning.

Two of the trains stripped down were BR Class 35, also known as HyMeks. We have 2 of them, one in blue and one in green, both BR liveried. These use to run very well and were two of the main trains, apart from the 125, that we were allowed to run without supervision. The third train that required a lot of work to get it running was the Class 52, named the Western Gladiator. This was one of the "new" trains that were weren't allowed to play with, unless dad was there to watch us. The other was a green BR diesel, possibly a class 37 or class 40 or even 42! There are so many trains that look the same!

The train repair yard, also know as my parents kitchen table.

Unfortunately, despite our beat efforts, we were unable to get all three trains running. The Class 52 went back in to service quite happily after some TLC and freeing off of the motor unit, which was quite "sticky" having been sat in one position for quite a while. The Blue HyMek took quite a bit of work to get it going. It would run, but only slowly when at full power on the track, when it should have been sprinting around the track. It also didn't like starting, often requiring a little push to get it moving. Eventually after much tinkering and playing, I got it moving nicely, although it still wasn't flying around the track, it was starting and stopping on its own and not throwing off a ton of sparks every time it was running.

The HyMek, taking a test run, minus body.

The other HyMek however seems to have had its days. It was refusing to run at all and there seemed to be no life in it at all. My father also doesn't own a multi-meter! So, I wasn't able to test all the various circuits but eventually we discovered that one of the solder joints had failed. I was able to rig it up to test it and we though we had solved the problem but then another joint failed and finally a third one fell to bits on inspection (prodding with a screw drive) and the decision was taken to call it a day on the repairs and box it back up, with a view to send away for a full repair. Unfortunately, the local man my day use to use for such things has semi-retired, so its very hit or miss as to whether he will take anything on and the shop nearby that also repairs trains has a 4 month freeze on jobs as they have so many trains waiting to be repaired that they are not taking any new ones. As it was sitting in the box, my father was out at a toy/train fair and came across a boxed HyMek, exactly the same as the broken one, going at a good price, so decided to just buy that one instead. So we are back up to two HyMeks, with a third in the knackers yard. Still, I think that next time were down, i'm going to have to grab out the soldering iron and have a play anyway, mostly as if I mess it up, it wont really matter!

Oil rig revisited

Several weeks ago we went to visit the oil rig, well, we though it was time to revisit the site and see what happened. We actually visited a couple of weeks ago and in real time, it's been a couple of months since we first visited. 

There has been a fair bit of progress since we first visited, the main difference is the fact that the tower has been removed, as has a lot of the heavy equipment from the rig, most of which is still laying around on the dock side waiting to be recycled or processed, whichever​ is the case.

One thing that we did note is that despite all the items removed, one thing is still present on the rig. It's quite hard to see, as it's hidden in the shadows and my phone camera doesn't handle half light conditions very well, but the life boat is still hanging on its davits. I would have though that this would have gone early, removed to preserve it from damage and sell on or to put onto another rig, as they are still worth money, even when they are getting old. As long as it's still certified then it's still good to use. The only thing that we can think of is that the lift boat is being kept on board incase of an emergency, as i guess that dropping in the lifeboat is probably still the quickest way off the rig, despite it being sat right next to the dock.

Another interesting fact that we picked up, although when i say we, what i really mean is the wife, is that when the rig came in for decommissioning, it was still full of food! Not fresh food but tinned, dried and similar. Apparently it's always like that, they just remove the perishables and leave the rest for the decommissioning crew to deal with. Crazy or what? There must have been a fair few pounds worth of food in there but i guess when your dealing in tens of thousands, if not millions, of pounds at a time, a few hundred won't mean much. Still i would have thought that shifting it on to another rig or supply boat wouldn't have been that hard. Anyway, it all got donated to a good cause, one of the local charities i believe, so at least it didn't just go in the bin.

We'll pop back again at some point and see what changes have been made and how far the decommissioning process has got.

Train Track

So, we spent some time down in the south a while back, visiting my parents. Now, for me there are many reason to visit, but for the little man there really is only one reason to visit, Grandads model railway. Well, that and the fact that the two of them (and the young lady occasionally) take a trip to the paper shop every morning, which usually involved buying a comic as well!

Anyway, the trains. The little man has been a fan of the trains since Grandad fist got them out a couple of years ago. Now most of the trains are not just toys to my dad but rather expensive collectors items, which lead to my dad buying the little man his very own train, a BR Black 5 or British Railways Standard Class 5MT 4-6-0 as it is officially known as. The little man has also acquired a few carriages and good wagons as his own as well.

The little man and the young lady, had great fun playing with the railway when we were down, running the trains around and around, although the amount of train and carriage changes we had was something to behold! 

While we were there the little man wanted me to film the trains running around, so here they are in all there glory.

Here are also a couple of stills of the track in its latest state along with a close up of my favourite vehicle, the good old Landie.

Stove top fan revaluation

Every once in a while, something comes up which challenges your perception of how things work. When we were down at the in-laws over the Christmas holiday period a new addition was sitting on top of the wood burner, a stove top fan. Now, I've be suggesting one of these to the father in-law for a while as I had heard good things about then when I had been looking at wood burners for our house, however, as we went for a recessed burner, we cant have one.

The fan in question was much like the one above and when we first saw it, it was running nicely on top of the burner. The wife asked how it worked and I preceded to tell her that it worked due to the thermal currents created by the burner and the heat sink arrangement at the back of the fan. In simple terms, the air around the heat sink heated up, rising, drawing in more air over the blades of the fan and as the burner got hotter and so the there was more air current, the fan would start to turn, helping the air to circulate. Sound like a solid theory to me and seems to fit with all of the physics that I know. But then on closer inspection I spotted this;

Photo is a bit dodgy, as I was taking the photo while the burner was on and very hot and the fan was spinning at a fair rate of knots and I didn't fancy loosing a finger or something! Anyway, wires? Why would a fan that worked on air pressure and thermal currents need wires? The father in-law wasn't sure either, he was of the same opinion as me and hadn't taken much notice when he had placed the fan on top of the stove. We discovered this fact at about 23:45, just as we were heading up to bed, so doing what any sane person would do, we left it until the morning to investigate. Er, no, actually we launched in to a whole series of theories and investigations, finally culminating in discovering that stove top fans generally work in one of two ways.

1) Electric or more specifically thermoelectric. In these, there are two plates separated by a small gap, that, when heated to different temperatures create an electric current that powers a motor connected to the fan. This is the most common type of fan and is the reason for the heat sink at the top, which is there to ensure a heat difference between the top and bottom plates in the "battery". https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stove_fan is a good place to get a better explanation.

2) Mechanical or Stirling type. These use a small engine, which runs thought the expansion and contraction of air. Its kinda hard to explain, mainly as I don't really understand it myself, but the basics as far as I can tell are that the air heats up in the hot cylinder, pushing the piston up and turning the fan blade at the same time it expanse in to the cold cylinder, pushing that up to. The air is then forces in to the cold cylinder where it contracts and is drawn back in to the hot cylinder by the momentum of the fly wheel. Once in the hot cylinder in heat up again and the cycle repeats. Its a lot easier to see what i'm talking about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine 

So, all in all, I learnt something, mostly that I didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I have since discovered how stove top fans really work and also learnt a bit about Stirling Engines, which seem to be pretty cool.

Its at time like these that I wonder what else I have misunderstood over the years. I suppose time will tell.

oil rig

A few weeks ago we received a new attraction on the island, in the shape and form of an old oil rig that has been brought in to be decommissioned. The little man was fascinated with the rig, the young lady just wanted to go home for snack! Unfortunately the pictures aren't very good as they were taken on my mobile in the evening when it was dark and my phone camera doesn't handle the dusk light very well.

The rig is still pretty much complete at this point, although they were starting to strip off the smaller​ items.  We'll have to come back soon to see what has been done between visits, but i suspect that the rig will be here for quite a while.

Reflections

Just a quick post today, as there are still lots of posts to catch up with, including the posts from our visit to my parents back in November! However, i though that i would post this up today, as we have been having a lot of windy weather recently. In amongst all this wind there have been a few quite days and as a result the loch has looked stunning, with almost glass like surface. Here are a few pictures i took the other day.

Hope you enjoyed them.

Kenitic Sand

My sister brought the kids some "kinetic" sand for Christmas. It wasn't actually kinetic sand, it was another make, but I cant remember the name and they are all pretty much the same thing and you all know what I mean when I say kinetic sand, so I'll stick to that. 

The sand was a big hit with the kids, who loved playing with it, but what I think was the best bit about the present was the moulds that came with the set. In the past we have a few sets, that came with a few different moulds, such a sea creatures and also cars, but this set came with castle moulds. They ranged in size from small scale moulds, with wall and towers to much larger walls and also a pyramid and tower complete with stairs. 

The little man spend most of the time building towers from the bigger sets, naming them Towers of Doom for some reason, this was almost immediately copied by the young lady, who started building her own Towers of Doom. 

Tower of Doom

Tower of Doom MkX

This was one of the young ladies towers.

Building these towers kept the kids occupied for quite some time over a number of days, repeating the cycle of building and destroying and rebuilding again. The little man has got quite good at keeping the sand on the try, however, the young lady has not quite mastered this yet and a fair portion of the sand ends up on the floor! Luckily, its simple to pick the sand up again and put it back in with the rest. Granted over time the sand wonders off and your suddenly left with not enough sand to build even the smallest building. Christmas gave us plenty of refills though, as we had several packs given to us and we have kept some back to top up as we get low. 

While there are lots of different types of Kinetic sand out there, the original Kinetic sand still seems to be the best, although the last lot we got, with the castle building seems pretty good, I think that its Motion Sand, either way its pretty good stuff. We have had Cra-Z-Sand in the past and I don't think that this is as good, that's not to say it's rubbish, but it's quite different and more sand like, so it doesn't seem to hold as well and makes a lot more mess, that's a lot harder to clean up. The moulds that came with the cra-z-sand however are pretty good and have little tabs on the top to help you hold them, which is very useful.

I have to say that it's not just the kids that enjoyed playing with the sand either, i had a great time building a castle with all the various bits and pieces.

Castle Burden overview

Front view

A close-up of the main castle

Birds eye view of the castle, I'm sure there are various names for certain parts of a castle, but i cant remember any and I'm not interested enough to go searching for them! 

Slight accident while building.

It was fun building the castle and i managed to use up every price of sand! I literally had to scratch around to gather the last bits of sand to finish the last mould and finish off the walls but i think it was worth it. Granted, i should have been doing some house work instead of playing with the sand, but hey, everybody needs a little break. The bairns though it was great, and did play with it for a few minutes. Unfortunately the little man's idea of play tends to be build it and then break it, so you can imagine what came next!

3

2

1

And destroyed! Yep, it took me about 10 minutes to build the castle and took the pair of them about 30 second to destroy it! They were giggling and making crashing sounds the whole time they were destroying the castle, so i don't mind at all, as they were having fun and i wasn't really expecting anything less. Next time the kids have the sand out again, i may well try and build another castle, just because i can.

Snowy lakes

Again were still stuck in Christmas, don't worry we'll get back to the new year soon enough! After we had Christmas up at ours, we went down to the lakes to see the in-laws for new years. It was good to get away, although the trip ended on a bit of a low with the Great Grandmother falling ill and unfortunately passing away not long after the new year. 

While we were down though, we did get to spend some time with the greater family, catching up with the brothers and sister in-law and hearing all the latest family news. Including the fact that the 18 year old brother in law is buying a house! Best of luck to him, hopefully he's going to be setting himself up well for the rest of his life, I remember how much of a struggle it was getting my first flat.

I think most of these facts passed the kids by as at the do with young children, they were far more interested in seeing grandma and going to the soft play, not to mention getting quite excited over the now on top of the hills around the lakes. 

Not a bad view from the house.

As always, I took full advantage of the time away to catch up on my sleep and grab a Costa Mocha or two. I do find that these trips south to the in-laws a great way to relax for a bit and recharge, leaving all the childcare to them, well, mostly grandma anyway. Grandad, as great as he is at playing with the kids, something I think he enjoys greatly as well, its grandma who seems to be the star of the show when were down. I think its mostly because she lets them get away with all sorts of things and always has lots of goodies around the house, not to mention every time they come home after being out with grandma and granddad they seem to come back with a new toy and full of naughty snacks. Not that we mind, after all, that's what grand parents are for, although I would get annoyed if they lived just a round the corner and did it, although I suspect that they wouldn't if they did.

It could be a while before we get back to the grandparents again, as trips south are more difficult now the little man is at school. We cant just join the wife on her trips south anymore, which is a shame, but the kids are getting older all the time and life changes. Maybe one day I'll be able to join her again and leave the kids at home by themselves!

living on an island

While this is Christmas related, its not really about Christmas, its more about the Christmas weather. I'm sure that I have posted about this before, and I was going to like it here, but I cant seem to find it right now. I think I need to get my labels sorted to make finding things a little easier for everyone, including me!

Anyway, living on an island is great. There are some many advantages to living in a small community, one that actually has a proper community feel to it as well. However, there are certain disadvantages, the main one being that you are so far from everyone else and its expensive and time consuming to get anywhere on the main land. There is also another distinct disadvantage of living on an island, when the weather is bad, shopping become a problem!

Fruit anyone?

I should have taken a picture of the bread as well, because that was in a similar state, as was the vegetables on the other side of the fruit, you can just about make it out, as if you look carefully, you can actually see though the shelves on the bottom picture, there is a couple walking in the isle you can see by the melons in the bottom left.

It wasn't all bad though, there was still some fruit and veg, mostly the expensive organic stuff and some frozen and the in-store bakery was still producing loves of bread, at equally expensive prices! For us, it doesn't really matter, it was only for a few days and we had enough in the house to survive, thank god for freezers! Still, I'll take this minor inconvenience and live on an island. As far as I'm concerned its 1000 times better living here than in London where I grew up!

xmas calenders

Ok, so were well in to February now and i'm posting about Christmas. Its been a bit of a rocky start to the year, but hopefully things are looking up. This does mean that I am quite a way behind on posting up here and there are lots of draft posts, sitting half finished. I will try and get these up as soon as I can, so there may well be a bit of a spurt of posts over the next couple of weeks as I get caught up. This seem to be getting to be a habit, not posting for a while and them posting up lots over a short period of time. I need to get better at concentrating on this blog, as I do have a habit of prioritising my other hobby blog over this one. The young lady is now at nursery a couple of days a week however and we are coming back in to summer, which means that I should have some more time to blog in the future and try and drive this blog forward, as I've neglected it recently and viewing figures, although never huge, have dropped off quite a bit.

Anyway, on to the content of this post, and a step back in time, only about 3 months though, so nothing to extreme.

The wife decided that this year we would do something different for the kids Christmas advent calendars. It all stemmed from last year when my mother won a raffle prize of a set of 25 books, all wrapped up, to be used as an advent calendar. We used this with the little man and he loved it, getting really excited every night to be getting a new story book. So we decided to replicate it slightly, although we modified it by including some small toys and chocolates ( well it is Christmas after all ).

The calendars.

We did one for each of the kids and although the books were age appropriate, we filled the rest of the calendar with matching items, mostly to save on the arguments. The little toys were pretty basic, toy cars, squidgy frog/fish thing that pokes its tongue out when you squeezer it, googly eye toy, that sort of thing. There were 12 books in total including a special one for Christmas eve, 4 chocolate bars and the rest were toys, a nice little selection of items. It wasn't as though they didn't get enough chocolate over the advent period either!

7 chocolate advents

Yes, we really did have 7 chocolate advents and I don't like them! The wife ended up with two, as did the young lady. The little man however ended up with 3! As you can see, there wasn't a lot of variety either! It was a bit of a mission to keep everything in order though, as with so many the same, there were the inevitable arguments over whose was whose. I did solve this after several arguments by drawing big letters on the back to mark out who owned which one, but even then it got very confusing at times! 

I do love the fact of how excited the kids get about all the Christmas stuff, but i'm not so sure that having 3 advent chocolate for breakfast each morning is particularly healthy!