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.