I did get some writing done today but then the Procrastination Fairy visited. I’d put a few more bits on eBay and one was a coach with lighting. In N gauge, lighting in coaches is uncommon because there isn’t anything to see inside most of the coaches. Usually it’s one bulb in the middle which, in scale, would be about the size of a luminous Aga.
There’s also the issue of power pickup from the tracks which means the coaches flicker when running as if Voldemort is chasing Harry Potter through the train. So the Procrastination Fairy spoke to me. What if you used fibre-optic to spread the light and what if you could wire the coaches together to stop the flicker and what if you used LEDs instead of filament bulbs so you wouldn’t have to replace burned out ones and what if you had a capacitor to keep the light on when the power went off…
Anyway, I have some fibre-optic and a busted coach to play with so… I concluded that this would all be a damn sight easier to achieve in OO gauge than in N. But in OO gauge I want individual lights in compartments so that set off a whole new waste of hours. Then all the consideration of luggage racks and whether I could have an OO scale Dalek as a conductor (yes, I have one, it just needs a uniform painted on). So it’s been the sort of mind-drift evening that would scare a cocaine addict.
And all I had was booze and fags and bacon rolls.
All of which are pretty much the same as cocaine these days anyway. So it seems I might as well get some cocaine, I have after all been constantly tempted by its delightful packaging and must surely eventually succumb to the pressure exerted by Big Drug and the cocaine lobby.
That’s what the dickheads who run the government think, so who am I to argue?
“Stand clear of the gap, or you will be Exterminated” Love it.
With a post title like that, you are clearly an Ian Dury fan!! Good man…
You can always spot an Ian Dury fan. Construct any sentence in that form and they can’t help but sing it
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/320153_413833925332439_1452161099_n.jpg
Hmmmm….
Daleks as public servants? They’d be far too tolerant and approachable then the ones we have?
And you could escape them by fleeing up the station stairs!
A dreadful weakness of the daleks unfortunately. Makes them a bit wimpish. And daleks that can fly are just a cheating.
Actually I always thought it made them more purely alien. A race for whom the concept of stairs simply never occurred.
Not any more. Who do you think is behind all those ramps everywhere?
They are also far too logical, and would only apply the law exactly as it was intended. They’d be no use to any Council.
“What if you used fibre-optic to spread the light and what if you could wire the coaches together to stop the flicker and what if you used LEDs instead of filament bulbs so you wouldn’t have to replace burned out ones and what if you had a capacitor to keep the light on when the power went off…”
What If you mounted an AAA battery in one of the coaches and ran the lights off that? Or is that not feasible? Or not purist enough? Dunno, I’ve never been into model trains, but if I was, and I wanted to solve the flickering light problem, I would look at a separate power source for them.
Unfortunately, N gauge coaches aren’t much wider than AAA batteries. I have thought about button cells but the frequency of replacement would make them expensive.
Batteries are certainly a feasible option in OO gauge though, and it would be much easier to fit a tiny on/off switch underneath. That would also solve the problem of the brightness being dependent on the speed of the train.