Lessons Learnt

Had a friend down to share my air-conditioned lounge room through the scorching weather of Saturday, and we spent the afternoon playing trains in a manner that would terribly upset those dedicated to the finescale modelling of prototype scenes to the highest standards. Some things were learnt:

• The Fiddleyard stock boxes don't adequately prevent locos and wagons from moving back and forth within the foam slots. This happened to my friend rather than me, but I've got one of these boxes too and it's going to acquire some additional bits of foam to better protect my toys from end-on collisions.
• Because of the above, it was found that real metal Kadee couplers are much more durable than plastic clones. Fortunately, the clones seem to be completely interchangable with the faithful Kadee #5, so experience was gained and my friend's stuff repaired better than new.
• Wherever possible couplers should be screwed together, not glued. I've a couple of kits where the coupler boxes are glued on because I didn't have suitable screws and taps on hand. Having seen a bunch of wagons with broken couplers, this was clearly a mistake. Couplers need to be repairable.
• When building temporary layouts, quality roadbed track may well be the way to go. Kato Unitrak seems the best option (other alternatives not really being more durable than basic sectional track), but in HO scale it's expensive and difficult to get. Given that my ambitions run to more permanent layouts I probably won't bother.
• I need to arrange more durable electrical arrangements. This means I want a soldering iron and need to learn to solder.