Chilling Out

This last week was spent down the Gold Coast with a beach swim in the early morning followed by a pool swim upon return to the unit before lunch and various travels to various shopping centres and other locations in the afternoon.  I could not get motivated to start work on my Murwillumbah Cement Silo.  I was just happy relaxing, swimming, eating and drinking, catching up on reading various train magazines and sleeping.  On Thursday with the cricket on TV, I finally sat down at the table and started looking at the cement silo.  I had various pipe work components that I had previously manufactured and that needed to be attached to the silo.  So I started on this task, and then BAM – I had my juices back.  I started looking at various photos that I had received from fellow club member and friend Quentin that showed fantastic detail of this silo.  Looking at some photos showed that there was a safety rail around the tops of the three silos.  So I thought I would try and replicate this.  I made up some uprights and attached them to the tops of the silos.  I then took some fine styrene and attempted to glue this to the uprights to make the railings around the silos.  This turned out quite well.  I then noticed that there was a walkway between the three silos.  So I made this out of various styrene shapes just like the hand rails around the silos.  It was then that I noticed that there was a ladder structure with a safety frame around it that made its way up from the roof of the base structure to the top of one of silos.  Well, I thought I might be able to make something similar to this.  Then it was time to pack up and head off home.

Early on this afternoon, I found some commercial ladder and then cut some thin slices of styrene tube to add to the ladder to make the safety cage around the ladder.  So I have added the round frames to the ladder, I just need to add the vertical bracings and try and make the landing for half way up the silos.  That is a job for next week.

Later this afternoon I ventured down to the shed and started the rework on the lights above The Risk.  I replaced the brackets holding up the frame.  I then screwed the Pelmet to the frame and then took a photos of the lights turned on.  They worked just as good as before.  

The LED lights shining on The Risk and below onto Cassino.

I then turned around and looked at the lights for Border Loop.  I decided to drill holes for my hanging bolts in the two ‘A’ frames above Border Loop.  I then thought about how I would attach my pelmet.  I started at one end and then attached the other.  I turned the lights on and I’m pretty happy with the results.  I think I will bend the rear metal aluminium angle slightly to provide more light to the rear of the hilly area behind the crossing loop.  I may also pull the chain in one or two links - making it higher.  These methods will allow the light to reach the tops of the rear hills.  I can also attach some fishing line to the hanging pelmet and tie it to a point behind the current points where the chain hangs from the ‘A’ frame.  This way I can ensure that the Border Loop Pelmet does not swing back and forth with the air coming from the Aircon unit during a running session.  It also might allow the light from the LEDs to more completely cover the rear hills.

Border Loop looking north - a shadow is currently on the hills but I will fix that.

Border Loop looking south.

I still have plenty of work to do, in order to prepare for the upcoming operating session.  This includes testing and tuning some rollingstock, cleaning the track, create some shunting lists for some new trains and printing off the final timetables for the session.  Time is starting to run out.