Still Doing Fencing Around the Station

On Friday afternoon, I went to the local hobby shop and ended up buying some nice wooden fences from Chilli Engraving.  That is Tristan in our Club.  These were removed from their packaging when I got home and I could see where I would use them on the layout.  That night I started studying some photos I took when I was last in Casino of the houses backing onto the railway line.  I then realised that I needed to make some 6’ chain wire fencing to the list of requirements. This is mostly at the railway property border where roads or laneways met and backed onto the railway land.   It shoul dbe understood that I do not have photos of these areas back 30 years ago when my layout is set.  So I can only hope that the fencing did not change much in these houses, and road/laneways over that time period.

So I started cutting up some styrene to make some 6’ chain wire fencing for the end of Wiangarie Street on Cassino.  I cut the posts and glued the top rail on.  This was constructed in three sections. 

Saturday was soccer day, with two matches to ferry my son to.  When I eventually got home late in the arvo, I painted the fence segments I made the day before.  I installed the two short segments either side of Wiangarie Street, and drilled the holes for the third.

It wasn’t until this afternoon that I installed the third section of fencing around Wiangarie Street.  Today I also installed a few more sections of fencing on the houses backing on to Cassino Station.  I also made up another small section of fencing for Convent Parade.  I also added a gate for access for authorised persons.

I was also able to find some more detail items and give them a paint last weekend.  So I now have a couple of wheel barrows to help get the concrete from the mixer (still to get one of those) to the boxing for the car port slab.  I also added a letter box to the house on Canterbury Street.

The various gates for a number of houses will be made tonight from styrene.

A few photos show progress.

The house in Canterbury Street.  The detail out the front is coming along.  Just need a cement mixer.  Last week I added some trees, fencing at the end of the street, paved walkways in the front and backyard.

This laneway is Convent Parade.  Fencing is in, gate is in.  I need a gate on the driveway on the house on the left.  I still need to build this house and add detail.

This house is the other one on Convent Parade.  It has no front fence.  Well no house here either, yet and no detail.

This is North Street.  No house, and an incomplete side fence yet.

The other house in North Street.  Wooden fences all around.  

The next house backs onto a grassed unnamed laneway (in Google maps) .  This is the start of the chain wire fencing that I made on Friday night.

The full view of the fencing at the end of Wiangaree Street.

Pottering About - Adding More Detail

I had Friday off this week as a lead up to my birthday yesterday.  The Boss and I went to the shop and I had a very nice feed a Chinese for lunch.  I did get around to doing some modelling activities in the arvo.  During the week I received a post on my blog from Shelton wanting some speed signs made up.  I wanted to do a few more traffic signs myself, so I cut up some signs and glued them to some 0.010” styrene.  These were set aside to dry.  I got out some old fence posts from a storage container that I had previously made up.  These were made from 0.060” I beam and used to represent fence posts made from rail.  These are painted brown and five holes are drilled in them.  Normally I do not thread wire or cotton through them.  But this time I was going to install these right in front of Cassino station.  So I ensured that the pre-drilled holes, were in fact all well opened and clean of any burrs.  I also packed up a box of goodies to take to Darren’s for our Saturday get together to show off.  Things included were my Wifitrax WFD-40 plug and play wifi for the NCE system.  I also added some incinerators that I was to give to another member and lots of other detail items that I had.

We found out on Friday arvo that my son’s Saturday school soccer game start time was changed to start an hour later – Damn!  So now I could not attend that and still get to the NMRA meeting at Darren’s on time.  So I missed that game, and went to Darren’s.  But the NMRA Div 1 super rang up just before I was about to leave and advised that the NMRA meeting was cancelled due to the QLD Premier implementing a 10 person cap on home visits that morning.  No Soccer, no NMRA meeting!  But I still had to spend some time with my mate Darren to ensure that he was not depressed with the sudden cancellation of his meeting.  It was not a total loss from my point of view, as I sold 50 x 44 gallon drums to Darren for detailing his layout.  I also checked out some of the work he had been doing on the layout.  It just gets better.

When I got home I went down to the shed and did some work before taking my son to a late Club Soccer game.  The less said about that game the better.  A 10-0 loss under lights against the top team, that should be in the higher division.

Anyway, first thing I did today was cut up the various road signs that I made on Friday.  I then went down to the shed and just continued to potter around.  I added a few signs to various locations on the layout.

The last thing I did before lunch was to drill holes in the baseboard for the 9 fence posts made from 0.060” styrene I beam at the end of Canterbury Street.  I also filled a large pot with dirt and then added a small tree to it, for a topiary tree out the front of my house in Canterbury Street.

After lunch I decided to get around and thread some cotton through a small needle, and then threaded that needle through the 9 x fence posts for the 5 strands of wire in the fence.  This was then moved to the layout and superglued in place.  It looks very nice.

I decided to rip up the fence in front of my Canterbury Street house.  I realised after posting photos of it last week, that the pickets were on the wrong side of the fence.  So I ‘end for ended’ the fence.  I still need to reinstall some driveway gates, as these will now be wire and not styrene.  I also made up some fences for the house on the other side of the road.  So that was also installed.  It needs a nice front gate to be made up and doesn’t have any driveway gates.  I also realised last week that the house I had already modelled in Canterbury was missing a path from the front of the house to the front gate.  So that was added today out of bricks to represent paving.  I also added a path out the back to the shed and the clothes line.  Hey PK, do you know what one of those is?  During the week I also ordered up big from Joe at Casula.  A lot of Uneek and Kerroby items were ordered and delivered very quickly.  These will eventually make their way around the layout in the next few weeks.

Again a review of some photos of the house in Canterbury Street taken from the platform at Cassino, revealed that this house had a wooden fence behind the larger shed in the backyard.  So this was made up and painted two shaded of brown (one for each side), and when dry it was installed.  I also added some more green colourbond fencing on the far side of the house.  I still need to add some gutters to the large shed and some pipes into the water tank.  Maybe during the week if I finish early one day.  I also planted a few trees around the end of Canterbury Street and the house at the end of the street.  I then started installing fences backing onto the railway right of way out the back of the other house at the opposite side of the Street.  I also made up a few more lengths of colourbond type fencing for later use on other houses.  I will have to try and get some laser cut wooden fencing from Tristan made up.

More Work Around Canterbury Street

Friday was a public holiday in Brisbane.  It was our Ekka show holiday moved from its traditional Wednesday to a Friday to give a long weekend to the locals, in the hope that they will go out and spend some money.  Well Aurora Trains was open from 9-midday on the Friday, so I went there and did some spending.  I picked up some more styrene glue and a set of windows that Wuiske Models has produced.  Before I left home, I liked a post by George with a shot of one of my pallets with two 44 gallon drums on it.  So I threw my container of pallets and my container of pallets with drums into my tool box before I left home and went to George's.  I had already received a text from George earlier in the week, wanting some of my tarps.  So they were already in the tool box.  My main reason to visit George’s shop was actually to adjust the sensors on the automatic level crossing test module that is in his shop.  Well the trick was to ensure that the infra-red detector LEDs on the modules have the slightest taper towards each other when they are installed into the track.  So once that was done, Voila – just like a bought one.  Oh, did I mention, that George is selling these little kits, with an Arduino with code that will control a single track bi-directional level crossing, or a section of dual track with directional up and down trains.  He even sells the LED flashing light modules.  What more could a modeller want?

So George is now selling a few tarpaulins in a pack.  Just as I was about to go, he received a text about his post of the pallet photo with 44 gallon drums.  He was about to advise that they come all stuck together, when I said hold on!  Out came about a hundred pallets that I have already made.  George took quite a few dozen off me.  So if anyone wants some, go see George at Aurora Trains.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a list of tasks to accomplish on the layout – a bit of a ‘To Do’ list.  Well on Friday afternoon, I finally blew the dust off that list and went down to the shed and started ticking a few items off that were on the 'To Do' list.

First task was to adjust a wire from the positive terminal on my Hotham Road level crossing to the negative terminal.  This wire was attached to a push button, which allowed the shunters to activate the level crossing manually from the Cassino Down Yard, for a train to depart towards Brisbane.  That was done and tested and it worked.  Next task (which wasn’t on the list) was to adjust an LED on one of the flashing lights at Hotham Street, as one LED was not flashing.  It was a dry solder joint.  So after a bit of mucking around, the LED sprang back into flashing life and then it didn’t, then it did, then it didn’t.  Well I did say it was a flashing light – that was an attempt at humour!

Next task was to affix the fence barrier either side of Railway Parade (the overbridge at Cassino station). I started on the near side some weeks back, and never did the far side.  Well that task was completed and then the road guttering was installed from 0.060” styrene angle.  I also installed some speed signs, some ‘No Parking’ signs, some ‘Angle Parking’ signs and some other ones.  I also fitted some balsa to the front of the road, to cover up the polystyrene to tidy things up a bit.  I also deployed a few road signs to the road near Lismore station.

The bridge after a couple of signs were added.  A speed limit on the bridge and a no stopping sign.

The far side of the bridge with the fence barriers installed.  Also a speed sign and no stopping signs.  There is also the beginnings of a light post.  The bridge had angle parking on the lead up to it.  The car will eventually have its headlights and stop lights wired up to an Arduino controlling a number of lights at this location.

The far side of the road over the bridge, with fencing and guttering.  A few bits of grass and other things will be installed in the future.

The front of the layout now has a bit of a fascia.

This shot shows the sign at the far side of the intersection.

By changing the focus, this shot shows the traffic lights ahead sign.

Over at the top of Fairy Lane, just outside the old Community Hall, where a lot more work will eventually occur at in the next few weeks, I had to install a very simple pelmet made from two strips of balsa.  This just stops the operators from looking straight into the strings of LED lights.  The layout deck above this location here is South Brisbane Interstate and that is quite high.  While at this task, I added three more strips of balsa to make a pelmet at the other end of Fairy Hill Crossing Loop (again under South Brisbane Interstate station) on the North Coast Controller side of the layout.

This photo shows the community hall and the dunnies out the back.  I have added a light here for the benefit of the people using the hall and the outdoor conveniences.  Also visible above the hall is the balsa pelmet painted black.

This shot shows the outdoor light working.

The black pelmet is also installed down the far end on that peninsular and also painted black.

On Friday night I decided to replace some boxing I made up out of styrene with some made from strips of stripwood.  The wooden version looks a lot better than the styrene version.  There will be more work on this over the weekend.  I have some sheets of reo that will be added to a cement pour.  This will be the start of a car port and driveway for one of the locals in Canterbury Street.  A few more items need to be added here.  One sand, some aggregate and some more boxing.  I will eventually also get a cement mixer to place here, as the poor old householder, is doing it all by hand.

Saturday afternoon after a very nice game of soccer, I was able to get down the shed and paint my balsa pelmets.  I also installed a few power poles.  I then mixed up a batch of concrete from plaster and some black and white paint to make it a cement colour, and then poured some of it into the boxing I made up the day before.

I then cut out some foam and coated it with ballast to make a truck load of aggregate and another for a track load of sand.  These were created on a piece of wood.  They were cut off the wood and transplanted onto the front footpath of the house today.  I also made a small bucket that will be filled with water and modelled the hose coming out from beside the house, over the fence and to the bucket.  I still need a mixer and two wheel barrows, but a power cord has been supplied for the mixer when it turns up.  Of course I also need some shovels and a few other detail items to be added.  These exist, but were sitting on the platform and not in the piles of sand and aggregate.

The last house in Canterbury Street is getting a new concrete carport.  Out the front are the piles of sand and aggregate.  In the distance is a pallet of 20kg cement bags.  No quite visible is the tin which the person who will be doing the hand mixing of the concrete will have their water supply.  A green hose from green decoder wire is coming out from beside the house and under the fence.  There is also an extension lead coming out from the electricity box for the electric cement mixer (not in the scene as yet).  Also missing are two wheel barrows.  A couple of shovels also did not make the photo.

A shot showing the boxing around the slab and the first few mixer loads in the boxing.  It is about to be leveled off.  The backyard also contains someone doing some mowing with a push mower and the outdoor table for a BBQ lunch later in the day.

Another shot of the backyard.  This shows a couple of fruit trees and the hen house.

The whole backyard, complete with an outhouse, a small home office made from brick and a 12m x 6m titan shed for the owner's model railway.

There is still plenty to do around this house.  I plan to add a topiary tree in a pot to the front porch.  I added a fancy cast iron bench seat for the owner to watch the comings and going at the station from.

Now I Can Do Dual Track

So my awaited postal deliveries all turned up on Monday.  I tested the 20 IR detectors and they all worked.  Quite a few of them had out of alignment LEDs, so that is the reason for testing them, so my concerns were unjustified.  During the week I added the wiring under the level crossing module from the IR detectors and level crossing lights back to the Arduino and also installed some PC board distribution points, for all the positive and negative wires for the detectors and level crossing lights.  So on Friday afternoon following work, I finally fired up the Arduino in the level crossing diorama module and gave everything a test.  It worked.  I did have to adjust the IR detectors a couple of times, so they came through the track and provided a better location for them to work.

On Saturday morning while on my way to soccer with my son I made a quick visit to George’s shop to deliver his diorama.  Upon testing some of the detectors would not operate consistently with the test wagon.  So next Saturday when I revisit the shop I will adjust the sensitivity on those detectors, to ensure consistent detection. 

On Saturday evening after a full day of soccer games at different ends of the universe for school and club, I finally sat at my computer desk and designed my version of the code in the Arduino level crossing detector to operate on double track with single directional running on each track.  I did implement the code for configurable jumper to make the Arduino now operate for either single track or dual track, depending upon if the jumper being set or not there.  

Today I sat down at the keyboard, and started off by writing the code for a single direction of activation.  This was the ‘up’ direction.  I discovered a few flaws in my logic as I was converting my logic into code, but they were quickly overcome.  I then copied that code, and swapped ‘up’ for ‘down’ and ‘down’ for ‘up’, and after some testing and a few small changes, it was tested and it seemed to be working.  I ran an up train, a down train, an up and a down train, an up train and 3 down trains, and vice versa, all within the same activation to ensure that the code worked for all possible options for trains on dual track.  All scenarios worked well.

So now the version that I will be distributing can be configured as a single track bi-directional level crossing, or a dual track with each track catering for either an up or down travel.  Versions with differing scenarios to this have not been considered.  With that said, there are options to include cut-out switches on a detector, when shunting near a level crossing so the detector does not activate in these circumstances, or a manual actuating switch to be located on a control panel to simulate a 'shunter' pressing the switch to activate the level crossing from a yard track.  But these scenarios are not mentioned in my kit that I am distributing but can be added if anyone is interested.

So now I might be able to start ticking off some of the tasks I want to do to complete some projects on my 'To Do' List over the next few weeks.  I also get to have an extra day in the shed this week, as Friday is a Public Holiday in Brisbane.

The Best Laid Plans ....

This weekend I had plans on what I was going to achieve.  I did basically none of those tasks.  I was going to do some more work on the Cassino Station Overbridge.  Never got to it.  I was to do some detail work around the yard on one of the houses in Canterbury Street.  Never got to it.  I did want to spend some time working on controlling a servo with one of my Arduinos.  Never got to it.  I was to continue work on trying to create a string of party lights out of micro LEDs.  For this I did some work on Friday afternoon, and that was where it ended.  I did want to put together a few extra street signs.  I cut them up before lunch today, and maybe tonight while watching TV I might add some posts to the signs.  So this might eventually get completed this weekend.

However last night I did some work with my test Arduino.  I am testing the controlling of various light flashes.  I am trying to create a dance party in a local hall which will be surrounded by lots of drunk model people.  The hall with have a set of random flashing lights going off inside the hall, which people looking at the layout will be able to see.  What will also occur is that the hall will have an MP3 player located underneath it with a small speaker.  So those walking past will also be able to hear the big booze up party.  But my MP3 player has not turned up as yet.  Earlier in the week, I was experimenting with controlling some blue flashing lights for my local police car.  It will be positioned down the road from the large hall party.  It's blue lights will randomly come on occasionally to pull over some locals for a RBT.

I did visit George’s shop early on Saturday morning and got some advice about packaging up one of my Level Crossing kits (for single track) for sale at his shop.  Later that morning Barnacle Bob visited my place and left with his own Arduino and some styrene detail models for him to assist with adding yet more detail to his fantastic layout.  Later on I went to Bunnings and purchased some wood to make a little diorama, which will be used to display my level crossing kit.  So this diorama can sit in George's shop and show people how it works.  So today with the help of my apprentice, I got the various bench saws out of the shed and cut up some wood and made a display box.  I gave it a paint, fitted the track and the detectors and then some level crossing lights (provided by George) and then did some scenery on the board. 

Now if Australia Post played nice, I would have had some more IR detectors available and some additional Arduinos delivered on Friday so I could have potentially had the level crossing module working today.  But now I need to wait for my various packages to arrive and then find some time off work to put it all together. 

Here is what it looks like so far.

The new display module with glue drying on the ballast