Sunday, January 3, 2021

The Holiday is Over

That heading sounds like a song title.  Well almost as this is not a carnival.  My place regularly looks like a circus though.  Well this last week of holidays has now ended and I must front up to work tomorrow, while the rest of the house stays home.  School and Uni holidays seem to never end.  I have completely lost track of time this last week.  Isn’t that what holidays are for?  I went down to the shed everyday and did something.  I went through the timetable cards that the guys notated and I think I have fixed up everything they identified.  There are still jobs to do, like investigate the headsets, but there is plenty of time for that.  I'm still trying to win that illusive Lotto jackpot so I can go on a permanent holiday but no luck at that as yet.

This week, following the Running Session last Sunday, I have adjusted some sections of track on the layout.  Starting with the section through the last Running Creek tunnel on the way to The Risk.  I ripped up that section of track.  It was very difficult to access.  Once I did rip it up, I was immediately regretting that I did do that.  This section was giving a few wagons some issues with derailments occurring intermittently.  One in particular was by the NSWGR Paybus.  Once the section was relayed, the paybus was working through the section quite well.  I also had some complaints about some other sections of tracks and I was also getting issues when trains ran through a set of points near Glenapp Loop.  Upon closer inspection it was revealed that there was some ballast in the point blade and wagons were derailing.  The point could not be set for the mainline correctly.  I fixed that and then everything went back to normal at that location.  I then fixed up two power jumpers.  For the next major job I didn’t venture far from the Running Creek Tunnels, actually, I went to the deck directly above, and moved the building that I had located there for Kyogle Veneers – my made up name for the industry located at the timber siding at that location.  I have no idea what that industry at that location used to be called back in the 1980s to 1990s.  I also moved the building from the front siding to the rear siding.  I added a backdrop board (still to be painted) to that location.  I adjusted the track in the rear siding (re-directed it slightly), and extended it a bit.  I then took the Dremel to the building and basically cut it in half and it now it sits up against the backboard and looks quite good.  The front track is now the Norco Siding.  I printed out some photos that PK took on one of our Railmotor trips to Casino and I am now looking at building that industry.  I also slewed the siding further forward towards the mainline to make some space for the building.  I ran all the identified troublesome trains except NL1 – The Brisbane Limited, as that will be a future job. 

I have also been doing some modelling while watching TV at the kitchen table.  I knocked off another 26 pallets, and have started another string of 13 pallets.  I will pick up some more styrene this coming Saturday and that will allow me to complete that last string of 13 and then make another 52 pallets.  I will also hopefully have enough styrene for another 52 pallets if I need to make some more.  I also painted up some 3D printed items that Brad dropped off at my place last weekend.  The whirly-bird roof vents look great.  Some were painted silver and places on a shed in a backyard behind the Cassino station.  A review of the photos I took of this shed from the Cassino platform, show it indeed had a whirly-bird on its roof.  I also added two green whirly-birds to a railways shed on the other side of the railway overbridge at Cassino.  Thanks to Brad, I was able to add a mailbox to outside the overhead booking office at Cassino.  I also started pushing out some more steel loads.  During the week, I purchased and assembled another 4 more Wuiske cement bins.  These were painted yellow and added to another one of my scratchbuilt FJC wagons.

I actually got around to constructing the steel base for the water tank at The Risk crossing loop.  Geoff provided me with a single level 20,000 urethane water tank some weeks ago, to replace the 40,000 gallon tank I had at this location.  The Risk had a 20,000 gallon tank, so I must get my scenery details correct.  The water tank had the base added today with the cross bracing also added.  The next task is to add the wire bracing.  Another mate of mine and a member of our Tuesday night modelling group – Cliff, had put together a 20,000 gallon brass, etched nickel silver and polyurethane version of this same water tank and published the review in the AMRM, in December 2018.  This kit was from the Mechanical Branch Models.  My version of the base is an all styrene base.  It will be interesting if I give up as a bad joke, adding all the rigging on the legs of the water tank.  Time will tell.  I will go back to that task after I finish the blog.

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