Completing Some Models for Judging

Well, I’m now on holidays.  This is customary whenever the Olympics are on, I’m off.  On Friday morning I went to the shed and was applying Panel Line Accent Colors to the Bakers Road, road over rail bridge.  During the week when online talking to some mates, it became very obvious that a photo of a similar bridge to that which I am modelling, showed that the bridge timbers were very, very faded and not the same as my bridge was currently displaying.  So out came the light grey panel line accent color.  It was applied to the various posts and rails on the bridge.  Later that morning I headed into town for a lunch date with my work colleagues as a mate was leaving work on that day.  So on Saturday I applied quite a few more washes of light grey.  In the afternoon, I brought another road over rail bridge up from the shed, and sat at the kitchen table watching the Olympics and applied Light Grey Panel Line Accent Color to that bridge as well.  This bridge also also to receive some corrugated iron sheets applied along the bridge rails.  These strips of corrugated iron had been sitting on the bridge for the last 12 months.  I have no idea where I got them from.  So these metal sheets were also hit with various panel line accent colors.  Later that evening I white glued the metal sheets to the bridge.  That bridge has now been returned to its position on the layout.

Sunday’s job was to permanently attach the corrugated iron sheets to my Park Road Trans-shipment Shed.  Again, this model has been sitting on the layout for quite some time.  The corrugated iron is a single sleeve that fit over the entire building.  So around lunchtime I got out the panel line accent colors and applied them to the shed frame and roof structure.  It looks pretty good.  I then applied some of those same colours to the outside sheath that forms the corrugated iron cover.  The corrugated iron has now been glued onto the shed frame.  That is ready to be placed back on the layout.

Monday this week, I plan to apply some panel line accent colors to my Richmond River rail bridge.  I will see if there are any tweaks I need to do to that model as well.  Maybe I can also paint some stains on the concrete piers or the abutments.  This bridge structure is actually three different types of bridges.  The main span is a Pratt Through Truss Bridge.  On the northern end there is a half through plate girder bridge, and on the southern end there are four spans of plate deck girder bridge.  All these sections will get the weathering touch.

My aim on the holidays is to finish to an acceptable standard a number of structures and have these written up and then present these for assessment by our NMRA Divisional AP officer.  This is Arthur, and he just lives about 6-7 km from my place, so he will be busy scoring my models for my AP certificate for structures.

But first thing is to put all the documentation together for him to assess.  I cannot find my plans for the Park Road Trans-shipment Shed and a few photos that another Arthur sent me a few years ago.  I am pretty sure that is all on my old PC.  I plan to fire that up tomorrow and go looking.  I have plans for the two road overbridges, and some information and lots of photos of the original Richmond River bridge taken from various angles.

After that, I will be left with one more model to get judged to attempt to get a merit award.  That will be the Cassino Overhead booking office and combined road bridge.  I already have one model that was assessed a few years back at a New England Model Railway Convention.  I then need to submit my paperwork along with 6 other models that don't get scored, but need to be viewed and I am on my way to another NMRA AP certificate hopefully sometime in the next few months, if everything comes together.

NMRA Meeting Weekend

This week I was out and about on Wednesday, visiting Aurora Train after work and on Thursday I visited Modeller’s Warehouse during my lunch break.  On Friday I signed off early and went down to the shed to undertake a few last minute jobs before the guys visited my place the next day.  Earlier in the day I had received a package of 3 strings of LED lights.  One string was installed above Park Road Siding and it was cut to length with the rest of the string hung above Fairy Hill Loop and joined to the other string electrically.  I also installed quite a few fence posts along the track reserve at Fairy Hill Loop.  I also did a bit of tidying up inside the shed, putting a few storage trays away inside various storage boxes.  The last thing I did before dinner was to install the traffic controller lights for a road over rail bridge where the painters have taken possession to paint the bridge, and one lane has been shut down to allow the painters to work safely on their task.  A bit later in the evening, I realised that I could accomplish another task.  I created some pieces of styrene to secure the base of my gas discharge assembly at Lismore.  This assembly has just sat in the siding behind the Lismore station for a few years.  But I have now just secured the base so that the assembly’s sides are perpendicular instead of being at a skewed wide angle.  I should paint this structure pretty soon I suppose as well.

Saturday dawned and I did a few more things in preparation for that day’s NMRA meeting at my place.  About 25 or so members rocked up, and with my family included, we were under the 30 people limit currently imposed in south east Queensland for a private residence during our current Covid restriction.  I had mates Greg and PK strategically positioned outside the shed and they were ensuring that anyone entering the shed had to carry a golf ball which they took from a bucket.  When there were no more golf balls in the bucket, people could not enter the shed as the shed was then at capacity until someone left the shed and returned a golf ball to the bucket.

At the meeting we had a zoom presentation from the US arranged by Duncan.  The presentation was of an N scale layout.  I was mesmerised, as I would not have known it was N scale unless some told me.  It was very well detailed, and trains ran very well.  Next up we had Arthur Hayes talking about the current NMRA AP certificates with examples on how the points scoring works for categories like Structures.  I have a plan to try and submit 6 qualifying items for assessment as well as providing another 6 example structures for my AP Certificate - Structures.  Who knows, that might even occur before the end of the year.  We had an update on Division business followed by a BYO lunch.  After lunch we had our usual show and tell and then Duncan started by interviewing me about the layout, and then the audience chimed in with a few questions.

I thought we had a very good gathering yesterday, with everyone having a tour or two of the layout.  We even got three new members turn up.

So today I started placing some distance markers on the track at a few key locations and added a few more road signs.  I also touched up a few white pieces of baseboard and scenery areas with some dirt coloured paint.  A couple of the road over rail bridges got their distance markings added and a few other locations like the road crossings and rail bridges are soon to get their distances.  I'm sure very few people will see these additions but I think when they are spotted, it will bring a smile to some modeller's faces.

The road overbridge leading to Baker's Farm.  The bridge painters have taken possession of the bridge and started painting the bridge.  Traffic has been reduced to a single lane and there happens to be a few train enthusiasts on the bridge as well waiting for a train to come past.

The bridge from another angle.  You can see the painting has started on the bridge.  The rail enthusiasts can be seen top right.

While under the bridge, you can see the kilometres from Sydney that this bridge is located.  A new addition.  

On top of the bridge again and also showing the road crossing.  Also in view in this shot is the traffic control box trailer with a set of traffic lights in it, regulating the traffic over the now one lane bridge as the painters are in possession.

More Preparation

My plans for the week took a bit of a detour when I was asked to make some clotheslines.  On Thursday night I knocked out 12 x N scale clotheslines.  I also had a request for some tarps, so these were also cut up to size and rolled and tied up.  I did about 50 of these.  On Friday the clotheslines were painted and on Saturday everything was delivered.  I then received an order for some more clotheslines.  So Saturday evening while watching the Lions get creamed, I knocked out another dozen N scale clotheslines.  These were painted up today and are ready to delivery later this week, if my timetable allows.

On Saturday I went over to the Club for our monthly meeting day.  I picked up PK and Greg at the Clubrooms and we scooted over to the local hobby shop.  I was after some bottles of Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color.  I picked up 4 colours, I had one other colour at home already but I was also after a Black and the Orange/Brown colours as well.  That particular shop did not have them in stock.  So on the way home, I visited two other hobby shops and both those did not stock these great little commodities.  While at the Club I had a bit of a natter with a few people and there were quite a few in attendance even though we had to wear masks.

So back to the shed report.  Apart from these activities, most of the other work was related to the shed and doing some jobs in preparation for the NMRA meeting next weekend.  This included masking up the do not stand areas and painting some yellow danger stripes in four locations in the shed.  I still need to do one in front of the fridge.  We all know how important it is to not block access to the fridge during a running session.  On Saturday afternoon I ran a cleaning train from Grafton Yard to Acacia Ridge Yard.  I did not run it any further north to Fisherman Island Yard or South Brisbane Interstate.  I will do that later during the week.  There was no issues with the track at all.  I had also stained up about 50 balsa wood sleepers on Friday afternoon.  I installed these for a track walkway at the northern end of Kyogle platform.  These went across the main and the loop.  I also added some sleepers to the southern side of the platform as this was where the local trike or quad was kept.  My photo does not reveal what it was, as it was under a tarp.  So how easy if that to make.  Just make a lump and cover it with a tarp.

So on Saturday night I also put my Panel Liner colours to the test.  OMG!  What a result!  I had previously purchased some wooden fencing from Chilli Laser Engraving.  This is great stuff.  I applied the panel liner to various wooden palings on the laser cut strip of fencing.  A bit of dark brown here,  I bit of brown there.  A bit more dark grey over here.  A small amount of light grey and grey and I let these various strips of Victorian wood fencing to dry overnight.  In reality they were dry in minutes.  The end result was perfection.  The visitors to my layout next weekend will be able to make their own mind up about how the fencing turned out.  These sections of fencing were all white glued to the fence frame today.  Now I look back on some of the other areas of the same and similar fencing on the layout that was not panel lined, and the difference if chalk and cheese.  I will be addressing this imbalance at the first opportunity.  Unfortunately there is no time before the NMRA meeting to rectify this.

One night during the week I painted the recently erected LED light frame blue to try and obscure it from view.  It looks so much better blue as compared to unpainted.  I am expecting some more strings of LED lights either Monday or Tuesday, so these might be installed one night this week.

Another job I did this morning was to clean the steps into the shed.  No gurney for this bloke.  It was a long handled scrubbing brush and putting my back into it.  The results were fabulous.  I thought the steps were starting to get a bit mouldy, so if there was any rain around, they were a little bit slippery if not careful.  Other tasks undertaken this afternoon were trimming some trees, moving the wheel barrow (I had to pump up its tyre as it would not move without it being inflated), and putting some junk out on the footpath for council rubbish collection which starts tomorrow in our suburb.

The last task for tonight is to connect up the set of track lights for a traffic control light in the back of a 6' x 4' box trailer, over the 'road over rail' bridge opposite Baker’s Farm on Bakers Road.  This light is powered by an Arduino.  So this will all be assembled at the kitchen table tonight and tested ready for deployment during the week. 

There is still some work to do before next Saturday’s NMRA meeting as I still have lots of items laying on the track around Acacia Ridge Yard.  I will clean these up during the week.  I might also add some more trackside fencing in a couple of areas as well.

More LED Layout Lighting Frames Installed

We were plunged into lockdown on Tuesday afternoon and that forced the abandonment of our Tuesday Nighter’s Meeting at Peter D’s place.  We then had to work from home from Wednesday to Friday and the benefit of that is that there is no travel time home from work on Wednesday  to Friday.  I could head to the shed directly after work finished, and saved at least an hour each day.  On Friday I received my two wanted deliveries.  That was 4 x 6 Amp power supplies for 4 x 5M strings of LED lights that had arrived on Monday this week.  Also on Friday I received a package from Chilli-Laser Engraving of some laser cut wood that I use for various fencing around the various houses on the layout.  On Friday this week I had my usual shortish day.  I went down to the shed and did a bit of work.  I installed some fencing.  I had previously laid out the various lengths of fencing on two blocks of land on the Western side of Cassino on the southern end of the Simpson Parade overbridge.  These will eventually feature some nice houses.  On the other side of the railway line, I was adding fencing around the railway property where the 40’ x 20’ corrugated steel shed is.  I then added fences around the houses either side of Barker Street.

I installed the power supply to illuminate the Fisherman Islands yard.  I then tested the LED strings that arrived earlier in the week.  Next job was to cut up some wood to support the next string of lights over the section of track from Kyogle Butter Factory and heading around the ‘blob’ which is the Running Creek area.  This should take up another string of LEDs.  On Friday evening I also commenced attaching a small fascia just underneath Runnings Creek – well actually it is on the Lismore to Murwillumbah Spiral.  That was painted on Saturday. 

On Saturday afternoon I finally got up the courage to install the road markings around the Bruxner Highway Level Crossing.  These are made from pieces of styrene and welded to the roadway with styrene glue.  They had only been sitting in place unglued for about half a dozen years.  So all the road markings went in very easily and also look good.  The plan was to also install all the road signs and fencing around the crossing.  However, I realised that I was missing some of the required fences.  So that night I made up a few fences, a couple of speed signs and some other road way signs.  They will be installed one night this week hopefully.

On Sunday it was more of the same.  I installed the Pelmet made of Plasterer’s angle around the section of track from The Kyogle Butter Factory all the way around the blob past Runnings Creek and almost to Border Loop.  I then attached the LED string to the frame.  It was turned on and the illumination provided was quite good.  

Next task was looking at how I would mount the frame to support the LED lights above the northern end of Fairy Hill Loop.  The next section of frame to plan for installation was above Park Road Sidings.  This was the easiest frame to install so it got done first with the wood being cut to size.  Two lengths of plasterer’s angle was painted in preparation for installation later in the day, as was a small offcut that I had laying around.  After lunch the frame above Park Road Siding and the plasterer’s angle was installed.  The next task was to attach the frame above the northern end of Fairy Hill Loop to the just installed Frame above Park Road at one end and then work out how to brace it at the other end.  That had me stumped for a while.  I had some assistance from my apprentice in holding the frame at one end, but he would have got bored holding it up after 5 minutes, so I needed to come up with a permanent solution.  So I decided to use a piece of pine rising up from the track baseboard between Dutton Park and Fisherman Islands.  Once that was in, the pelmet was installed on this section of frame as well. 

Next task is to temporarily hang the LED string over these two sections of frame and test the power supply and the lights.  That is another task for during the week or next weekend.  I mowed the grass this arvo in preparation of the NMRA meeting in 2 weeks.  At this stage we are limited to 30 guests at a private residence, so hopefully the current restrictions will be eased before then, as we will most likely have just over that number.