We had a visit from the Tuesday Nighters on Tuesday. About 12 or 13 turned up. Tuesday Night antics included turning about 6 cars upside down (sitting on their roofs) on the layout. These cars were (1) near Fairy Hill Signal box and (5) near the Cassino Meatworks. There were also cars swapped from right hand drive to left hand drive around the road system at Cassino, Three of these were on Simpson Parade at Cassino and two on Barker Street at Cassino. Two more were similarly treated at the Lismore Level Crossing, and 4 at the Old Cassino level crossing on West Street. Another 4 wheel drive car was moved and placed on the tracks just outside a tunnel in the Border ranges. Luckily I saw it before I ran a train as that could have caused a derailment and then some damage to fences and scenery. The next issue was the bobcat operator that is usually outside the gate at Ron and Marg's B&B - near Fairy Lane, which is near Fairy Hill Crossing Loop, he had walked onto the middle of the track and was standing there. Again luckily I saw that he was there or he would have derailed a loco 2 inches from the edge of the layout and causing a loco to go over the edge of the layout.
I also had a thumb planted through the roof of the Cassino perway shed next to the Cassino Signal box. That has been there for close to 15 years minding it's own business. God knows why? Also a tree had been uprooted near the Rocla Siding. It will need to be replanted. Monday's job.
So on Wednesday I decided to make another 27 pallets - because I could. That was quite easy while watching the idiot box.
But I did have a brain wave in the morning. I was wondering if I had the available real estate to add a separate narrow gauge line from Clapham Yard to South Brisbane. I could put a 2 road runaround in at South Brisbane for the 12mm. It might even have two lay over sidings, one for a railmotor and one for another SX set. Now at the other end of the narrow gauge world, or nearly, somewhere after Rocklea Siding, I might add a turnout that takes the narrow gauge track south towards Sunnybank. That will also allow a turn around of trains and maybe a goods siding as well. Sunnybank used to have a siding there. I can then run my QR SX set from location to location, and I might have to get a second set. Alternatively I could run a future QR silver bullet (or two) between those two locations. I might have to work out the safeworking arrangements for these new sections. For the complex track work at Dutton Park, I will need to have an actual dual gauge RH point, with the third rail on the left hand side, before its gets onto its own right of way.
On Wednesday night at 7:00pm I was asked by the Superintendent to do a presentation for this Saturday's NMRA meeting. Bugger. Not much time! I had only just started working on a potential article for AMRM along the topic of Prototype Modelling following some of the lighthearted feedback I received on Tuesday evening from the crew. So I thought I'd turn that into a Powerpoint first. So that was Thursday afternoon's job. Basically it was finished then. I did a bit more on Thursday evening, while talking to a few NMRA guys on Discord. On Friday morning I did a few small tweaks to it, before I went out for a happy hour at work.
Saturday started pretty early. Not as early as the north side crew - hey PK? We went down to Lismore and Casino for some layout visits at some NMRA guys places - 5 in total. I gave the presentation on Saturday afternoon and it had the required affect. A few laughs. But we did find 3 typos in it. Whoops! Oh there was a pub visit for dinner on Saturday night. Sunday included a lap of the Casino Miniature Railway and Museum. A great weekend and over 500km travelled. Well done to the organisers, the hosts and the various attendees.
On Thursday afternoon, I did some work on my South Brisbane deck. So it has been installed and I need some 3mm MDF for the baseboard here. The baseboard is very narrow, just wide enough to handle 2 tracks and has a length of pine underneath supporting it.
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