The Work Continues

A short update this week, as I have to also provide an update for the Club Magazine which is being put togather by PK tonight and I have been slack and not provided an update yet. I only spent a few hours this afternoon in the shed, while listening to the Toyota Cup Grand Final before coming up to the house to have a few soups and watch Melbourne win the Telstra Premiership. Well they did flog the Broncos last weekend, but they are full of Qlders, so I was barracking for them. However, I don't like their coach much as he is the coach of the cockroaches even though he was the Broncos assistant coach for many years.

Well onto modelling. This weekend I finished the last locality (for some time), that I will be doing the basic scenicing on. This will allow some more detail to be added, like roads, road signs, fences, tents, a couple of houses and of course the windmill over the next month.

So today I completed the base scenicing of the southern approach to the Rocla Sleeper Siding, and at the northern end of the loop I have started on the rail crossing.

Southern Approach to the Rocla Sleeper Siding

This crossing at the northern end provides road access to the local farm, as well as the Rocla Sleeper Company Compound itself. It is also used by Maintenance of Way vehicles, who need to get access to the rail corridor to do what ever these guys do.

The rail crossing was going to be an Oz Kit single line level crossing. However, as my road is wider than allowed for in the kit and my road is also on a curve, I thought I would scratch build the necessary components needed instead and allocate the kit to somewhere on a straight piece of track that will look much better. I had some old wood stock similar to what was in the kit so I installed some check rails (using some code 80 track) and cut the wood to look like it would fit into the area. I then stained the wood in the crossing. I think I should give the bridge another coat while I'm at it as it has faided quite a lot - but isn't that the look we are after? I will use some code 55 rail for the sign posts and build about another dozen to be used around the layout. I will need to build the railway crossing signs and the give way sign out of styrene. I will also try and build some stop signs to go on some posts just to be different.

The Bridge and the rail crossing in question

The Tuesday Nighters are due over on this Tuesday so I expect to receive some comments on the progress made since their last visit.