Prep for the Running Day this Week

Thursday this week was pay day, as a couple of guys who owed me for goods or services got their payments to me.  Friday was come home early from work day.  During the arvo the kids and I wrapped presents for the Boss and put them under the tree.  Friday evening I cut up all the signs that I had printed out for the various locations on the layout.  Over time, some of the old signs have fallen off.  I also cut up some signal diagrams that I will also place on the facia at each crossing loop, so when someone is supposed to shunt to the Dairy Siding, the diagram will identify which one that is.  At the moment we are lacking a building or ten.  I then realised that I had not cut up the Timetable for Tuesday.  This has 46 movements and this is then sorted into train sequence order so the drivers can take then in that order from the collection box.

Saturday morning I decided to start some modelling.  I stained the four bearers of my water tank stand that I assembled a few weeks ago when I was down the coast.  I then cut four more bearers for the second stand and glued them on.  I then thought about the joists.  My Datasheet showed that these were 12" x 12" except for the Mole Creek installation on the Dorrigo Line, which had 12" x 6".  The kits that I'm building these from has included 12" x 6" joists.  I thought the 12" x 6" size looked better.  So I was about to head out to the local hobby shop to see if they had some scale timber, when I thought, I might as well check my collection in the Shed first.  Yep!  I had a packet of 8 x 1M lengths of 12" x 6".  It cost $7.99.  I knew it would eventually become useful.  I cut these up for the two structures and installed them.

That afternoon I stained the new timbers and found a 40,000 gallan water tank in the shed.  So that was stained as well using the same ink and metho solution.  That evening I cut up the wagon cards that I had printed and then it dawned on me that I did not complete the cards for the through trains - Whoops!  I have 5 trains complete, but not the second Stock train and none of the through trains.  Maybe I'll have that complete by the January Session.

Today, in a modelling sense, I did nothing except take everything down to the shed and paint two slabs of steel for one of my steel wagons.  I used the same ink and metho stain I had been using on the wooden water tank structures.  I have used this on the water tanks themselves and my tunnel portals made from plaster which I cast myself.  Tomorrow I might use it on a couple of platform faces on the layout that I made from styrene as well.

I hope all my readers received what they were after from the big guy in the red suit.  We had a great fun day opening presents this morning.  My youngest was up at 5:30am wanting to open the presents.  I've had a big breakfast, a huge lunch and our traditional toasted sandwiches at the mother-in-law's with most of the wife's family.  I'm about to explode!  A good night's sleep and then it's the Cricket!

Merry Christmas to everyone.

P.S.  Do any of you know how to remove reindeer pooh from yard.  The buggers didn't take too well to the food we left out for them to eat last night!