I also received some ideas from those present to improve the scenery. Their suggestions motivated me to head over to Hobby One on Saturday morning and I picked up 4 more packets of trees. There are approximately 100 trees in each packet. Well they are more like saplings as they are quite small, but they help to fill in under and near some of the better quality trees.
This trip on Saturday was followed by a visit to the Mt Gravatt Showgrounds where the local chapter of the NMRA were having their annual model railway exhibition. There seemed to be lots of T-Trak layouts in attendance. As always the best was Ron Everingham's Broxburn Sidings. I just love the way Ron has implemented the many LED's around his layout, as various types of lights. Laurie McLean was also in attendance with his working animations. They are just great! I enjoyed talking to the various guys there that I usually catch up with once or twice a year. It was good to have a quick chat to Jim from J&J Hobbies and Big Al from AR Kits. I also had a chat to Adam from Wuiske Models.
I had to leave here ooner than I wanted to, as I had the Boss's car and she had to take the daughter to dancing. So I had a quick trip home, and then got ready for four of the Tuesday Nighters to come over so we could car pool in my car down to the Nimmitabel Extension. These four just happened to not come on Tuesday night, so we spent 15 minutes in the shed showing them what I had recently completed.
So when we arrived at Darren's acerage about 25 minutes south of my place, we were met by 4 other Tuesday Nighters and Darren had the BBQ going cooking some snags. Darren also had an open fridge policy that we all took advanage of. Darren has certainly been making good progress on the layout. I took a few photos of the layout to share with everyone.
A 44 Class is shunting in the Loop at Wattle Flat. A 19 class is at the end of the branch with two S wagons and guards van.
The other end of the Wattle Flat station yard is the stock siding and wheat silos. The track then heads to the right back along the branch. The backdrops here are just stunning. Apparently they were painted by Peter another one of our Tuesday Nighters crew who could not attend today due to other commitments.
Around the peninsula we come to the next crossing loop where various goods are delivered to the industry located here. Apparently, tin, cardboard, various grains are delivered as well as the finished products and various waste products are removed from the sidings. This should produce a nice shunting location.
The next loop is located on the other side of the walkway. Again some shunting will also take place here. Two hidden sidings are located to the right at the far end of the siding.
Eventually the track will get to here and the end of the layout, with some off stage sidings to the right continuing on and will be located above Darren's rather spacious and tidy work desk.
Some of the crew. Darren, Bob, Brendan and Father Christmas - sorry PK. Apparently Darren installed this temporary piece of chipboard that morning so we could terminate trains at the current end of the track laying.
I'd expect that by next year all the track will be laid. By the year after I'm also expecting that we will be having regular operating sessions on this layout. I wonder if we talk about it here, Darren might try and meet this schedule of activities?
Today was our Club's Buy and Sell. I did not feel too good this morning so decided to stay at home. By about 2:00pm I finally made my way to the shed and proceeded to twist a bit of wire up to make about 7 trees while watching the V8 on TV. These will now form the trees either side of Fairy Lane just on the southern side of Fairy Hill Crossing Loop. Two trees I had started making and had soldered them up, are just too big for this lane. I might have to either donate then to someone who is modelling a larger scale or just find somewhere else on the layout to plant them.
Future activities will consist of twisting up a few more trees from wire and then applying the liquid nails to the trunks and finally adding foliage. It is only a few more weeks until there is a running session at my place. I have three newbies invities that I hope turn up, as they are all very good modellers and they are known by a fair percentage of the normal operating crew. I might have to have an advance run to check the track is running well and is clean, as I have laid quite a bit of glue around the meatworks area.
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