Park Road Siding is Done

This week I was able to sneak out to the shed on most days around mid afternoon.  I completed the baseboard and added the underneath bracing in most places.  I was quite happy with the result.  The two sidings at Park Road will hold my current paper train and although I haven't checked yet, should hold two locos clear of another train working in the other siding as well.  Although I do have vivid memories of three locos being on a train that was doing shunts at this location as I was going to school on at least one occasion - many, many years ago now.

A view of Park Road Sidings with the paper train in one of the sidings.

On Tuesday Night this week a rather large contingent headed over to Lefty's place and we had a great time.  No progress was observed on his layout, but we expect to see some by our next get together at Lefty's.  Lefty was having a sale of a few surplus sets of peco points.  So I took four curved points off his hands.  You can see one of David's points put to use above as the nearest point in this photo.  The other three were put into the South Brisbane throat.

The throat into South Brisbane Interstate.  The left track is the platform road. The short loco siding is in the right foreground second from the right.  I have not tested if my current Brisbane Limited fits into the platform road yet.

I still need a rather large amount of flex track to complete the whole station area and about seven sets of points.  Some of the ones that are currently positioned in the distance will be replaced, as they are in various degrees of unuseability - no spring, bits broken off, previously butchered etc., But it gives me an idea about how the station will look when it is finally complete.  I have been pushing the paper train up and down the track from south of Park Road, through the various tracks at this location, around the horseshoe curve and into the various tracks at South Brisbane Interstate.  I have yet to connect any jumpers to the track to get a loco running in this area.  Maybe on Wednesday this week as it is a public holiday in Brisbane for the Ekka.  I think I will make a trip to Jaycar to get some more wire.

One thing I am puzzled about as I lay track in South Brisbane is how were the South Brisbane Goods sidings shunted. There is only a run around loop in the platform. So how did the locos get removed from the front of the various goods trains that entered into South Brisbane? Did they go into the platform road or the loop line or one of the dead end tracks? Did the shunt loco then move out to the mainline and back onto the wagons and pull the wagons clear of the locos that brought the wagons into South Brisbane? If any body knows how this occured, I'd be very much appreciative of this information being shared via email or via comments on this blog.

I have spent the whole week getting up and down the ladder to lay the track on the top deck of the layout as it is quite high off the ground. Today I built two small steps that will allow me to get up above the top deck to do any uncoupling of wagons etc., during any runnings session.

The first step.

The second step.

This week the boss and I went over to the DFO at Jindalee while the kids were at school and I was able to pick up some letters for $1 each from a clearance shop that I was able to arrange these into a name board.  I just need to attach them to the shed wall now.

My new name board.

I'm still waiting for my order of GSV's to arrive in the mail - well mine and 4 other peoples as we did a bulk order. I had hoped that they might have been delivered last week when I was still on holidays and I could have given mine a run, but I just knew that with my luck they will arrive this week.  I also ordered a string of white LED lights from ebay during the week that I will try and install and experiment with layout lighting under my new top deck and at various other places on the layout.  I may be able to show then in use next weekend if I have time to install them.  I just need to find a power supply for them in the mean time.

Saturday this week was Club meeting day, so I went over to the Club via the new toll tunnel so I could check it out.  It certainly cut about 10 minutes off my trip time in each direction, so I might have to use it for the next few trips over to the north side.  At our pre Club meeting HO discussion meeting we discussed the layout of the station precint for the new Clubroom HO layout.  One of our members had drawn some very nice alternatives for a major station layout with two island platforms and one island platform and 2 side platforms, along with options for dock platforms.  So we  threw some track onto a table top, along with a few pieces of timber to represent the platforms and discussed the alternatives.  I think we made some good progress and have decided where the station is going to go and we just need to agree the track layout for the transition from the two tracks to the large number of tracks in the station.  We may be able to also install some sidings (goods or carriage doesn't really matter).  I think this will be a pretty good area when complete.