Simpsons Lane Abutments

As someone  great once said “Rain Rain P155 0ff!...” Aren’t we sick of this damn rain in Queensland! Fortunately I am much better off than many poor sods around the State.  As it was raining cats and dogs on Saturday I could not even leave the house to get to the shed. However, today is has now become just showers and I think i saw the sun trying to peak through at least twice this afternoon. So after lunch I made my way down to the Shed for about an hour.

 

First task was to do something for Paul - one of our Tuesday Nighters.  He was after copies of yard layouts of Clapham Yard, Park Road and South Brisbane.  He requested these during the week.  I had these down the shed somewhere.  I eventually found them.  I will provide a copy for him on Tuesday Night this week.

 

The next task was to see how I could cut in my two Simpsons Lane bridge abutments that I cast over the last 2 weekends. So after roughly working out what had to be cut away, I cut the terrain back to allow placement of the abutments into the scenery.  Then I cut off the wings on each side of the abutments. I used a cut off disk in my Dremel and bot did it produce some plaster dust.  So after placing the abutments I then whipped up a batch of plaster – funny that! I then blended the abutments in with the surrounding terrain.

At this stage I am very happy with how they have come out. I then went back to the house to watch the V8 races.  I had a plan to slightly stain the abutments next weekend with a very light stain so they looked like concrete.  However, when I went back down to the shed to get some photos for this blog update and decided to stain the abutments then and there.

Here are a few photos.

A view of the overbridge looking southwards.

A helicopter view looking north.  A fair bit of plaster dust can be seen laying around in this photo.

Looking north again.  This time in the background you can see my secret mixture of metho and ink pad refill.

A close up of the west abutment.

Does this photo look familiar?  Many years back in 2004, I took this photo which is what the above model photo will hopefully eventually look like.  If I can ever put together that Ian Phemister kit I know where it will be going.

A view of the real central pier also taken in 2004.  The pack platform road was ripped up around 1991.

The wing of the east side abutment.

I do have some I-beam Plastruct that will go on top of my abutments and support the road.  Again a job for next weekend.

 

Tuesday this week we will be visiting Lefty & Son’s place to check on progress. There is nothing like making him feel guilty and spur him on to create more progress.