The B@$t@rds Drank me Dry

On Saturday afternoon I received a visit in the Shed from Anthony and Mark – two Victorian/South Australian Modellers.  They were last here on New Year’s Eve for another run.  We ran quite a few trains, with the occasional incident of a wagon coming off here and an uncoupling there, but generally it was fairly OK.  There were however, quite a few incidents of dirty track in a few locations.  I think that is a consequence of all the rain we had over the last week.

 

Yesterday's Running Session was only confirmed late on Friday afternoon and while I did send a call out to some of my regulars whom lived close by and a few from the other side of town, no one else could make it at such late notice.  Well I guess it was lucky that they didn’t turn up, as the two that were here drank me dry!  I thought I had a few more beers that what I had in the fridge, but it just means I need to buy some more - maybe tomorrow.

 

During the session, I also noticed a dip in the track on the entry into Murwillumbah where the banana siding branches from the main line and at least two trains had issues at that location.  So today I climbed under the layout and added some support under the baseboard at that location and I will see if that fixes the problems.  I also added a few supports directly under the main line into Murwillumbah just south of the platform.  These were lacking and there was always a major dip at the southern end of Murwillumbah platform.  So I think that was reduced by todays under baseboard work. 

 

I also noticed a slight dip in the track upon the southern entry into Clapham yard.  That will also be worked on maybe tomorrow.  There was also an issue, of the same Banana train over the last two running sessions within the hidden spiral between Old Cassino and Lismore.  This section of track allows for the train travelling between those two locations to take more than 15 seconds when travelling between the two locations.  With this bit of extra track in a spiral, the front of the train is not in one location while the rear of the train is not in the other location, as would be if I did not have the spiral in place.  What occurs now, the track, and hence the train is out of sight for most of the trip between these two locations.

 

I also had a visitor from the North Coast branch of the Tuesday Nighters on the Friday evening.  It had been a while since Peter had visited and  showed him what had he accomplished. Tuesday this week was also a Tuesday Nighter get-together and it was good to see everyone for the start of the new year.  I was another great night.

 

On Saturday morning in preparation of my visitors, in no particular order, I washed the coffee cups, swapped over the tea towels and completed wiring the power bus for Power District no. 3.  So now all the wiring on the layout should now be completed.

 

So my plans for the next few weeks is to do some more terra forming (plaster) work around the various tunnels and the spiral on the area north of Lismore towards Murwillumbah.  This afternoon after fixing the baseboard around Murwillumbah, I turned on the cricket and I resumed the plastering around the spiral.  I think I mixed up four batches of plaster and also did some work on the facia board around this location.

 

I intend to go back down to the shed tomorrow afternoon and continue with another 4 or more batches of plaster near the spiral, and do a facia install around the track on the southern side of Clapham Yard and also fix that slight dip in track at that location.

 

Happy Australia Day!  See ya next week.