Paving the Road Ahead

On Tuesday this week we had Tuesday Nighters.  It was a held at Lefty and Raymond’s which luckily is just down the road.  Boy was it a full house!  We got to check out the work that Lefty and Raymond had done on the central peninsula.  Next meeting will be at my place.  Now that will create a new definition of squeezy!

 

Yesterday was the monthly Club day.  But on Tuesday night, Darren advised that he was having a modelling day at his place on Tuesday afternoon into the early evening.  Damn!  Well I went to the Club via my mate David's house where I identified some wires that I had left for him to connect up to his Digitrax DS64 the previous weekend.  David got confused with my instructions, so hopefully we are all clear now.  I made it to the Club for the appointed time when the HO'ers get together and discuss the new Clubroom layout.  Kevin (the HO layout Co-ordinator) and his team had created the first control panel and had taped a sample track diagram to it.  It is coming along just nice.  The layout crew is busily wiring the various droppers to the track bus that they are laying.  It won't be long until we can run a train.

 

Soon after the official meeting, I hit the road.  This was a quick almost 50km drive back home and then back on the road again for another 33km to Darren's place.  I got there late and only spent a couple of hours talking, but there was great company.  I noticed that Darren had implemented his form of "Staff Working" for his single line branch.  It used a miniature light switch and a volt meter that has had its face modified and it shows either Line Free or Track on Track.  It does this my him having a battery power supply that gets tuned on by the switch producing the movement in the meter - I mean staff machine.  Pretty damn good!  Darren has also finished his track laying from his last station and into the hidden staging that represents the rest of NSW.

 

Today just after lunch I went over to Lefty and Raymond's and took my RB02 over for a test.  Their RB02 is the original version.  Mine has been upgraded to version 2.1.  I wanted to see if it made their CAB06, when in radio mode, respond quicker as it is supposed to.  Basically we could not determine much difference.  However, I think the key presses were better and you did not have to do slow deliberate presses like the older version.  I know I certainly can see the difference with the RB02 version 2.1 on my layout.

 

Upon return home I then went down to the shed and did some work on the Bruxner Highway level crossing.  I have installed the bitumen roads.  I have installed (glued down) half of the line markings on the road.  I just have to glue the rest down when I am happy with their locations.  I have installed the gutter to the right hand side of the road from the side street around to the end of the road.  I have installed the concrete path from the far side of the roadway that wonders off to the right.  I have also positioned some styrene channel (representing a drain) that will be located between the concrete pathway and the roadway that is going off on the right hand side in an arc between the channel/drain and the existing bitumen road.  This roadway will become a dirt road from where the bitumen stops.  I will also put some angle parking car parks on the road outside a caravan park.

 

Next week I have activities on the Saturday (at the kid's School for the welcome BBQ for the new Prep students) and Sunday (for a potential MERG presentation from one of the UK's high ranking officials).  So I don't think I will get to the shed.  It may be a few weeks before I do any more work like plaster the ground contours and the subsequent colouring of the ground.

 

See ya next week!