What to do?

What to do?  Saturday the 16th of May was a popular weekend for scheduling model railway related activities.  First of all there was the Modelling the Railways of NSW convention down at Loftus which I have not attended for 10 years.  This comes down to cost.  I really want to head down there very soon.  Additionally one of the Tuesday Nighters was having a train get together at his place followed by a BBQ lunch.  He lives just down the road from Woop Woop, so he believes that it is better to travel to his place during daylight hours instead of having Bunyips attack you if you travel there at night. So Greg scheduled a running session at his place.  Additionally being the third Saturday of the month, Anthony was having a running session on the Border District.  But given that my son had an early morning soccer game, and my daughter had an Open Day at her school and she (a red head) was doing some Bollywood dancing - I also had to go there.  So it turned out, I could not do any of the above railway activities, but when I finally got home just before 2:00pm, I did get to the shed in the afternoon. 

 

So when I did get there, I did a quick reconnaissance and identified what I was going to sell at our Club Buy and Sell today.  I packed the car with all the items and following the packing, I started to do some work on the layout.  I started the install of a number of points in Acacia Ridge Dead End Yard that allows me to have 11 dead end sidings at this location.  The Dead End Yard is located in the middle of my four monstrous return loops that constitute the Acacia Ridge Yard.  Each track can hold at least 3 maybe 4 full trains.  So Track 5 is the access track and head shunt for the dead end yard.  I was one set of points short on completing the dead end yard - which I picked up today at our Buy and Sell.  So when I get bored with running trains on the layout, I can do some shunting in these dead end sidings.  Currently most of my excess wagons – those not required in the timetable, are positioned in these dead end sidings.  So I can conceivably swap one steel train for another.  One ballast train for another and a train full of container wagons for another in the timetable, as all these types of trains are now sitting in these dead end sidings.

 

I also swapped out a 12mm point in Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard and the geometry is now perfect.  I picked up a 12mm curve point last weekend from one of the Queensland Shops.  I still need at least one, 12mm LH point, and possibly three and about 6 or maybe 9 lengths of 12mm track to complete Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard.  I think that over the next 12 months this will be completed.  Over the next few months my Southern Models 2300 class loco will also arrive.  I just need a read to run 1720 loco or two.  I wonder which of the manufacturers will announce this model and when?

 

Following this work, I then did a bit of track work on Grafton Loco.  I purchased a three way point the previous weekend, and with another left hand curve point, I can fit another siding operational for loco storage in Grafton Loco.  I had previously taken a three way point out and used it in Murwillumbah Yard.  Grafton Loco sidings consist of now 15 dead end tracks located just before the Grafton return loops.  Each of the dead end tracks can house at least 2 locos.  I actually have a few wagons in these tracks (way and works related etc.), and a couple of steam locos with most of the tracks empty.

 

Today started early as I went via my mate David’s house and picked him up along with a load of his goods to sell, and we made our way to the Club’s Buy and Sell event.  Check in was at 9:00am with the sale starting at 10:00am.  I picked up another 8 sets of points, that have already been put to good use on the layout this arvo.

 

I sold a few wagons and came away with a good return.  Upon returning home, I unpacked the car, and went to the shed.  I completed the trackwork for Acacia Ridge Dead End Yard and shunted a few small consists by hand at this location. 

 

My attention then turned to Fisherman Islands.  I started assembling track for the Standard Gauge sidings at this location starting at the dead end and working backwards.  I need to purchase another three narrow gauge (aka 12mm) points and a huge amount of 12mm track and I can lay most of the sidings at this location, up to where the track fans out from the entry track.  I think I might need to buy a complete box of 12mm track to get this and the Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard laid.  I think Aurora Trains had a box on special.  I might have to visit them next week.

 

This Fisherman Islands Yard will need to be controlled by peco point machines and a schematic panel as it is located too high to manually throw the points.  I think I will need another NCE Mini Panel, some Digitrax DS64's (maybe 3) point controllers and a control panel with quite a few push buttons on it. 

 I have a Running Session scheduled for about 5 weeks time.  So I am drawing up a list of things to do before the running session.  So that will take up the bulk of my activities before that date.