A Watched Pot Never Boils

Well I’ve been watching it and it certainly hasn’t boiled.  I am of course referring to my Auscision XPT.  I see many people have received their models, even a mate over at Loganholme, however, mine is currently MIA.  Hopefully it will rock up tomorrow.  When it does I'm hopping on a bus and coming straight home from work to give it a test run.

In order to pass the time, I’ve spent some time in the shed on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend.

However, back on Thursday night, Geoff popped over to borrow my CPH/CTH railmotor and trailer so he could test the new track that he laid on his layout – Splitters Swamp Creek.  Apparently it ran well on his newly hand laid trackwork.  Hopefully we will get some photos via his blog soon.  That layout will be attending the Inverell Model Railway Show in a few weeks time.

On Friday afternoon when I came home from work, I picked up some wire from Jaycar and hinge for a control panel from Masters.  The control panel located at Fisherman Islands is to control the Dutton Park point.  This has been installed and push buttons spliced into the existing wires from a panel located on the incline above The Risk just short of Dutton Park.  The wire also allowed me to finally wire up the panel located between Park Road and Dutton Park.  So now the dual gauge point at Dutton Park can be controlled from all three forks of the junction.

This was the original panel located on the incline heading north towards Dutton Park.

This is the panel located at the Park Road Siding end controlling the Dutton Park junction.

This is the panel at Fisherman Islands to control the Dutton Park points.  Next to it is the staff machine which has yet to be added to the Clapham - South Brisbane Interstate section.

On Saturday morning I went over to Austral Modelcraft and picked up quite a few points that the Club ordered for the HO Clubroom layout.  Via a roundabout sort of way they will make their way to the Clubrooms on Wednesday this coming week thanks to PK.  After lunch on Saturday I went down to the shed and did a bit of a cleanup in Lismore.  I then laid another 18 inches of ballast heading towards Murwillumbah.  I am considering in shaving back the benchwork at the northern end of Lismore by up to 6” to facilitate easier movement through this main thoroughfare by the operators.

This is the northern end of Lismore Yard.  The ballasting goes all the way to where a future  underbridge will be located.  The bridge is currently sitting behind the track.

I am considering cutting a few inches off the baseboard at this location.  The potential new limit is marked on the baseboard.

In the arvo I decided to cut up about 60 balsa wood sleepers.  These were stained and used to make a walk way located from the Lismore Platform to the Yard.  They were left overnight to dry.

Lismore Yard all ballasted.  The 80 class is in the Norco Siding.  The platform road is empty.  A 421 Class loco on the pickup Goods is in the Loop.  Five banana wagons are in the No. 1 Storage Road.  A rail set is in the end of the No. 2 Storage Road along with three cement hoppers.

Lismore viewed from the southern end.  A few weeds, bushes and bits of clutter are starting to make an appearance in this area.

The northern end of the yard.  A give way sign has been added.

Another view of Lismore Yard before the walkway was added.

This morning I went down to the shed with the intent to lay those sleepers in the walkway.  But before I did that I spray painted the bridge that I had previously built that will go into the northern end of Lismore over the road at that location.  As that dried, I got out my trustee brown marker pen and used it to colour the rail through Lismore Yard on the various tracks that had not already been weathered.  The result is much better that unweathered rail.

The completed walkway though the yard.  A few extra sleepers have been scattered around.

So after laying quite a few sleepers for the walkway, checking that the sleepers do not foul operation of various wagons through the tracks in the Yard, I had run out.  So I cut up another approximately 100 sleepers.  These were stained and dried and used to spread around a number of locations including Bonalbo Ballast Siding, Barker Street pedestrian crossing in Cassino, and through the yard in Cassino.  I also threw some around the southern end of Lismore and at various places in the yard and at the northern end of the yard.  It was then I realised that I needed a few more.  So I cut up another approximately 150.  They do not go far when you strew then around various locations.  While doing this I came to realise that I need to lighten the existing sleepers in both the Lismore and Cassino precincts.

Some sleepers have been scattered around Barker Street pedestrian crossing.  A future project is building this walkway.

I experimented with ways of doing the lightening of sleepers this afternoon, But I was not too happy with the result.  So I decided to watch the Queensland Rugby League football final on TV and cut up another 90 of so sleepers and go through the staining and drying process one more time.

A light wash was painted over some of the sleepers on the track at Lismore to see if I could lighten the sleepers up slightly.  In hindsight this should have been done before the track was ballasted.  The last 90 or so sleepers have been placed here to dry before being distributed around the layout.

I have a running session scheduled for next weekend.  So I decided to have a look at the timetable cards as they currently stand.  I found three trains that had finished their runs early so I decided to reverse them to where they should be in the current timetable.  The timetable will start with the NCE fast clock set to about 1:30pm. There are about four trains sitting in various locations on the layout ready to be started mid run.  I'm looking forward to a great session as my acceptances come in.