Construction at Full Throttle

Last Sunday night I started work on some fettler’s trolleys for the layout.  So far I have completed two bases but not yet put the wheels on them.  I am using N scale plastic wheels which I obtained from PK.  I cut the axle in half and then lengthen the axle so they can sit on HO track with some 1mm styrene added between the wheels.  Unfortunately, when I cut the first axle, one of the wheels went flying off into the distance never to be found, so now I only have three wheels for the first trolley.  I think that is called doing a John Josephson!  I think I will need about a 8 or 9 of the unpowered trollies to be scattered around the layout.  Then I will start work on some powered trolleys (well they won't have motors in them but they will look like powered trolleys).

On Friday night and Saturday I had a fetish for building some more gates for the layout.  I built 12 of the 12 foot high gates of varying widths.  Four of these gates are destined for the Murwillumbah Cement Silo scene.  Two more were destined for the Rocla Sleeper Siding which I installed on Saturday.  I also made 4 of the 12’ wide farm gates of varying designs.  All the gates have been painted and are ready for installation at various locations around the layout.

I decided to install the second half (the far side) of the railway crossing gates in the section between Glenapp Crossing Loop and The Risk Crossing Loop.  So the four sections of fencing where drilled into the scenery and a bit of ballast spread around to allow the cars and tractors access across the railway line.  While working at this location, I got the urge to install some telegraph posts in this same section.  I had about 5 telegraph poles already made up.  These poles had two cross arms each and 6 insulators on each arm.  That was nowhere near enough.  So I cut up two lengths of 3mm dowel (1m length) that I had in my wood pile.  These were cut to about 70mm length.  I then cut up 2 cross arms for each of the posts from 6” x 4” basswood.  These were glued to the posts and allowed to dry.  I then got out the 1mm styrene rod.  This was cut into about 1.5mm lengths 6 per arm or 12 insulators per telegraph pole.  There were 18 telegraph poles completed.  I also cut some more insulators for 2 posts with three arms and again 6 insulators per post.  again these poles had been made up some time ago and were just awaiting installation of the insulators.  I still have another 10 telegraph poles with two arms on them to which I still need to add the insulators.  I think that is a job for this week during the night.

Today I spent some time redoing some scenery near a small section of facia about 5" wide near Cassino platform to allow car access to the motorail siding, and I re-adjusted the facia and ripped out some base scenery where the Murwillumbah Cement Silo goes.  I realised last week that the wooden base where this assembly sits is too high.  So I had to rip out about 1.5cm of scenery height at this location. 

I have also added the cement base and a dirt base outside the cemented area to the removable base of the Murwillumbah Cement Silo.  Next week I will reinstall the fence posts and gates at this location and then add some greenery, and a bit of a shed.  Maybe an office will be added as well.  Following this I will then add the top, bottom and middle rails for the fencing and I may even get to adding the chain wire made from some tulle that I have already painted grey/silver.