Working to a Plan

The first thing that I did on Saturday was to check out how the ballast heaps had dried on my 11 ballast inserts for my ballast wagons.  It was pretty solid, but in some areas you could see through to the white styrene underneath.  So I painted around the edges of the inserts with some dark paint and let it seep in under the ballast.  Once dry these came up pretty good.  So these have been allocated to a small tray near the Bonalbo Ballast Siding for use in the next operations session.  I might have to try this shunt out myself before then to see how long it will take to do the shunt now and place the ballast inserts into the 10 ballast wagons.  I will then make an alteration to the timetable to allow for this extra time for the operator to complete this task.  The inserts just drop or snap in, but a couple have issues getting back out of the wagons again.  Sometimes I need to get something underneath and prise then out.  The styrene bases are just a fraction of a millimetre too wide.

While I had my dark paint out, I then went round the layout touching up a number of places where white plaster had recently been installed.  So I painted over the white plaster with the darker colour paint and made everything look a whole lot better.

My next major project that I will be working on has been decided.  So lets start something new, while I still have about 20 projects partly completed around the layout!  The new project is to work on the Murwillumbah Cement Silo surrounds - so I guess it is really completing something that I had previously started.  This model will be entered into my club’s December Modelling competition.  So to get things rolling, I added an extension to the base that the cement silo sits on.  I then cut up 24, 12’ high fence posts that will be used for a security surround for the silo complex.  I then built another 6 sets of gates out of styrene.  The posts and 4 of the gates then got painted from my can of grey primer spray paint.

Today I painted the last two gates and drilled out the post holes in the base of the Murwillumbah Cement Siding silo complex.  I installed all the posts that I made, found three other posts in a box I take to exhibitions and then found another 5 of these posts that were left over from being installed at the Rocla Sleeper Siding - sitting at this location.  I needed all of these to complete the Cement Siding complex.  I then cut out and painted the concrete apron for this area.  While I was in a painting mood, I decided to hit the 40' x 20' shed that sits near the road overbridge at Cassino with a coat of paint.  So it looks a lot better than the basic white styrene that it was previously in.

Next weekend I will make another two gates for the cement silo complex and then install the scenic surrounds for this location and then complete the fence.  I have again run out of styrene otherwise I would have made the two gates today.