Merry Christmas

First of all, I’d very much like to thank those readers out there in Internet land for following and reading my blog.  I’d hope that the man in the big red outfit provided you with lots of model railway goodies under the tree this morning.  I also hope that you have a great time with your family today.

This week I was still putting the finishing touches on the preparations for this Tuesday’s Operating Session.  All the trains are now at their locations.  I still have a number of light engine movements and spare locos to put in their end locations ready for the session.  Yesterday, I spent some time in the shed and completed the rails on the fencing at the Lismore Shell Oil Siding.  It dawned on me during the week that the Old Cassino Shell Oil siding was also lacking some rails for some of its fencing.  That was also installed yesterday.  On Friday I received a gift in the mail.  My new SDS Models Speed-e-gas wagons arrived.  I split a pack with PK.  So I added mine to the front of the Oil Train.  During the week, I had updated the timetable card and shunt lists for this train and its return train equivalent to take into account of this extra wagon and the movement to a new siding in Lismore Yard.  The location map on the front facia at Lismore was updated to identify the Gas Siding.  Now that just means that I need to build a new industry at this location.  However, I do not have any photos of the location where the gas was unloaded at Lismore.  Anyone out there have a photo?

Last night I cut up and ordered the various timetable cards that I printed out during the week.  These cards were put into time sequence order and all the shunt lists were also put into sequence order.  I also attached some signs below all the points for Murwillumbah below where the wire-in-tube connection comes through the fascia.  This is designed to make the job easier when shunting at Murwillumbah.  I also added a sign to The Risk to help control one of the distance points at the far end of the loop. The signs say what track a push or a pull of the manual levers will take them to.  The is particularly to help the driver control access to the two three way points at Murwillumbah.  There is one at the northern end of the platform and a second at the far end of the Cement Siding and Norca Siding divergings from the main line.

Today I was still putting the finishing pieces on the layout.  I painted some yellow clearance points on a couple of sidings that did not have that already done.  I attached a wire dropper that had some off at The Risk.  I noticed that two push buttons on the Loco Pilly control panel, for sidings 5 and 6 were throwing the points for each other’s sidings.  Now that was a bit of an oversight.  The wires were swapped and retested.  All OK now.  I have also made plans to install some extra sets of points into Clapham Yard to provide run around facilities for some standard gauge shunt trains without the loco having to go all the way out onto the mainline and requesting a staff from North Coast Control.  But will be for the next session in possibly January.

I’ve also had a really good cooked roast meal with family and am now happy to just fall asleep.

I hope to get a number of photos from Tuesday’s Operating Session and post them here on Wednesday.  Enjoy the rest of the Christmas Holiday break.