Clapham and Building

I went to a local Buy and Sell this week on Tuesday evening.  The main aim was to pick up a large radius Peco Y point for Clapham Yard.  Unfortunately there was none there and the person who thought he had one and was going to bring one, could not find his stash.  Well that was a bit of a bummer. 

So when Saturday rocked around, I had no point to install on the layout.  But I decided to do some work on the modelling desk (aka kitchen table).  I had previously made up 8 x 40 foot long container flats.  So I got stuck into 5 of them and added cage ends to the container flats.  I then painted 6 of these with my trusty grey primer.  So they are now in the box of container flats to be sold to mates.

I also made up another base for another 40 foot long container flat, but this time with a thicker base.  This new flat is currently lacking a deck, but it does have a frame.  This one will have folding ends when I get around to making them.

So in the lead up to earth hour last night, I decided to make two models of a 20’ container flat will have a generator set on it to power a string of refrigerated containers.  The container flats were easy to make, and then I needed to make a structure that looked sort of similar to a gen set.  It is so difficult to make a rectangular prism to form the base of the gen set.  After cutting all the pieces, I assembled it and let the glue dry.  Mine was out of square.  Hopefully no one will know.

So this arvo, I filed the now dry rectangular box so that the various styrene joins were not too visible.  I then added lots of little bumps and protrusions to make it look like it is not exactly square and also that those bumps were supposed to be there, as either access hatches or some form of intake.  I then decided to make another 20’ container flat that had a checker plate floor.  I then added an exhaust stack to the gen sets and then gave them a spray of yellow oxide paint.  The idea of these 20’ gen sets came about from something I have seen on one of the facebook groups by another Australian outline modeller that had built three very nice models.  His effort was fantastic and it certainly urged me into building a couple as well.  So I thought I can do that as well.  So I have.

This morning I popped over to my mate Dave’s place and picked up one of his Y points.  I actually picked up a Left hand point and a Y just in case the left hand fitted better, but, my first impression was correct, and the Y point was better to fit the geometry in Clapham Yard.  So just before lunch time today, I cut the track and spliced in the Y point and gave a test run of a couple of carriages over the various track work around the point and everything ran well.  So I can now move on.  However, I did not get around into getting back to testing my Brisbane Limited set again.  Maybe next week.

Ideally all I need to acquire to complete Clapham Yard is about 4 x 12 mm points and some 1mm steel piano wire.  The wire will be used to thread through the baseboard and actuate all the manual points that I have now installed in Clapham Yard.  I will also make some labels above the push-pull actuators on the facia and that yard will then be totally finished.  Then I think that will conclude all trackwork activity on Cassino.  That is about 11 years in the making.

The newly installed 'Y' point in Clapham Yard is the one on the left.  This allows run around movement especially for the Rail Set train that is just visible in the second track from the left.

The two gen set 20 foot container flats after being painted.  The checker plate 20 foot container flat is in front.  A bit of weathering with some powders will create some colour variations and the gen sets will be ready to join a train.