Back to Working on the Layout

After returning from my son’s Soccer match on Saturday morning (he had a 2-0 victory), I went down to the shed and scratched my head.  Oh that is right, I need to install the track I purchased 2 weeks before at the Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition.  First job was to rip up the narrow gauge siding coming off road 6 in Clapham Yard and install my LH 12mm Peco point, joining up road 6 and the former road 7 siding and then relay the dead end siding section of road 7 with a nice new piece of 12mm flex track.  I still have to solder on the feeders and but this track was tested with some of my new 12mm wagons purchased 2 weeks ago.  Sweet!

The next job was to rip up the length of straight track in Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard from the throat between the track 2 and track 4.  Once ripped up, I installed another 12mm narrow gauge LH Peco point with a small piece of lead track before and after the point.  The siding for track 3 was then laid again with some nice new 12mm Peco flex track.  Two of my new 12mm wagons were tested shunting back and forth in all the tracks in this yard.  Again the wire feeders need to be soldered on to Track 3 to complete the job.  But everything is working very well.

For quite some time, The dual gauge headshunt at the opposite end of Acacia Ridge Yard had just been quite precariously laid on a few pieces of wood sitting on the module between Glenapp Loop and Acacia RidgeYard.  Well I took this up and screwed in the pieces of pine for this track to sit on.  I tested some standard gauge wagons on this headshunt and they ran very smoothly.  Another job ticked off the to do list.

Today I went down to the shed just before midday.  I decided to transfer my ballast purchases from two weeks ago from their plastic bags into my honey bottles that I use to apply ballast to the track with.  These have a screw top lid, that can be adjusted for the flow to be achieved and are a handy tool for ballast laying.  After that I decided to apply a small amount of ballast to the layout.  I ballasted 90cm of track between tunnel mouths on the spiral I have between Old Cassino and Lismore.  While in this area, just a few centimetres away at the end of the headshunt at Murwillumbah, I ballasted about 60cm of track there as well.

My next task was to wonder what I could finish next.  I decided to put together the Walthers Bridge that I purchased for the river just south of Lismore.  So after about an hour or so, this too was finished.  I then gave it a light spray of grey primer from a cheap spray can.  It came up quite well.  The next conundrum was how to install it.  I decided to cut up some polystyrene foam to make the river banks at that location and next week, I think I will plaster this area and install the bridge abutments for it to sit on.  I have already made my own piece of bridge track that I’ve had sitting next to where this bridge is to go for the last half dozen years or so.  It is about time this area get completed.  It is just to the left of the entry to the shed, so having it completed would be a good bonus.