‘Let There Be Light’ and ‘Pigs Might Fly’

Subtitle – I Bow to the Greater Stirrers

Well quite a few weeks back now, we had an NMRA meeting at my place and two dodgy characters, Arthur and Bob had conspired to plant something on my layout.  I thought that I had prevented that from occurring, but obviously not.  Well they did plant something, although it has taken me 4 weeks to work out what it was and where it was.  So I bow to the greater stirrers.  I have found something outside Ron and Marg’s B&B; where inside one of the bedrooms; PK is up to no good; found in one of the Jacaranda trees which just happens to be in full flower.  Well it was a flying pig (from Miniprints in Canada) landing in the upper foliage.  It has been there all along in plan sight, but out of my sight. 

I had a business associate come over on Friday with his Ferrari parked out the front, and spent a couple of hours having a look and having real good chat.  I’ve known Norm for what must be close to 25 years and he is such a very nice person.  He gave my son a lap around the block in the Ferrari.  I even got to sit in the driver’s seat and also got a lap around the block.  So I can now say that I have been in a Ferrari.  I must have been standing less than 12 inches from that tree with the flying pig in it and I was telling Norm to look in the window of the B&B, and check out PK in action, and I still did not see that flying pig.

The Flying Pig about to land in the tree and in the background is someone looking in the window where PK is in the bedroom.

On Saturday afternoon, a Tuesday Nighter came over to pick up some stuff, and let the cat out of the bag, advising that there was a flying pig somewhere on the layout.  I said it must be in a tree.  Well within in two minutes we found it.  It was very well camouflaged.  Those two buggers (Arthur and Bob) will keep.  I will think of something else to get Bob and Arthur back with.  They just better watch their layouts so to speak.

So back to the other heading on this post.  On Saturday I started painting some light shades that Geoff had given me last Tuesday week.  Thanks Mate!  These are just the thing to be used inside my Park Road Trans-shipment shed.  Last night I got my 0402 LEDs with pre-fitted leads out and fed them through the painted light shades and then tested them all on a battery power supply.  They all worked.  I also created a power bus inside the shed, running through the roof frame of the trans-shipment shed.  This was tested today with 7 light shades hung between the bus wires.  The shed, plugs into two sockets in the base of the layout and the lights can be turned on and off with a switch on the fascia.  The lights are powered from the track bus, with power rectified and filtered and then fed through the switch to the bus.  

This photo is taken from below the fascia and looking up into the Trans-shipment shed to see the lights hanging down inside the shed.  I have a plan to replace this section of layout fascia with Perspex at a later date so crews can see into the shed when they are shunting the siding.  You can actually see more that than this photo shows when viewing at eye level.  This photo masks the actual view, given that it was taken from below looking up. 

I have also been making and painting some other detail items for this scene.  I have made 38 paper rolls to be positioned inside some wagons and inside the trans-shipment shed.  I found on the internet that the rolls of paper were apparently 1.7m high and 930mm wide.  So I scaled then to HO and made then from white paper rolled up.  I had positioned quite a few pallets, tarps, 44 gallon drums and 3 cubic metre industrial bins on the concrete pavement between two tracks in the yard.  I have yet to place them in their final locations and will install a few pallets inside and some more outside the shed.   I will also have to install some fire hoses and other safety equipment around the shed.  I need to keep my miniature workers safe.

I also painted up another 40 pallets today and I must have painted about 20 tea bags, which will enable me to make about 40 tarps during the week.

I think I have my next project identified.  I will work on the Local Community Hall near Fairy Hill Loop, actually on Fairy Lane.  I have a plan to install disco lights inside the hall and music blaring from the hall to add something different to the average layout.  I have everything I need to action this, so maybe in a fortnight it might be ready to install.