Back Scene Work

This week things did not turn out as expected, although I did tick off a number of tasks from my to do list.  I did go to the shed and did some work.  I did some work on some home made photo back scenes in a couple of areas, and then relocated a Wuiske photo back scene to another area of the layout.  We will see if the Tuesday Nighters this week notice anything different.  I also planted quite a few trees around the layout given that I purchased a decent lot of them over the last few weeks from Modellers Warehouse.  I was also digginto my collection of small saplings and plenty of these also got installed.  While working on the backboards, I found one wire had become detached from the DCC bus line around Loco Pilly and the line up to Dutton Park areas.  Which DCC line it came off is anyone’s guess?  I will look into this during the week.

I also spent some time on the PC.  I was working on the programming updates to my level crossing code for my Arduino, to allow for manual activation of a crossing in both single line and dual track modes.  So far the code compiles, but I have not yet tested it on my test rig.  This manual activation will allow me to activate a level crossing if a train needs to shunt across the crossing to access a siding instead of hitting the outer detector first.  This will be used at the level crossing at Old Cassino on my layout, as we have the Old Cassino Yard on one side of the level crossing and on the other we have the Shell Oil Siding.  We also have various locos that need to shunt across the level crossing during the timetable operating sessions, so this will allow me to hit the activate and cancel buttons during an Operations Session.

I ordered some more Arduinos last week and they turned up this week.  I also have some IR detectors on order, which should turn up this week. 

On the weekend I also started some design work for my 12” square diorama for the Armidale Convention.  I was contemplating hand laying some track on the diorama but at this stage it will be commercial track that will be used.  More on that as it is built.  I also built a small section of fencing this morning and installed it near a level crossing on the layout.  This small scene enhancement also included some trees being planted in this location as well.  Next task was to get my USB powered vacuum cleaner out and I used it in a few areas of the layout for around half an hour as I tried to clean up some wood swarf or shavings from various hole drilling activities made on the baseboards from feeder wire installation attempts and I also picked up lots of foam specs and gecko droppings from the scenery.

Also during the week, I did some wagon rearranging on the narrow gauge.  I really need to allocate some sidings to some of my rollingstock.  Today I did some upgrade work on a NSW NVJA guards van that I picked up cheaply at the Pine River’s Model train show a few weeks back.  I fixed the bogies, and I also added three missing posts on the end verandahs of the wagon.  I think I need to do some more work on the bogies, as the wagon has a bit of a wobble.

Tuesday this week we have the guys coming over.  It will be good to catch up again with the crew.