NMRA Meeting Weekend

This week each afternoon when I came home from work, I scooted down to the shed and was testing a scale photo of West Street at Old Cassino that I acquired via snipping from Google Maps.  My plan was to paste onto the backboard at Old Casino on my layout.  On Wednesday I had a good enough photo that matched my road at that location.  It was a snip of the google street view from the same location where the road goes over the level crossing and you can see into the distance.  I then used MS-Paint to copy and paste over various parts of the photo where the various text portions on that photo that appear on the google view so they could be scrubbed out.

I had Friday off work to prepare for the NMRA meeting on Saturday.  I cleaned up the layout around Lismore, which is my dumping ground for lots of things.  I also did a bit of a clean up of the dispatchers desk – which is my modelling desk.  It still had lots of stuff on it – e.g. the two locos that need some TLC, but it was cleaner than before I started.  There was a small area of layout fascia (about 12” by 8”) that I did not paint last weekend, that got a coat of black paint on Friday afternoon.

I also further reduced some 3mm stained wooden skewers that I had sitting in a container.  These pieces of skewer were already cut to fence post length and stained.  They were to be used as fence posts on the layout.  However, I took the modellers knife and tried to split them into four posts – like split post fencing.  I then stained the internal faces of the posts with some more of my standard stain – made from metho and ink pad ink.  The split posts turned out pretty good.  I then went and installed these along the railway right of way from Hotham Street level crossing to the Cassino Meatworks.  I think they turned out pretty good.

On Saturday morning the guys turned up.  There was apparently only 20 RSVPs, but closer to 30 members were in attendance.  This was the first visit to my place for about half of the attendees.  I tried to give them a basic tour of the layout, pointing out some of the scenes and features.  We had some very good presentations from Malcolm Jenkins, Al Wright and two from Arthur Hayes.  It was great having Paul Rollason bring along his 6m x 3m marquee.  That helped provide shade for the members in attendance.  Unfortunately, soon after Paul connected his PC’s to the home wifi, our whole system went down.  All my own devices in the house all went down as well, so it must have been something back at the exchange.  Later on the system came back when it was rebooted.  So that meant that we could not stream the presentations to those members wanting to watch them online on the day.  Sorry about that.

Today I thought about doing some things in the shed but decided against it.  I did however cut a few pieces of new fascia and gave them a coat of black paint.  Two of these short lengths of fascia will go into the area near Dutton Park, high up on the single track section heading towards Fisherman Islands.  It will help to hide some of the wiring (track bus) located under the track in that area.  The next two pieces of fascia will go on the inner side of Cassino Meatworks between Hotham Street and the Helix.

The other thing that I decided to do was to make up some very small name plates for the layout so people can identify some of the local landmarks, like roads, creeks and tunnels.  So I made them this arvo.  I also packed most of my stuff up that I require for next weekend as I will be attending the Redlands Model Railway Show.

These are the Platform Printing track workers that I painted myself.  I am quite proud of my efforts.  My first large scale miniature painting task.  From 2-3 foot they look pretty good.

The is The Risk.  I complete the backdrop in this area, and added a few cattle behind the fence.

The southern end of The Risk, and the backdrop at this location stops.  I also added ballast to the last 2 feet of track here last weekend.

This is Hotham Street level crossing at Cassino.  I added the fencing down the side of roadway and wooden fencing on the right.  A few trees were added on both sides of the roadway.

A closer photo showing the fencing and the large tree to the right. 

This wider view, shows that ballasting that I redid the other week on the mainline through the meatworks site.

This is Anzac Drive.  I recently added some witches hats to the scene that my mate Greg 3D printed.

This is another of the Platform Printing track workers.  This one is hiding behind the speed sign.

This view shows the photo from Google street view of West Street.  I also added the road markings last weekend made from styrene strip.

The backdrop behind The Risk again.  I picked up a scale Vesper a few weeks back.  I placed it behind the signal box.  While scanning some photos from The Risk, I saw a shot where there was a Vesper parked between the signal box and the station building.

New back scenes added to the area between The Risk and Glenapp.

The overall shot of the scene at The Risk - but it is a bit out of focus.

I also did the Google Street view trick with Simpson Parade over the railway bridge at Cassino station.  I just need to add in more back scene on either side of the road.

I also added some commercial back scene to the area near the Bonalbo Ballast Siding.