I started off working on my To-Do check list on Monday. I fixed the broken wire on a control panel in Clapham Yard. I found the cold solder joint in the narrow gauge section between Dutton Park and Park Road and that was hit with the soldering iron and fixed. I started planning the control panels for the narrow gauge triangle between Dutton Park, Park Road and Fisherman Islands. The control panels building did not eventuate. Maybe this week. I also started looking into a loco that was playing up.
When not doing any modelling I was spending time resurrecting a few locos that had been pulled off the layout due to either bad performance, or decoder brainfarts. So bit by bit I got a few locos back in the world of the living. I got one old Trax 48 class usable again. I then got a motorless Jumbo usable with full lighting functions available for traffic. So this can now be either a lead or secondary unit. It is currently on a ballast train in push-pull setup in Lismore Yard. This was followed by a couple of 80 class locos and then 3 more Jumbo. There are a couple more to be scheduled for a tune-up and that will be in the near future.
I also ran the ATLP 2022 boxcar back to Grafton Yard. I then ran the empty fruit train back to South Brisbane and the locos back to Loco Pilly. The ATLP boxcar was brought to the NMRA meeting on Saturday and handed over to Glen. I believe it will be given back to Marty on Sunday at their Club get together. I will eventually do a Blog post on this cars' travels on my layout when I can find some time to put it all together.
Most of the rest of the week, was spent doing work on the roof and awnings on the Refreshment room end of the building. I did some painting on a few pieces. I started making the section around the breezeway. I am still looking at how I can fit the roof securely and also have it removable.
I also spent some time this week on printing my new timetables cards. The original format of these cards have served me well for over 10 years and were A6 in size on perforated paper. After December’s Operations Session, I spent some time re-doing everything here as A5 timetable cards. My eyes are not getting any younger and some of my operators are older then me. I was struggling to read the cards that I wrote, so something had to change. So I printed the timetable cards on A4 perforated paper giving two timetable cards. But I had forgotten to do a test print of a single page first, and the print of the two timetable cards on the A4 sheet was not centred. Bugger. The second timetable card was on both sides of the perforation. So I had to spend some time doing slight adjustments to me file to ensure that I could just re-print the files onto these A4 perforated sheets and get two perfect timetable cards out on a single page. I was also having differences when printing the actual EXCEL version compared with a PDF file. The PDF version was just printing using about 75% of the available real-estate on the page. That had me beat. So I think I have now got it working, and I will re-try a full print this coming week. No I need to build some new timetable card storage boxes on the layout fascia. More work. It keeps mounting up.
On Saturday we went to the local NMRA meeting just down the road in the next suburb. That was very convenient. There was a good turn up and there were three presentations. Garry the host for the day took us through the machinery in his company workshop and demonstrated the equipment in action. OMG! You use the correct tool for the job, and it is very easy.
One of the other activities that I was going this week and especially today was working on the roof of the Cassino Station and Refreshment room building. This is starting to come together. I’m not sure how I will make the roof sit down onto the building as I will need the roof detachable. Maybe some small micro magnets. So I just ordered some of these on eBay and I see how that work.
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