Between the rain showers on Monday this week I went to the shed and pottered around. I found out that the Timetable card for the Gold Coast Motor Rail in the next Ops Session was already sitting in the pile of trains already run, when it was still sitting in track 3 at Grafton Yard, yet to carry a passenger. So the timetable card was repositioned in the yet to be run pile. A review of the next 7 timetable cards show that there are large number of trains starting at either 10:00 am, 10:10 am or 10:20 am, so I guess we know that the fast clock will kick off at 9:50am next Ops Session. I ran the Gold Coast Motor Rail from Grafton to Cassino back platform road where it also departs at 10:10am. So I will need at least a crew of 8 to all be running trains soon after kick off during the next session. Boy is North Coast Control going to have his hands full.
I also took the opportunity to run my QR SX set from the southern end of Clapham Yard through the yard and stopped it in Yeerongpilly station. On Tuesday it ran all the way through to South Brisbane Station. It had some issues in some spots but it made it. So Wednesday was fixing day. I needed to adjust the track at a couple of track joins which were under and over gauge. I also had to pack the track in a couple of spots. The packing was used to reduce the steepness of gradient change. Before I did this, the cowcatcher on my 1460 class loco bottomed out in a couple of spots. That is not good when it occurs and it gets stuck behind a piece of track at a join. Now it runs very smoothly. On Wednesday I also took the opportunity to lengthen the platforms at Park Road Station so a 7 car SX set will fit in the platforms. These platforms are on a bit of a curve, so I used a jig saw to help curve the platform around the track.
I couple of years back I added more cement wagons to my Grafton to Murwillumbah Cement train with these four wagons being offloaded at Old Cassino. They were placed in the Timber Siding, which I didn’t really have. I placed them in the lead to the Loop line at Old Cassino. This caused considerable discomfort to many train operators when trying to push wagons into the Dairy Siding at the opposite end of the yard at Old Cassino, or just trying to cross trains when both trains were considerable long. So on Monday I bit the bullet and investigated the installation of a true Timber Siding at Old Cassino. There was space between the Construction siding and the Loop track. So I replaced a RH point with a 3 way point from the Loop. I sprayed the track area with water on Monday to loosen up the ballast and used a putty knife to get under the ballast under the point. On Tuesday I dremelled the track joiners at the northern end and slid out the point. After a bit of clean up of the area, I then added the 3-way point and everything was good. I then laid the Timber Siding and then added ballast and secured it with white glue from a dropper. This was left to dry. The wagons in the Lead for the Loop were moved to the Timber Siding. I also put another Cement wagon into service on the train, so now the Timber Siding at Old Cassino has 5 wagons. The shunt list documents were updated as was the timetable card’s instructions for the two Cement Trains – the Up and Down ones which run through Old Cassino.
I have also started work on scratch building the station building at Old Cassino. I should also complete the station platform as well when I finish the station building. I found an old photo of the Old Casino Station Building, and it looks just like a standard A5 building. However, after looking at the photos I had on hand from the various trips down there, the station building looks like a mirror image to the A5 station building plan. Subsequently a rather large extension room was built onto the western end of the station building, maybe a signal cabin? At this stage I have no confirmation of any dimensions of this building, but that does not stop me starting to scratch building that building.
No comments:
Post a Comment