I Never Really Got Started This Weekend

This week was a relatively quiet one.  Nothing significant occurred and no major modelling tasks were undertaken.  On Tuesday during the day while working from home, I had a visit from PK, Bus Driver and B2 - three train club mates.  So I took an early lunch and had a chat.  Apparently the three amigos went for run over to George’s shop and then travelled on to my place.  PK had some deliveries for me.  Apparently it was like a mixture of keystone cops and Benny Hill in the car on the way over.  Anyway I think it was the first time B2 and Bus Driver had visited my place to see my layout.  I gave them a quick tour of the layout and they hit the road back to the other side of the planet (I mean city).  That night I put some of the styrene obtained from PK to good use and completed assembly of 52 pallets in two strips of 26.  I was waiting on some styrene for the small boards.  

On Friday afternoon after finished work early I went to visit Lefty and Son to repay them for some borrowed styrene from a few weeks earlier.  We had a bit of a natter for a while before I returned home and never got motivated to do any modelling.

On Saturday I made my way over to the newest (relocated) shop on the southside – Modeller’s Warehouse.  I purchased a few things and I will be back there when he schedules his re-opening sale.  I ran into another Club member at the shop.  Anyway one of the things I picked up was some cement containers from Wuiske Models.  When I got home I assembled these kits.  They went together so easily.  I had planned on painting them up today, but ended up watching the cricket on TV.  So a job for next weekend.

So some other modelling activities that I got up to on the weekend, included cutting up the 52 pallets that I completed on Tuesday night, into individual pallets, but I never got around to painting them today.  Maybe next weekend.  I assembled 48 (half) of the packet of 44 gallon drums that PK delivered on Tuesday.  These were then painted in various colours and cut up and stored in my 44 gallon drum storage container.  I must have between 150 and 200 in there now for placement around the layout and for selling at various Buy and Sell's whenever they restart.  I just realised that I probably need a few more 44 gallon drums myself for the oil case building in the Shell Oil Siding at Old Cassino.  I also got around to adding some very fine wire to one of my clotheslines from the layout.  This wire is to represent the wire lines on the clothesline.  Next job will be to cut out some clothes and attach them to the clothes line.  I must do some rather risque clothing and see if anyone notices when they come to visit.  Another task I did was to cut out and clean up the components from a 3D print that my mate Greg did for me.  The print is for a cement mixer.  The components will be further tidied up this week and it hopefully will be assembled next weekend, and then it will have to be painted.

I had planned on adding some road makings in two locations around the layout, but never got to it.  I make my road makings, like centre lines and road edge lines from 0.010" x 0.040" and 0.010" x 0.030" styrene respectively.  But I think I need some more styrene before I can complete that task in those two locations.

Still Finding Plenty of Jobs to do

Friday started with another day off work.  I was able to visit Captain Barnacle and upload a new version of the single track level crossing code to the Arduino and it seemed to fix the problem.  I did some tweaking in the delay between reads of the outer IR detectors on approach to the level crossing and if I then wound up the intensity of the outer detectors a bit, it seemed to work very well.  Barnacle could throw his points all over the layout and it no longer caused his level crossing to activate.  I'm pretty sure he is as happy as a pig in mud.  This comment in no way refers to Barnacle's previous employment!  I do think it was something in his power circuit in the shed, or even the power supply supplying some of his point motors.  But that is not yet proved beyond reasonable doubt, and probably never will be as everything seems to be running well now.

So on the way home from Barnacle's, I popped into to visit Lefty & Son.  I tried to set them a task and hopefully they have accepted the challenge and have started cleaning the rollingstock and track off a section of their baseboard that they want to make modifications to.  They also wanted to change the second deck, so this needs to be cleaned up as well.  They just need to advise when the working bee is and I’m sure a few of the Tuesday Nighter’s will be over to give them a hand.  I have not yet replaced Raymond’s borrowed styrene as yet, that will be this weekend.

My modelling activities this weekend covered a whole range of things.  I painted up 50 pallets on Friday and sold them off.  I will complete another 50 this week and paint them next Saturday. I installed a small section of chain wire fence that I painted on Friday.  It was only 48mm long, and filled the gap at the end of lane way.  I also installed two small safety barriers that sit above the North Street pedestrian underpass walkway just north of the Cassino station.  This will stop distracted shunters or other crew members from falling onto the walkway below.

I cut up and installed 36 lids for 54 - 44 gallon drums (yes some will not have lids) which I painted in various colours today.  I stained about 50 balsa sleepers to make a walkway that will run beside the track in Lismore Yard.  This will enable the crew to walk beside the wagons and not fall over on the ballast, so they can connect up the pipes for the cement wagons that are unloaded here.  Just more detail around the siding.

I added the name boards to the Cassino platform signs on the weekend as well.  They look quite good.  I also added a number of perway crew to various fetler camps around the layout.  These also add to the realism of the various scenes.  I have also started to add some corrugated iron to a few more sheds that have been sitting around for years.  I found some old corrugated card that I had left over, so now that has been used up.  I must buy a few more packets for the 10 or more shed that I need to complete.  Maybe a bulk order with the Tuesday Nighter’s this week?

My main activity for the weekend was planning for a magnetic uncoupler that will slide beneath the track on both the mainline and the Norco siding at Murwillumbah.  A hole was cut in the baseboard and the magnet was attached to a piece of dowel and it slides between the two tracks and out of the way.  This will be covered by a piece of thin balsa sheet just under the track.  It sort of works.  More testing and some more fine tuning will occur next weekend.  While working in this area, an opportunity was taken to add the bitumen road to the Murwillumbah Cement Silo.  A turning circle was added to the far end of the facility.  I also added a bitumen road and standing pad to the goods facility at Old Cassino.   

The future plan is still to give a number of locos a bit of a test run next weekend.

More Pallets - Well Almost

This week has been a bit slower.  I had Friday off work so picked Geoff up and we both went for a trip to Aurora Trains in the morning.  In the arvo I continued work on building another string of pallets.  I ran out of styrene and as it turned out I couldn’t pick any up this weekend from any of the model shops.

On Saturday morning I was able to fit in a trip to Austral Modelcraft as I had not been there was maybe 5 weeks.  I was after some decoders for the Club shop, but they had none of the particular model that were wanted by the Club.  Following watching most of my son’s last soccer game for the season, I made my way over to the Club for our AGM.  Over there I had a chance to have a natter with a few people I had not seen for quite some time.  The N scale layout’s top deck is coming along very nicely.  The water scenes are fantastic.  The Outdoor G scale was running with Quentin using his radio control loco, on the first completed circle of track.  The crossing loops and the second circle shouldn’t be too far behind.  This has been a great effort by a small group of members. 

Today I went over to Barnacle Bob’s place to again do some tinkering work on his level crossing flashing light setup.  The setup that Bob has installed, works flawlessly with trains running in either direction over his single track level crossing.  However when Bob throws some points on his layout, the Arduino acts like one of the IR detectors on the layout has detected a train.  I have watched the detector and it did not detect anything.  So the reason is most likely some sort of inductance in the triggering wires or electrical noise.  I have done some reading and now believe that it will be electrical noise.  I have also written an updated version of the level crossing detector code, and I will load that up next weekend to measure if one or multiple detectors are triggered whenever Bob throws a point.  I have some code to perhaps mitigate this issue, but I first need to measure what is occurring.

Another alternative could to provide a better power supply for the Arduino instead of what is currently being used.  This power supply would need a better filtering circuit going into the Arduino, so it filters out any electrical noise.  I will see what occurs next weekend when I can next go over for a visit.

Today I was able to pick up some more styrene from Raymond and Lefty.  Raymond has a styrene stand to rival most hobby shops.  From time to time, I put out an SOS and Raymond has what I need.  I then replace what I borrow from him at my earliest opportunity.  So with the help of Raymond's styrene I completed another 50 pallets and I am one strip of styrene short of completing another 25 pallets.  So with another packet of styrene I can then do another 25 pallets again, making a total build of 100. 

On Friday evening I did some work on my timetable.  I saw a photo in one of the facebook groups with a Murwillumbah bound cement train with a milk tanker as first wagon.  Guess what?  My cement train now has an extra wagon or two or three.  These wagons need to be dropped off at Lismore on the dairy siding.  Upon return, the now full milk tankers are picked up and placed behind the locos again.  That will be an interesting problem for the driver to solve as he will have to run around his train, if he can.  As one of the last trains in the timetable, the yard at Lismore should have enough free tracks for the various shunting to occur pretty easily.  But we will see.

Next weekend may be another change of pace, with some work on a few locos to ensure that they are working again after one lost its address following a short, and some others have had some gear changes.  I might have to check to see if I have snubbers installed in that section of track.

Still Feeling Fenced in

Well this weekend started with a visit to the local hobby shop on Friday afternoon.  I picked up Geoff on the way and we both had a browse and picked up an item or two.  Next stop was at Barnacle Bobs.  Bob was installing one of my level crossing kits and had run into some trouble.  But it seems that some of his wires may have been crossed somewhere.  So I unplugged them, traced them back and plugged them back in.  One by one, I got his 5 IR detectors working.  Next task was to look at his level crossing lights.  His were from his old Wacol layout, and these were controlled by a module that just alternated the polarity on the wires to the lights and the two LEDs were wired back to back.  This was not what the level crossing kit was set up to handle.  But all I needed to do was to take the wire that Bob had wired to the common, and wired that to the alternate flashing output.  This meant that the two wires from each LED flashing pair, were just wired to pins 9 and 10 (for one light post) and pins 11 and 12 (for the second flashing light post).  Well, that worked and Bob's crossing setup now works just like a bought one.  Well he did buy it from me!

Again another two games of soccer yesterday and then I was able to get down to the shed and did some more pottering around.  I decided to plant about twenty telegraph poles around the middle deck of the layout, around The Risk and Glenapp crossing loops.  These had been laying on their side on the layout for quite some time.  Now they are installed.  I also added quite a few animals around the layout in various scenes.  I purchased these from Casula Hobbies a few weeks back.

Some telegraph poles at Glenapp Crossing Loop

More telegraph poles at The Risk

Dingoes near Cougal Spiral

Some horses near a fettler's camp

A kangaroo going for a run

Some wallabies near Border Loop

Today I did some more work on the houses backing onto the station at Cassino.  Firstly I added a few people.  I found some in my various spares boxes.  So we now have a couple of guys shoveling sand for the cement mixer.  I also have three people on the roof of the shed out the back and they are attempting to fit guttering to the shed.  Well that is what I am trying to portray.  I did some more work making some additional wire fencing and gates for a few houses, and even fitted chain wire to the gates and the fence segments.  I also installed the various wooden fences to some other houses.  One of the next bits of work will be to weather some of these wooden fences to indicate the age of the various fences.  Another task that I did was add some box trailers to a couple of properties that back onto the railway line. 

More traffic signs near Cassino overhead booking office

Canterbury Street house with workers and new gates.

A trailer in the back yard

Workers on the roof adding guttering to the train shed.

The worker on the roof from a different angle and showing the trailer in the neighbour's back yard.

The other house in Canterbury Street now has a gate.

The house in Convent Lane also has a gate

North Street house has fences glued in.

The fencing at the end of North Street was installed and the walkway made operational.

The other house in North Street with wooden fencing installed all around.

The house that sits in Wiangaree street also has fencing.

During the week, I was talking to Greg (our resident 3D printing guru) and he found and modified a 3D print for a cement mixer.  So I await with much eagerness for when I can catch up with him and get his print and then bring it home and assemble it.  After a paint, it will then sit pride of place outside my Canterbury Street house.

The next task is plan for the various houses in these Cassino properties that I have now fenced off.  I will also use my imagination as to what other detail scenes can be added to these various houses.

Still Doing Fencing Around the Station

On Friday afternoon, I went to the local hobby shop and ended up buying some nice wooden fences from Chilli Engraving.  That is Tristan in our Club.  These were removed from their packaging when I got home and I could see where I would use them on the layout.  That night I started studying some photos I took when I was last in Casino of the houses backing onto the railway line.  I then realised that I needed to make some 6’ chain wire fencing to the list of requirements. This is mostly at the railway property border where roads or laneways met and backed onto the railway land.   It shoul dbe understood that I do not have photos of these areas back 30 years ago when my layout is set.  So I can only hope that the fencing did not change much in these houses, and road/laneways over that time period.

So I started cutting up some styrene to make some 6’ chain wire fencing for the end of Wiangarie Street on Cassino.  I cut the posts and glued the top rail on.  This was constructed in three sections. 

Saturday was soccer day, with two matches to ferry my son to.  When I eventually got home late in the arvo, I painted the fence segments I made the day before.  I installed the two short segments either side of Wiangarie Street, and drilled the holes for the third.

It wasn’t until this afternoon that I installed the third section of fencing around Wiangarie Street.  Today I also installed a few more sections of fencing on the houses backing on to Cassino Station.  I also made up another small section of fencing for Convent Parade.  I also added a gate for access for authorised persons.

I was also able to find some more detail items and give them a paint last weekend.  So I now have a couple of wheel barrows to help get the concrete from the mixer (still to get one of those) to the boxing for the car port slab.  I also added a letter box to the house on Canterbury Street.

The various gates for a number of houses will be made tonight from styrene.

A few photos show progress.

The house in Canterbury Street.  The detail out the front is coming along.  Just need a cement mixer.  Last week I added some trees, fencing at the end of the street, paved walkways in the front and backyard.

This laneway is Convent Parade.  Fencing is in, gate is in.  I need a gate on the driveway on the house on the left.  I still need to build this house and add detail.

This house is the other one on Convent Parade.  It has no front fence.  Well no house here either, yet and no detail.

This is North Street.  No house, and an incomplete side fence yet.

The other house in North Street.  Wooden fences all around.  

The next house backs onto a grassed unnamed laneway (in Google maps) .  This is the start of the chain wire fencing that I made on Friday night.

The full view of the fencing at the end of Wiangaree Street.

Pottering About - Adding More Detail

I had Friday off this week as a lead up to my birthday yesterday.  The Boss and I went to the shop and I had a very nice feed a Chinese for lunch.  I did get around to doing some modelling activities in the arvo.  During the week I received a post on my blog from Shelton wanting some speed signs made up.  I wanted to do a few more traffic signs myself, so I cut up some signs and glued them to some 0.010” styrene.  These were set aside to dry.  I got out some old fence posts from a storage container that I had previously made up.  These were made from 0.060” I beam and used to represent fence posts made from rail.  These are painted brown and five holes are drilled in them.  Normally I do not thread wire or cotton through them.  But this time I was going to install these right in front of Cassino station.  So I ensured that the pre-drilled holes, were in fact all well opened and clean of any burrs.  I also packed up a box of goodies to take to Darren’s for our Saturday get together to show off.  Things included were my Wifitrax WFD-40 plug and play wifi for the NCE system.  I also added some incinerators that I was to give to another member and lots of other detail items that I had.

We found out on Friday arvo that my son’s Saturday school soccer game start time was changed to start an hour later – Damn!  So now I could not attend that and still get to the NMRA meeting at Darren’s on time.  So I missed that game, and went to Darren’s.  But the NMRA Div 1 super rang up just before I was about to leave and advised that the NMRA meeting was cancelled due to the QLD Premier implementing a 10 person cap on home visits that morning.  No Soccer, no NMRA meeting!  But I still had to spend some time with my mate Darren to ensure that he was not depressed with the sudden cancellation of his meeting.  It was not a total loss from my point of view, as I sold 50 x 44 gallon drums to Darren for detailing his layout.  I also checked out some of the work he had been doing on the layout.  It just gets better.

When I got home I went down to the shed and did some work before taking my son to a late Club Soccer game.  The less said about that game the better.  A 10-0 loss under lights against the top team, that should be in the higher division.

Anyway, first thing I did today was cut up the various road signs that I made on Friday.  I then went down to the shed and just continued to potter around.  I added a few signs to various locations on the layout.

The last thing I did before lunch was to drill holes in the baseboard for the 9 fence posts made from 0.060” styrene I beam at the end of Canterbury Street.  I also filled a large pot with dirt and then added a small tree to it, for a topiary tree out the front of my house in Canterbury Street.

After lunch I decided to get around and thread some cotton through a small needle, and then threaded that needle through the 9 x fence posts for the 5 strands of wire in the fence.  This was then moved to the layout and superglued in place.  It looks very nice.

I decided to rip up the fence in front of my Canterbury Street house.  I realised after posting photos of it last week, that the pickets were on the wrong side of the fence.  So I ‘end for ended’ the fence.  I still need to reinstall some driveway gates, as these will now be wire and not styrene.  I also made up some fences for the house on the other side of the road.  So that was also installed.  It needs a nice front gate to be made up and doesn’t have any driveway gates.  I also realised last week that the house I had already modelled in Canterbury was missing a path from the front of the house to the front gate.  So that was added today out of bricks to represent paving.  I also added a path out the back to the shed and the clothes line.  Hey PK, do you know what one of those is?  During the week I also ordered up big from Joe at Casula.  A lot of Uneek and Kerroby items were ordered and delivered very quickly.  These will eventually make their way around the layout in the next few weeks.

Again a review of some photos of the house in Canterbury Street taken from the platform at Cassino, revealed that this house had a wooden fence behind the larger shed in the backyard.  So this was made up and painted two shaded of brown (one for each side), and when dry it was installed.  I also added some more green colourbond fencing on the far side of the house.  I still need to add some gutters to the large shed and some pipes into the water tank.  Maybe during the week if I finish early one day.  I also planted a few trees around the end of Canterbury Street and the house at the end of the street.  I then started installing fences backing onto the railway right of way out the back of the other house at the opposite side of the Street.  I also made up a few more lengths of colourbond type fencing for later use on other houses.  I will have to try and get some laser cut wooden fencing from Tristan made up.

More Work Around Canterbury Street

Friday was a public holiday in Brisbane.  It was our Ekka show holiday moved from its traditional Wednesday to a Friday to give a long weekend to the locals, in the hope that they will go out and spend some money.  Well Aurora Trains was open from 9-midday on the Friday, so I went there and did some spending.  I picked up some more styrene glue and a set of windows that Wuiske Models has produced.  Before I left home, I liked a post by George with a shot of one of my pallets with two 44 gallon drums on it.  So I threw my container of pallets and my container of pallets with drums into my tool box before I left home and went to George's.  I had already received a text from George earlier in the week, wanting some of my tarps.  So they were already in the tool box.  My main reason to visit George’s shop was actually to adjust the sensors on the automatic level crossing test module that is in his shop.  Well the trick was to ensure that the infra-red detector LEDs on the modules have the slightest taper towards each other when they are installed into the track.  So once that was done, Voila – just like a bought one.  Oh, did I mention, that George is selling these little kits, with an Arduino with code that will control a single track bi-directional level crossing, or a section of dual track with directional up and down trains.  He even sells the LED flashing light modules.  What more could a modeller want?

So George is now selling a few tarpaulins in a pack.  Just as I was about to go, he received a text about his post of the pallet photo with 44 gallon drums.  He was about to advise that they come all stuck together, when I said hold on!  Out came about a hundred pallets that I have already made.  George took quite a few dozen off me.  So if anyone wants some, go see George at Aurora Trains.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a list of tasks to accomplish on the layout – a bit of a ‘To Do’ list.  Well on Friday afternoon, I finally blew the dust off that list and went down to the shed and started ticking a few items off that were on the 'To Do' list.

First task was to adjust a wire from the positive terminal on my Hotham Road level crossing to the negative terminal.  This wire was attached to a push button, which allowed the shunters to activate the level crossing manually from the Cassino Down Yard, for a train to depart towards Brisbane.  That was done and tested and it worked.  Next task (which wasn’t on the list) was to adjust an LED on one of the flashing lights at Hotham Street, as one LED was not flashing.  It was a dry solder joint.  So after a bit of mucking around, the LED sprang back into flashing life and then it didn’t, then it did, then it didn’t.  Well I did say it was a flashing light – that was an attempt at humour!

Next task was to affix the fence barrier either side of Railway Parade (the overbridge at Cassino station). I started on the near side some weeks back, and never did the far side.  Well that task was completed and then the road guttering was installed from 0.060” styrene angle.  I also installed some speed signs, some ‘No Parking’ signs, some ‘Angle Parking’ signs and some other ones.  I also fitted some balsa to the front of the road, to cover up the polystyrene to tidy things up a bit.  I also deployed a few road signs to the road near Lismore station.

The bridge after a couple of signs were added.  A speed limit on the bridge and a no stopping sign.

The far side of the bridge with the fence barriers installed.  Also a speed sign and no stopping signs.  There is also the beginnings of a light post.  The bridge had angle parking on the lead up to it.  The car will eventually have its headlights and stop lights wired up to an Arduino controlling a number of lights at this location.

The far side of the road over the bridge, with fencing and guttering.  A few bits of grass and other things will be installed in the future.

The front of the layout now has a bit of a fascia.

This shot shows the sign at the far side of the intersection.

By changing the focus, this shot shows the traffic lights ahead sign.

Over at the top of Fairy Lane, just outside the old Community Hall, where a lot more work will eventually occur at in the next few weeks, I had to install a very simple pelmet made from two strips of balsa.  This just stops the operators from looking straight into the strings of LED lights.  The layout deck above this location here is South Brisbane Interstate and that is quite high.  While at this task, I added three more strips of balsa to make a pelmet at the other end of Fairy Hill Crossing Loop (again under South Brisbane Interstate station) on the North Coast Controller side of the layout.

This photo shows the community hall and the dunnies out the back.  I have added a light here for the benefit of the people using the hall and the outdoor conveniences.  Also visible above the hall is the balsa pelmet painted black.

This shot shows the outdoor light working.

The black pelmet is also installed down the far end on that peninsular and also painted black.

On Friday night I decided to replace some boxing I made up out of styrene with some made from strips of stripwood.  The wooden version looks a lot better than the styrene version.  There will be more work on this over the weekend.  I have some sheets of reo that will be added to a cement pour.  This will be the start of a car port and driveway for one of the locals in Canterbury Street.  A few more items need to be added here.  One sand, some aggregate and some more boxing.  I will eventually also get a cement mixer to place here, as the poor old householder, is doing it all by hand.

Saturday afternoon after a very nice game of soccer, I was able to get down the shed and paint my balsa pelmets.  I also installed a few power poles.  I then mixed up a batch of concrete from plaster and some black and white paint to make it a cement colour, and then poured some of it into the boxing I made up the day before.

I then cut out some foam and coated it with ballast to make a truck load of aggregate and another for a track load of sand.  These were created on a piece of wood.  They were cut off the wood and transplanted onto the front footpath of the house today.  I also made a small bucket that will be filled with water and modelled the hose coming out from beside the house, over the fence and to the bucket.  I still need a mixer and two wheel barrows, but a power cord has been supplied for the mixer when it turns up.  Of course I also need some shovels and a few other detail items to be added.  These exist, but were sitting on the platform and not in the piles of sand and aggregate.

The last house in Canterbury Street is getting a new concrete carport.  Out the front are the piles of sand and aggregate.  In the distance is a pallet of 20kg cement bags.  No quite visible is the tin which the person who will be doing the hand mixing of the concrete will have their water supply.  A green hose from green decoder wire is coming out from beside the house and under the fence.  There is also an extension lead coming out from the electricity box for the electric cement mixer (not in the scene as yet).  Also missing are two wheel barrows.  A couple of shovels also did not make the photo.

A shot showing the boxing around the slab and the first few mixer loads in the boxing.  It is about to be leveled off.  The backyard also contains someone doing some mowing with a push mower and the outdoor table for a BBQ lunch later in the day.

Another shot of the backyard.  This shows a couple of fruit trees and the hen house.

The whole backyard, complete with an outhouse, a small home office made from brick and a 12m x 6m titan shed for the owner's model railway.

There is still plenty to do around this house.  I plan to add a topiary tree in a pot to the front porch.  I added a fancy cast iron bench seat for the owner to watch the comings and going at the station from.