A Diversion
Last Saturday my son, knowing how I had a faint interest in trains drew my attention to a movie I was unaware of.
I will go to the movies to see features not available at home such as a way bigger screen and 3D.
This movie must have snuck past but when he said it had trains from the beginning to end I said lets go.
The movie is called "Unstoppable" starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine and a few diesels who didn't even rate a mention in the end credits. Its a non stop action typical runaway train movie with some great angle shots.Don't be to picky or critical when you watch it, just enjoy it for what it is. If you want to find out more check out the trailer for Unstoppable here.

Shed Duty
After many weeks of working on the Garbage Protection Unit (sounds like a new government department) and getting some landscaping done on Saturday morning I decided I would actually get into the shed and do some work on the layout. This was able to be done during the day when the weather wasn't so cold. The weather has been freezing lately and going down there at night comes second to a night at the computer.
I decided to concentrate on Kameruka for the time being. One of the projects is to lengthen the platform from a 2 FS to 4FS platform. Originally this platform use to grace the old layout and suited its location. The only reason it got as advanced as it did was the fact that I took it to a Branchline Modelers Convention at the Macquarie Uni when they were on many moons ago.
The original platform was formed from a piece of pineboard and has so far been ok, so I hunted around the shed for another two pieces, one for each end of the platform.
I already had cut out a styrene platform front which had a ramp down at the end. I eventually got the piece of pine filed down to match the profile. That was OK for the Candelo end. The other end was just a straight cut.
As can be seen from the photos the track through the platform is not yet ballasted, so that made getting the platforms completed the first priority.The concrete facing was made from a piece of 40 thou styrene with a few horizontal scribed lines to represent the layers. Then another piece is glued onto the front to provide the vertical support pieces.
You might note the horrible green paint I used to seal the timber with. I could tell you that this was the only can colour I could find, but a better answer would be it was my contribution to greening up Kameruka. Co-incidently it was the day young Julie - argh was going to tell us how the carbon tax is going to save us. Just a thought is she going to put a carbon tax on carbon brushes for locomotives? I might just get a few in.

Well I didn't get much more done today than what you can see as all of a sudden bang the lights and power went out. Stuff it, I'll go in and have a cup of tea - doh no power. It was getting around critical crunch time for the Sunday arvo footy as well. Half an hour later still no power and the game had already kicked off. So I did the next best thing, I went and had a soak in the bath and listened to the game on radio (battery). The game had finished, Manly had won and still no power and was I going to see the replay on telly? Eventually power returned around 5.15p so I went in an watched the second half of the footy.

Maybe next weekend I can get down and do some more work on the platforms so that ballasting can be undertaken.