Still moving forward

Crossing the local road into Broadwater

I can't believe we are now into another winter here in Sydney. Don't get me wrong I prefer the cooler weather than the stinking heat and humidity of summer. We were punished this year with an extended summer and it has finally got cooler. Also at this time of the year I am able to open the roller door of the garage and let some of that winter sun burst in. This particular afternoon I noticed that the afternoon light had a particular reddish glow to it. I reckon that the backburning of the local bush would have added to effect. So I rolled out the camera and took a few shots to see if I could capture the lighting effect.

Into the loop at Broadwater

Drifting past a loaded log wagon awaiting pickup

I was alerted recently to an add on Gumtree for some On30 locos and rolling stock. Two of the carriages were of the same type I am having constructed for the layout so no great interest there but they looked very nice. There was a red NA similar to the one in the photo above and 8A the only member of the VR narrow gauge that was fitted with a straight stack. I already had one of these locos fitted with a sound card. I was very tempted when the price was reduced and proceeded to obtain it. It was already fitted with a sound decoder so it would be  a straight drop onto the layout and away. Well as you know I am modelling a fictional line in southern NSW so that fact that there are two similar locos on the layout won't faze me. I actually prefer the straight stack loco so it fits right in. It has arrived from the southern state of Victoria and is now on the layout. The main current difference between mine and the previous owner is that he has fitted all the additional hardware like lamps, numbers, builders plate etc. Mine will eventually have all this fitted but with a different number.

New addition 8A with a small freight over the trestle

8A on its way to Eden

Pambula will have a goods siding and to service the vehicles I was tossing up whether to have a goods shed on a stage or just have a wooden faced loading stage. For some variety I chose the latter and found some scrap timber to build one. I felt comfortable to build this as it didn't need to be perfect. I used some scrap plywood left over from baseboard construction and the front facing timbers were made from surplus paddle pop sticks with their previous contents licked off. They required cutting in half to represent a scale size. I had no shortage of paddle pop sticks. Although the back of the stage will be nearly against the backscene I thought I had better finish it off properly and do both sides. A bonus of doing both sides is that I could pick the better of the two to face the viewer. It will eventually have a dirt covering and the height matches the floor level of an NQR wagon.

Early stage of the stage

The old HO layout is now long gone and all effort is now into the track laying and all wiring up ready for operation. Then gradually the scenery will come. Recently I had the need to get a new phone. I reckon when they originally came up with the idea that they could now combine phones and camera into the one device people would have found it hard to believe. So not only can I take photos but I recently discovered that it took panorama style photos. So I took a sweeping view of the front half of the layout as it was back in December 2017. These style of photos end up somewhat distorted but the photo shows how the current baseboards are set out in relation to each other. Now that I know how to take this style of shot it will be interesting to compare with future shots when more is completed.

Panorama of layout as at December 2017