Running Day
Everynow and then to break the monotony from scenery and layout building comes a time when friends come over for a run on the layout.
This usually involves a last minute scramble to remove all the work tools from their resting spot (see previous notes below) and packing them away in a spot that I can remember where I left them.
I must admit that these days are good to reassure one that the layout still operates. Before each session comes the 'Running of the Locos' (just like the bulls in Pamplona). This is to make sure the loco gets all the way around and hopefully all controllers are working fine.
One of the main crossovers was working fine yesterday, this morning one point motor decided not to work. Now for some reason a wire from the point motor had decided to come adrift, and a quick solder had it working again. These are the sort of things that usually stuff up on the day when visitors arrive.
Then the gremlins struck again. All three tracks through Narooma decided to take a rest. But believe it or not by opening the panel front a short in the wiring dissapeared and the train started running again. But if we closed up the panel gently then it seemed to work again.
These running days are also good when visiting locos get a run. Some that are out of my modelling era but no less fine models. At one stage there were about 4 32 class, 620 class, A class, B class, T class and a fine mix of interstate and a container train.
It surely is a great hobby when we can all get together and share our love of trains. Thanks Mike, Mat and Adam for coming, hope you enjoyed the day.
Here is a selection of the visiting trains that turned up for the day.

Ballasting at Bodalla
To do further ballasting at Bodalla I needed to build a level crossing there. This gave me a border in which to bring the ballast up to each side of it. I was constructed from a combination of sheet cork and matches to go in between the rails.
This level crossing gives access to the railway station, one solitary shop and also the goods yard. It goes against all design principles as it it placed right in the middle of the loop not to one end. Passenger trains will only obstruct the loop for a short while but when the freighters go in for a cross that is when there is going to be mucha horna honking from the cars held up at the level crossing to get it moving.
Bodalla although quite long is narrow and situated on some real estate just down in front of the branch line terminal of Candelo. It breaks the section between Batemans Bay and Narooma.
In the photo above a 49 class has been working a ballast train between the platform and the level crossing. The chicken wire unfortunately stretches for 2.4 metres along Bodalla's length and will take some serious time to get completely scenicked. In the background is the shops location which will be right up against the side of the hill. Well at least they will get plenty of shade from the afternoon sun. I think they were game setting up shop so early as the station is not open yet.
In the last shot one of those big yellow machines has come to tamp down the freshly laid ballast.
As the layout progresses, I am slowly encountering another problem. Where do I now put all my tools and junk the the baseboard has happily accomodated all this time. When you are laying track, you have drills, hammers, nails, files, pliers, heaps of etceteras and all other sundry pieces laying close to hand. So as each section gets completed, then I have less room to leave the junk. I am certainly not one of those persons who puts all their tools away each night on a shadow board. I guess when the layout is finished I might invest in a tea trolley. (Mum have you still got that one I made in woodworking class 40 years ago?)
On another issue on a slightly similar vein, I recently put a drop curtain along in front of Batemans Bay. Now while it looks rather nice, all it has done is hide all the "stuff" underneath and to find it again I have to keep lifting it up the curtains to find the item I'm looking for. So cure one problem and create another.

Bodalla
Well thats where all the action has been for the last couple of days. The old code 100 track has been lifted and the code 75 is now in place. Ballasting has been partially done in front of the platform.
The prescence of the track should now set at ease the two gentlemen from the previous post.


During the week I put together a PC3 station building from Casula Hobbies. Let me recommend this kit very highly, it went together perfectly, the file was never used once in anger. I still need to add the watertank and downpipes but as the station is not open yet for passengers (I refuse to use that latest term 'customers') there is no hurry. The roof and walls have been suitably weathered. (aren't we the complete opposite to model car collectors, they want their models to look shiny and new and we just go on and make everything dirty!)
I will return to work next Monday after two weeks off and only achieving a few of the things on the list. Never mind its only about ten weeks till another lot.
Thomas
I was watching on TV today a show called "Worlds greenest Homes" and in the introduction for the show when the family was met, one of the kids was playing with his Thomas the Tank engine push along train on the floor. Its probably been said before but can you relate to how many kids this has brought into the hobby?
Sure it has become a huge commercial venture, but who cares! The TV shows and all the products available in the Thomas range have been a driving force to bring kids into the railway family.
Having said that my daughters Percy engine doesn't see much action on the layout.
Forums
I suppose I am a sucker for the model rail forums and follow a few. I find them sometimes interesting and learn a few things along the way. It's all part of sucking in information from where ever you can get it.
One forum has a thread on the ins and out of the 38 class. It is about to crack the 100 pages of verbal diatribe about the good, bad and anything else you can think of or make up. It seems sometimes people just like a whinge about anything. Look how much we loved our Lima 38's and 44 class. We knew they were wrong but most people had at least one. Something better comes along and so then you can go and drop a brick on your Lima 44's.
What about some of the early sticky resin freight car kits we had and thought were great? I reckon you could you them as a lint remover.
Anyhow I'm over the 38 thread rantings and won't read that one again.

Just another parting shot of the garratt about to take water at Bodalla. The siding to the right will be the new stock siding.

Liverpool
Well like the majority, I made my way down to Liverpool on the Sunday of the Long weekend.
Arriving there around 9.15am, there were no queues out the front and it was relatively quite inside.
I had studied the layout guide on line before going and other than Wallerawang there did not seem to be many new layouts to be seen. This fact did not worry me as I don't missed any October exhibitions since it has been at the Sydney Town Hall.
The trade stands seemed to be located around the outer walls and then the layouts towards the middle.
Stringybark Creek the O scale layout was a standout to me. I have a friend who has gone to this scale from HO. The comparative higher costs for vehicles and locos is balanced by the fact you can only fit less in the same space. Put me down for this scale if the train shed burns down.
This also a good place to catch up with friends you haven't seen for a while and you should allow time for yackity yak when going.
I only had two major purchases for the day. One was the PC3 building from Casula Hobbies. (Good on you Joe) and the other was some scenic material from Orient Models who had come over from Adelaide. I hope I made their trip worth while as I purchased over $100 of their excellent scenic material. As soon as I got home one package of scenic grass tufts was put into place. At $38 a packet it doesn't go far but looks excellent. I ordered more from them on Tuesday and expect it here this week. You don't mind paying for a product when it is good.
The PC3 building is to go onto Bodalla platform.
I finished off Sunday afternoon a little sadder for Parramatta as they went down to the Melbourne Storm team.

Bodalla
This location is one of a few locations left on the layout that still has the original code 100 rail. One of the purchases from my friend the O gauger was his code 75 track. Narooma has been relaid and now I have lifted the track and started to relay.
Bodalla is not a major town. It has a crossing loop, a goods loop, a private siding and a new stockyard siding that was not there previously. With only room for one small shop this town sits along the edge of a cliff that runs the full length. This fact is not lost on rock climbers who can go from Bodalla to the upper town of Candelo in about ten minutes.As you can see Harry is a bit upset that the track is gone but I told him it is coming back soon.A 44 class tries out the new track. As soon as all the hammering, banging, gauging, wiring, soldering, checking, ballasting, photographing is done then it can run through.

Still Here

Its a Sunday night and I thought I had better do an update to let you know all's well.

The last blog was nearly four weeks ago and not a lot has happened layout wise in that time. I thought it best to at least put a few recent shots onto the blog maybe just to prove I am alive and kicking.

I follow quite a few Aussie blogs (and at least one American). Some post more often than others and I wonder if they have forgotten the blog sites. There are heaps of people out there hanging on a thread waiting to follow their layout progress. Maybe we should have phone numbers on the blogs and if you haven’t posted for six weeks we can give you a ring and see if all’s well.

My last blog was about the Broadmeadow exhibition and with one week to go, the highlight of the year, the Liverpool exhibition is fast approaching. I intend going on the Sunday mainly to miss the crowds that form a huge queue at the door on Saturday morning and crowd out the layouts for viewing. An if you go Monday some of the things I’m after may be gone.

So Sunday should be a good day, exhibition in the morning and back home for the footy grand final in the afternoon. My team – a -ly (fill in the missing spaces yourself – its the team they all hate) have already started their summer rest period. I have decided to go for my wifes' team Parramatta as the Melbourne team the Storm have knocked out my team already.

October starts a two week break and other than a pile of bedroom painting, landscaping etc I may get a bit of modelling done. I have told God I need to live to be 145 years old to get the layout finished so we will see what the future brings.

Below are three shots taken around Narooma this weekend.

Three private tankers are unloaded at the meat siding. The shop at the level crossing is still to receive windows and stock to sell inside. (Which may explain lack of customers)

44 class doing backstroke arrives at Narooma. The siding to the right will be the oil siding in the future.

44 class arriving Narooma passing the newly installed weed patch. The dairy in the background will be bulldozed one day for a more aussie looking building. As a matter of fact the trains arrive so fast near the dairy they are passed your eyes before you can see them!

Broadmeadow Exhibition
One of my great enjoyments of a Friday evening is to turn off the alarm ready for a Saturday morning sleep in.
This routine was abandoned Friday night as I had to be up early for the Saturday morning train.
So for the sixth time in a row the alarm went off and after a shower and breakfast my beloved drove me to Hornsby to await the interurban train to Broadmeadow.
The indicator had shown our train as the next on platform 5, but confusion reigned when the Casino XPT turned up instead. With due respect to pensioners a train is a train and as they were about to board the train the loudspeaker roared into action and then explained that this was the Casino XPT, booked seats only.
It looked like there were plenty of seats on board, so quick as a flash we showed out gold passes to the attendent, explained we only wanted to go to Broadmeadow and were summonsed aboard.
We eventually arrived at Broadmeadow and then began the 20 minute walk out to the racecourse.
The show at the Broadmeadow Racecourse is a hobby show i.e. not just model trains. Many moons ago it was purely a model train exhibition, but the wheel must of fallen off some where and now we get a smorgasbord of hobbies.
I intended my first circuit of the area was to check out the model railway items first, then if time permitted check out the rest. Just inside the door I saw a pile of Austrains ELX's. I was using the reverse logic of a Victorian modeller, where I thought a splash of VR red wouldn't go astray and brighten up the sombre blacks and greys of NSW. Maybe they think the same and buy a few black wagons to break up the red? With a pile of these VR wagons so high, that John Eassie was able to hide behind, I thought no rush and I would get a pack on the way out.
Dropped in at the Gwydir Hobbies stand and purchased a nice looking palm tree for Bega Loco. At $34 I'm glad I don't need more than one. It seemed a feature of NSW loco depots to have a palm tree growing.
The great thing about these exhibitions is also the social side where you bump into people you know and then spend then next twenty minutes catching up news. Most of these talkfests seem to take place a the aisles narrowest point. Also known as a choke point and thats what I feel like doing to some inconsiderate morons as well.
I came across one table set out like a village and after looking for the train tracks and finding none, then worked out it was supposed to be all about war gaming. Well I reckon either the war hadn't started or they had called a truce and decided to go home. Nothing was happening. So I moved on.
After working my way around the hall I had found out that only one layout I hadn't seen before. It was Rix's Creek. Had some nice trains running.
Got round to Mr Joe Casula intending to get a PC3 station for Bodalla and found out they had run out of the kits. But Joe said there would be more available at Liverpool. As a consolation prize I purchased two new buffer stop kits. As Joe said if these new items sell well the the money can be ploughed back into new items. Go support guys.
The lunch queue was about forty minutes long so I decided to wait till I got back to the station to replenish the gut.
So with half an hour to go for the train back home, I went over and got a pack of VR ELX's and headed off for the station. An eight car train turned up at 4.45pm and after an uneventfull journey arrived back at Hornsby.
Tonight the ELX"s have already been weathered with Tamiya Khaki drab diluted down with alcohol (not beer) and they now look more respectable.
I probably will not go next year to Broadmeadow as I look upon this exhibition as a good social day out more than seeking new layouts to view.
Roll on the Liverpool exhibition.

Wow check this out

I was cruising the model rail forums the other night, in particular the Model Railroader forums and I came across a thread that had a link to CG Textures.

So after finishing viewing all the forums I trundled over to the textures site and wow what a fantastic find for the modeller railroader.

The site has an incredible collection of images of 35 sub headings. Now some of the headings are completely obscure and useless to the model railroader. The last entry is ‘X rays"’ and this further cascades down another 10 sub headings dealing with all parts of the human body. Now other than maybe having a ghost haunt your layout, this one you can forget.

But get up amongst some of the juicier titles such as ‘Brick/Modern Small/Dirty and then you have over fifty images of various weathered brick just sitting there to be downloaded. Just by simply clicking on the image you want, it then opens a page ready for downloading.

Now when you have all these images, you will need to bring them into a program such as Photoshop or some other image processer. If you are wanting a larger coverage you will need to bring the images together and duplicate.

When you read what the site is all about it seems as if it was just set up for people to freely go in and use what ever’s there. A daily limit of 15MB daily download is also set. When you go into the users gallery you can see how some artistic people have used these images. I can’t imagine any model railroaders submitting much of their work to the gallery.

Now not only is this site set up as a freebie, the site owner has under the heading of ‘Tutorials’ set up heaps of ‘Photoshop’ workshops to help you get better results. I haven’t opened any of these as yet. (I’m not a Photoshop user yet)

One folder I particulary like is the one headed "’Concrete’ Is has 9 sub folders. I have found concrete as one of the hardest colours to replicate. But no need, just download the images and it is already, weathered waiting to be printed out and stuck to your model. Just think how easy it will be do model concrete bridge piers.

Some of the other folders that are useful for the model railroader are: Buildings, Doors, ground, Metal, Roads, Roofing, Rust, Water, Windows and Wood. Most of these have subfolders with some fantastic images.

There are images that while are no good for use being one dimensional such as pipes, they are great reference material for weathering, and knowing how it all fits together.

If you ever wanted to know how to weather timber go to the ‘Wood’ section and under ‘Planks Old’ they have 349 images of old wood. You can use these get an idea on how to weather your own timber or print some off and try gluing it down.

I will be trying some grungy downloaded brick wall to go in front of Bodalla platform when i get around to that area.

I suppose by now you’ve had enough of me raving on about this site so hop over there and spend a day looking and downloading some of the great images.

http://www.cgtextures.com/

So far down the shed today all I have achieved is to saw some timber for the new oil siding at Narooma. Never mind still have all of Sunday to go yet.

Sunny Sunday

It seems like we need a title for each post, so this one describes the perfect winters day we had here in Sydney. I spent a good part of it away from the shed ‘heavily pruning’ a tree (well it started off as a bush but got away on me). Another day at the end of a shovel getting rid of paving sand in preparation for some Italian grass (concrete). The pavers that once existed have been given away to a local family that seemed to appreciate the freebie. I had grown sick of weeding and repacking every second year where the filled in septic tank area decided to take another dive.

The removal of the paving sand was made a little easier by pretending I was shovelling coal into a steam loco. Worked for a while.

On Saturday I hosted a work collegue, his son and father in law for a visit to South Coast Rail. I hope they were impressed with the layout, I certainly was impressed with the cake they brought along. It was called a bee-sting and was a Bathurst cake shop speciality. The layout worked well and they were impressed with the sound garratt. (I just hope the Eureka sound 40 class gets here soon so I can share the sound running with the 60 class.)

With the garage roller door open I received another burst of that fabulous winters sun that lights up the corner bridge on the branch. It sits just above the town of Narooma and I’ll get into improving the scenery in this corner when Narooma gets finished. You get a burst of natural light from the sun that doesn’t seem to be able to be replicated by artificial light. Any how here is the result:

Another slow weekend

Well another weekend has come and gone with hardly anything achieved down the shed. If only we had 56 hours in a weekend to achieve it all.

It wasn’t a complete waste. Saturday saw me and two mates head over to the Castle Hill Exhibition arriving there at kickoff time to see if any bargains could be had at the second hand stall. If only I was an American or British modeller I could have done well. There were many magazines to be had for a reasonable price but then you have to find the time to read them.

Time and Patience part 2 was there shrouded in a perspex case to keep the flies off. Just like paintings that you recognise a style, when I first saw the layout there, it was easily recognisable as coming from the T & P stable. The houses and buildings are truly magnificent. Lets hope it is designed to fit into T & P No 1 and make a longer layout.

Only one purchase was made from the Model Craftsman stand. On the back of the stand I spotted a packet of that stretchy elastic stuff that makes power wires and fence wiring. The real bargain side of this product is that you get 100 feet on the roll and they reckon it stretches 700%. So I am getting heaps more for my money. You don’t get that when you buy a yard of Peco track. Stretch it as much as you can and you will still only have one yard. I must get this onto the fences as soon as possible to stop the cows getting onto the line. Imagine then when they charge the fence they will get flung back to the centre of the paddock.

I returned home for lunch and after that settled in to move a ton or so of paving sand. Managed to get to the shed after tea, but when I get inside I see the 729 projects I have to do to get finished and end up doing none of them. I should think of a project for next weekend ahead during the week and just go down there and do it.

So this weekend I shall post another clip of the garratt. I know you will get sick of seeing this loco but it is my one and only sound loco. I await No 2 sound loco which will be a 40 class. As an aside I must thank Mr Eureka for offering sound options with all of his locos. I don’t know why it is so hard for the other manufacturers to do so. Just like buying a car with the steering wheel optional.

Movie clip below (not just a badly taken photo)

The High's and Low's of the weekend.
Not much was achieved railway wise this weekend. My No. 1 priority was to move the TV aerial higher to finally re-receive channel 7 once again. I did all the preliminary work outside by taking down the aerial from its existing place and trying to balance it 10' up a ladder and then inserting a dynabolt to secure it. After finally getting the first one in and then drilling another hole the second dynabolt was easy to put in. The third dynabolt is for another time as they only came in a two pack.
Then before I squeezed into the manhole entrance I made a final check that I had everything to do the job. Pliers - check, cutting knife - check, torch - check, last will - check. It was such a squeeze getting to the point where I needed to get the new wires joined up that I didn't want to have to come out again. Finally arriving at the worksite when I checked the plug from the aerial it was a boy plug that was supposed to go into a female plug. But no, I had a boy meets boy plug which doesn't go. It was supposed to go into a splitter then one wire to a TV in the family room and the other into the lounge room. I fixed it temporarily by using the front plug holes of the splitter but now I have to get a plug with a girl hole in each end to meet up with the boy plugs. So another trip into the roof in the future. But the good news is all channels are now working and suck eggs to the guy that quoted me $440 to fix it. (thats another loco or so)
I did go into the shed this afternoon for a while and came up for dinner, and forgot to shut the door.
And when I went back down after tea, I heard a noise in the shed. For a fleeting moment I thought the rats were back but when I got inside it was a bandicoot having a stickbeak. I then ducked under the layout and came around from the other side and luckily he shot through out the door. All I need now is the trifecta with a snake turning up in summer time. Don't worry I have already crossed possums off the list as well.
With 700 jobs to do on the list I thought I might as well have a go at making another tree. It took two Moody Blues CD's and when they had finished it was time to pack up for another week.

A hole lot better
Sorry to say but for the moment it is all about the hole in the roof. So until I get the hole patched up modelling on the layout is a a standstill.
The hole had been cleared of muck and rubbish ready to take the new insulation and gyprock. To get the insulation meant another trip up into the roof of the house. I discovered a leftover pack of batts from yesterday where I had spent an hour or two trying to fix an TV aerial reception problem. (Which I haven't fixed yet).
The batts were poked into place and then the gyprock sheet was cut to my understanding of the measurements required to fill the hole. It was a sizeable piece to get up into position and my helpers? were either glued to the telly or the computer.
Anyhow I had watched plenty of shows from Asia and Africa where huge loads were chucked onto the head and off they would go. It didn't seem hard to do and they always seemed to smile for the camera when photographed.
I had no choice, so I headed for the ladder with this big gyprock hat on my head. Pausing at the foot of the ladder to remember if I had taken my blood pressure tablet that morning, I then proceeded up the ladder. Luckily a piece of quad was still in place to receive one end of the gyprock and another small but critical piece allowed me to rest it up there so I could go down and get the drill.
So after whacking in around 30 odd screws I could then get to work with some gap filler and move a step closer to finishing off the roof. Hopefully soon this blog will have some more interesting things other than roof blogs.
So here the last shot of the roof I will share with you (yeah you say) of the nearly completed roof fix. A bit of paint and back into the layout.

Slow Progress
Saturday afternoon I decided I had better tackle the mess my pre-resident rat had left me. What I needed to do was to cut away the gyprock and dispose of the rat poop. A stratgically placed plastic xmas table top cover was spread out over the layout to hopefully capture all that would fall from above.
I began slowly breaking bits off hoping not to cause an avalanche of crap raining down on the layout. Try as hard as I could it was inevitable that some rat poo would go not where I wanted it to go. I think some went down the back of my shirt but I went on underturd.
I was feeling guilty about doing this work today as it was an spur of the moment descision and as I hadn't got changed, I wondered as I made my way back inside if the wife would notice odd stains or an unusual smell about me. Fortunately all was well. I finally got to see Slum Dog Millionaire that night as a better choice that removing more poop.

Sunday afternoon and after having lunch, I returned to the shed for more work. (I knew I had till 4.opm to get back to watch Sunday afternoon footy). When I got to the worksite, there it was more bloody water on the ground. This time I could see where it was getting in from and armed with my tin of trusty bitumen sticky stuff I returned to the roof. I reckon you will be able to see the black stuff on my roof from space soon.
The last of the old gyprock was removed and one final avalanche of poop came down. I collected all this crap and took it outside and spread it amongst the garden. I reckon I should get something good out of all this bad. Going up the ladder with my tin of black sticky goo I then commenced to spread it into the interior joins of the roofing. This was all OK until I noticed that the black gooey was then dripping down onto the floor and some on the layout. I'll get back to you on whether this stuff makes good track weathering or not soon. Rubbing it with turps got most of it off the track but the bit on the floor can wait till next weekend.
A few extra bits of timber were nailed up ready to receive the gyprock next weekend. And guess what? I have just heard it will be raining again next weekend...........

You dirty rat………

Well what started off with a war on the rat in the ceiling some time ago (I eventually won that war with Ratsak) was lost this week when I also had Mother Nature plotting against me.

The rats had decided that between the gyprock and the corrugated iron roof it would be a good place to set up home. Who could blame them, plenty of fiberglass insulation (3.5R at that) and they had a dream home. If they hadn’t been so stupid and scratched around up there when I was down below, I may never known they were there. Thats how dumb they were.

After many packets of Ratsak, I eventually found the dried out remains of a rat some distance from the shed. I suspected it was the ‘railway rat’. Good all gone.

So after many more trains had circled the layout without that annoying scratching sound above I thought “ beauty I’ve beaten you buggers”. But I think they had the last laugh.

After a while slowly at first an amazing fungal growth had appeared on the ceiling where the rats abode was. What the heck I said, stuff it I’ll paint over it and that will be that. But no, the fungal growth grew back and started growing.

It was something David Attenborough could have done a documentary on. It had many colours and different shapes, quite pretty some of it.

Shite, there must be more to this, the rats gone so where was this coming from. And as we all know the east coast has had its good share of rain recently. I alluded to this problem in the last post about the water and after closing the door last Sunday night a small crack had appeared.

Well I opened the door today and was greeted with this:

The water which had found its way in yet again had combined with the previous residents bowel wastes and had come crashing down on the floor and layout. I was most disgusted to find out that rats are too lazy to go and do their toiletries outside. Its not as if they had far to go. No more than a metre and what a nice smelling house they could of had instead of one that smelt like a dunny.

As can be seen from the shot below my favourite seat had copped some of the fallout and thankfully the controller (more importantly the controller knob) was missed completely. I’ll never be the same again on that seat.

Now the real scary bit when I opened the door was when I saw a bit of gyprock dangling down just like a guilloutine blade ready to cut my son’s only loco NR23 in half or worse. It was Murphys law, it just happened to be down at Batemans Bay when it nearly become history.

Well most of the floor mess has been cleaned up and tomorrow I am going to try and clean the rest of the roof up. It will mean cutting it out and replacing with more gyprock, painting and generally wasting more modelling time.

I went up onto the roof also today armed with a tin of black gooey stuff and yet again have gone over all the possible places I can think of that the water is getting in. I’ll need reinforcing up there to carry the weight of it all.

Anyhow thats the bad news for today, the good news is that Manly finally won another football match tonight and Monday I’ll go down to the Epping Model railway exhibition.

I’ll leave the final word for the boys from Bega loco who came across the rubble before I had had a chance to clean it up.

Rainy day, Sunday afternoon

To quote some of the words from a Moody Blues song an inspection of the shed this afternoon revealed yet again more water getting in.
That was the bad news, the good news is that it chose to fall over the aisle way and no major damage was done.
The water seems to be getting in where the rear shed extension is butted up against the original shed, and seeing as I built it I can only blame myself. Normal rain is not a problem but when there is wind as well, the rain is blown uphill into the join. So it looks like a trip up onto the roof next weekend armed with a tin of sticky stuff and try and seal it up.
Just one photo today of 3229 waiting for the road as double 44 class arrive at Batemans Bay with the Mail.

Garratt Sunday

A few shots of 6039 working the only Sunday freight on South Coast Rail

Leftovers

One more shot taken last weekend of 3229 approaching Batemans Bay. I have also added another 7 photos to the fotopic site. There is a link on this Blog.

A moving moment

A shot of double 49's going past what looks like Bega Junction Signal Box. It is really the location of Bemboka Junction with the box borrowed for the photo. Bemboka Junction Box is still on the gunna do list and will be there one day.

Behind is the Candelo coal branch with the coal loader waiting for another train load of empties,

My Philosophy for SCR

Today I decided to take some shots of the layout. Many were taken but few were chosen.

My philosophy has been to go around the layout with what I call the first sweep and get most of the scenery in place but not necessarly highly detailed. This will come when I go around the second time. Before this happens I will start on some of the structures that need to be built such as a coal stage (based on Armidale), a turntable, roundhouse, barracks and a station building probably based on Queanbeyan.

If I had worked in one area and fully detailed that section before around the layout, then there would still be many bare areas left to do.

From the US to see us.

Last Easter Saturday I had the pleasure to meet Blair and Lance from Texas who came out to Australia to get a first hand look at the territory they were modelling which is on the main north of NSW between Muswellbrook and Narrabri.

Thanks to Ray Pilgrim (Mr BYLONG) they had a great introduction for a meet and greet night.

The next day they commenced a crammed week of railroading.

After showing them around a few places at Central on Wednesday they came for a brief visit to South Coast Rail.

.

Lance Lassen is on the left and Blair Kooistra on the right

They should be well on their way over the Pacific by now. I am sure the guys will let us know how they enjoyed their visit on their blog sites.

It was a pleasure to meet you, come again soon.

Bankers: Where interest rates high.

Just a shot of a 44 class waiting at Batemans Bay to assist the next freight train to Bega.

I am off to Maitland tomorrow on the triple headed steam train. Should be a good day.