Hooray for Holidays

It's almost holiday time again with only a half day to go before the Salt Mine sends the minions away for a well earned rest. I'll be taking the public holidays and returning for 3 days next week before taking off for 3 whole weeks. And, importantly, I've been guaranteed some train time....how good is that? Nothing like a long break from the Salt Mine and some train time to erase any memories of salt extraction. Hopefully, I'll have forgotten everything by the time I get back and they'll need to retrain / reprogramme me.

Since the last update, I've been a bit slack but I've still been able to do a little bit in between parties, lunches and family. I've finished the five points necessary for Hill Top including the power feeds so all the track is ready to lay for the top deck that's been built so far. I've also cut all the extruded polystyrene for the parts that need it but still have to glue it down. All the cork underlay is also ready for gluing so the plans for the holidays is to get everything glued down and build the embankments and grades for the leads into Hill Top. Then, it'll be lay the track and complete the power feeds under the deck and install the point motors and magnetic uncouplers. With a bit of luck, hopefully it will all go together and won't need much trouble shooting....I'm an optimist you know.

Also, I received a stack of information on Hill Top and Thirlmere from ARHS Resource Centre which included a plan and colour chart for the weatherboard Station Officers residence at Hill Top. Pure Gold and will be enough to build a reasonable model of the residence barring any incompetencies from you know who. Unfortunately, nothing turned up regarding the platform structures but the researchers did indicate that they felt the main waiting room was a single roomed structure scaled down from Thirlmere. Looks like some guestimation will be required to get something built....at least no-one will be able to say "It's too long" or "It's too short".

That's it for me for 2010 and so far, I think it's been a fairly productive year. Things haven't moved as fast as I would have liked but reality has to be squeezed in between train time. Them's the breaks as they say.

So all you Ferro Equinoligists out there, have a splendid Christmas and I hope you've all been very good boys and girls and Santa brings you lots of goodies.
For everyone else who doesn't like trains......too bad.
Only joking, hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

See you all in 2011 for more adventures in the wacky world of Early 20th Century NSW Railway Modelling.