On Track

Work on the tracks continued this weekend with all the track, except the points, gapped, fishplated and painted. I also soldered all of the electrical feeds to each individual track section / panel with dual feeds on the longer sections. I also made small razor saw cuts on the rail heads to represent the gaps between individual rails and then glued fish plates to the sides of the rails. I then painted the track with Floquil Rail Brown but will follow up with some highlights of rust etc here and there to give some contrast. I've only detailed and painted the viewable side of the rail as there's not point wasting any more time on track that will never be seen. Any way here's how its turned out so far,

The rail brown looks a different shade in real life

More contrasts will make it look better I think

I picked up some Extruded Polystyrene Board from Foamex in Revesby so I can build up the height of Hill Top so I can have the mainline ascend up to the level of the down refuge.

And a big thanks to Linton for sending me a whole bunch of plans for Picton Station, Stonequarry Creek Viaduct, the Engine Shed and Goods Shed. This should spur me on to get the top deck up and running as I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into something aside from track. I probably should take a break from the track but I just want to get it done so hopefully, it won't take too much longer.

Time is Not on my Side

I don't know about everyone else, but I just can't seem to get enough time to spend on my modelling. And it doesn't help that some of the tasks are very time consuming...like spiking rail to sleepers. I try to spend an hour and a half each weekday night with the occasional day on the weekend in the garage so I'd be interested to see what everyone else does.
I've finished spiking the rail on the approaches to Hilltop plus all of the sidings and built myself a catch point for the refuge on the down side of the mainline. I've run out of sleepers at the moment so I'll have to wait for Mr Postman to deliver my order from Model Railroad Craftsman 
Elscotto came round during the weekend and dropped off a 60ft Sellers turntable he'd put together for Picton, thanks mate. Elscotto also pointed out that the down refuge I mentioned before, was actually level, while the mainline dropped down the hill beside it so it's actually on the top of the cutting. Luckily Elscotto spotted it otherwise stupid me would have built it all on the level. So, I'll now have to raise the level of Hill Top to give me the ability to drop the mainline alongside the refuge rather than dropping the grade at the end of the refuge as I'd originally planned.
That's it for this week so I'm not going to speculate on what I think I'll be doing as I've noticed that every time I say I'm going to do something, I never get around to doing it.
If I make some progress this week, I'll put some photo's up otherwise I'll wait until I've got something to show.

The Sun Never Sets on Hill Top

Looks like I haven't posted anything for a while so I better make amends and give an update on what's been happening.
It's been slow going with the track work as I haven't had as much time available to me as I normally do due to school holidays, jobs around the house, Liverpool exhibition and fixing my brother's computer. Oh, and a NRL Grand Final.....Go you Dragons!!!!!
Aaah, that's better.
Anyway, I've soldered up all the frogs and bolt details for the points and have spiked most of the track for Hill Top so this week I should start painting the rail after I solder the electrical feeds. The Kadee #309 magnetic uncouplers I ordered sometime ago for Hill Top arrived which I have to install and I've also ordered some Cobalt point motors from DCC Concepts which I'll need before mounting the points on the baseboard. I've also been trying to work out the dimensions and interior layout of the Hill Top station buildings so I posted some questions in the usual forums. The responses to these questions and others I've had have been fantastic (Thanks Pete, John and Evan amongst others) and the information I'm receiving is helping immensely.
So, here's how Hill Top is looking at the moment

The Track is not fixed yet

I also filled all the gaps and painted the backdrop for the so far completed layout. I took the easy way out and painted it sky blue but I did consider painting it grey. Picton will be set in winter hence the thought about painting it grey. Anyway, it's blue now and I'll probably add some clouds after seeing Geoff's efforts on his blog . It will always be sunny in Hill Top!
Here's a view of most of the layout so far.

The exercise bike must go

Just a little bit of a ramble on Liverpool. For me, each year just keeps getting better and better and not because of the layout quality but because of the people you talk to. Elscotto and I ventured out on the Saturday and I met some of his friends plus caught up with Ian at the Coff's Harbour Railway Modeller's Layout. I had the pleasure of seeing some of Ian's models, highlighted on his blog, trundling along behind a D55. Let me tell you they look better in real life....fantastic work. Also caught up with James from AMRM and thanked him for his photographic efforts of my models in the latest AMRM. The models look better in the photo's than they do in real life so thanks James.

That's it for now

The Tracks of my Tears

Well, the track laying is going sloooowly as I'm now spiking the rails down after gluing with Pliobond. It's driving me crayzee I must admit so it better be worth the effort. The bullhead rail and chairs arrived so I've put all the chairs on the rails ready for gluing. The rail is code 75 and the chairs are 4mm but the ballast will come up to about half way up the rail so the scale and rail size shouldn't be noticeable. This will be installed as Hill Top's loop. I also purchased some Uneek point rodding, adjusters and balancers which unfortunately, were not what I expected. The rodding and rodding chairs are OK but the adjusters and balancers are cast in relief so they won't be making it onto the layout. Instead, I ordered some etched 4mm parts from the guys at Wizard so we'll see how they look. Hopefully, the scale won't be too noticeable. There's a lesson here.....never, ever procrastinate when buying stuff. I was about to buy the rodding and ancillaries from IR Models when Ian shut down the business. Damn!! Hence the search now for suitable replacements. With a bit of luck, Ian will find a new owner for his etches and I'll be able to get what I need. God knows what I'm going to do for signals if this doesn't happen.
In the meantime, to keep myself from going mental, I built some backdrops for the layout out of 3mm ply. Here's how it looks

Near the roller Doors

The Other end

I've also ordered some Kadee uncoupler magnets for when I finally get to install the track and points. That is if I don't lose my mind in the meantime.

Rob The Builder

It's been a busy week this week with quite few things started and finished in the train room. I mentioned in the last post about making a module for the upper and lower decks near the roller doors. It's mostly completed with just the top deck to go and the backdrops to be added. I also built 3 book cases to store my kits, tools and magazines. Here's a photo of the module

And here's one of the bookcases

I've still got to sand them and then they can be painted and then all of my stuff can be brought in. I'll probably have to build some more to hold everything but at approximately $25 each, it's not going to break the bank
The track work continues and I've started on the points needed for Hill Top and Thirlmere. I had started by gluing the sleepers to templates but the glue didn't hold the sleepers so I had to do it again.  Modelling is sooo much fun when you do everything twice. I've done 8 points and have glued down all the track plates and have glued the straight rail down with the rest to follow this week with luck. Here's 2 of the points.

Still a fair bit to go but I've set myself a target to have trains running by the end of the year.....we'll see how that goes.

Jetstar = Craptacular

Got back from Darwin on Friday after a 4 and a half hour flight with Jetstar. What a mistake that was. Now, I don't care about in-flight entertainment or crap airline food but I do want to have my seat recline!!!
No-one told me that Jetstar are so goddamned cheap that they've installed seats that don't recline. I'm 6'4" so economy class seating is not the most comfortable at the best of times let alone not having a reclining seat. Caveat Emptor I suppose.
I could bore you all about all the other things that got up my nose but that would just show you what a whining old sook I am, so we won't go there. The salt is the same in Darwin but it was still good to get out of the office and catch up on some reading....trains of course with a touch of Second World War carnage.
I was given time off on Sunday to do train stuff so it was into the garage to lay the cork underlay for the track. I've done Hilltop's cork underlay and some of the mainline but still have a fair bit to go. Also, I glued sleepers to the #6 point templates from Greg Edwards ready for soldering / gluing the rail next week.
And lastly, I built a module for the bottom and top deck that will sit where the garage roller doors are. So far all of the previous bench work had been attached to the garage wall and was self supporting. I couldn't do that on the roller doors so I had to build more conventional bench work to support the bottom and lower deck.
So that's it for this week.

Release the Navvies

Mr Postman brought me Greg Edwards NSWGR Track book during the week and how good is it?!?! Everything you would want to know about NSWGR track standards but were too afraid to ask. And it has cleared up all my questions about track sleeper spacing so the Navvies were released from their shackles and were told to get cracking.
I made up a jig equal to 4 x 24ft rail lengths and then spaced the sleepers at 2'9' centres except where the fish plates will be. The sleepers here are spaced at 1'10" with these standards adhering to the 1890 measurements. I then cut some PCB sleepers to the correct length of 8' and laid them together with the stained wooden sleepers into the jig. I then applied Scotch blue masking tape to the sleepers which removed them from the jig and kept them in place while the soldering iron was applied to the PCB sleepers to keep everything in alignment. Now, all I have to do is glue the wooden sleepers to the Code 55 rail, add the fishplates, spike the rail, paint it and then fix it to the cork roadbed....simple hey?

Comparison between track from Robbyco Enterprises and Micro Engineering

There's quite a difference in the sleeper spacing

I also managed to solder up a frog for the #6 points from Proto87 that the Navvies will be constructing soon. Well, not this week as the Evil Overlords at the Salt mine have said I must try the salt in Darwin. And before anyone says, "Oh but it's warm up there" I'll draw your attention to the fact that I hate weather over 25 degrees. I may have to taunt the locals to relieve the heat stress. Anyway, here's the frog

Reebit, Reebit

I also ordered some bullhead rail and chairs from Wizard Models in the UK for Hill Top's loop which has arrived ready for installation. These guys are excellent with really quick delivery times so I can thoroughly recommend them. I've also bought all of my sprung buffers from them and may have to end up getting some screw couplings from them as well depending how the ARkits couplings turn out.
During the week Elscotto and I went round to Ian T's house to check out some magnetic uncoupler action on his Darling Harbour Layout. Needless to say, we now know the pitfalls of operation using these couplers including unprompted DCC commands. Thanks Bob G, Ian T and Es D for an entertaining evening talking Elscotto's and my favourite subject, Ferro Equinology.