January Progress

Between getting called into work over the holidays and being conscripted for minor renovations in parts of the house unrelated to the model railway, I'm not quite at a stage where I can run trains yet, but damn we're close!

Here's a quick run-through of where things are up to. I've laid the track in the fiddle yard and have started to store a few of the test trains there. The U Set fits on the traverser table with about 1.5cm at either end, which is pretty good considering I first built the traverser about five years ago, well before any thought of running interurbans occurred! The U set itself is away being converted to DCC sound, but should be back by late March or so.

With the help of my brother over the long weekend, some significant progress was made on construction. I've now added the backboard for the as-yet unnamed halt immediately after the fiddle yard. I'm going to lay the track here and leave scenery until after the Mt Wilson yard scenery is completed. Only the roof and ends to go before I can install the lighting and finish painting on this module.

I had to build this module offset from Mount Wilson due to a large pipe protruding from the ceiling above, immediately between this one and the Mount Wilson module. Construction-wise it's complete, I'm glad to say. I've left the left-hand side open for now to allow for another scenic module to join it in future.

The expanded Mount Wilson yard is also nearly complete. This gives me another 600mm of yard space, which allows for arriving coal trains to run straight under the loading bin, and for the loco to run-around. I will be able to re-locate one of the Rapido uncouplers as a result of this expanded design.

I did make a minor error cutting the mouse-hole though. While not ideal, enlargening the size of the hole will be an easy fix.

And here's the overall progress shot. I've also built most of the two return loops at either end in the last month. The big jobs coming up will be connecting it all up and getting all of the legs level. Still, I'm confident of being able to have the major construction complete and all track laid by the end of February.

I'm keenly aware of the paralysis-by-analysis trap I fell into with the layout that kicked this blog off, and that is giving me a bit of a kick to keep pushing on. 

I look forward to posting the next update towards the end of next month. I'll try to get some scale modelling into those updates too - I'm looking forward to the end of the construction phase as much as you are I'm sure.

Cheerio for now,

Ben