Painting things.

The sun was shining and time was on my side, so what better to do than paint some of the structures I had previously built.

This is a 10ft stock underpass? I saw this structure on the Tenterfield to Wallangarra line the other week when we went for a drive. I took a lot of pictures and some measurements to knock this one up from styrene, it's not too hard if you take lots of photos and have some timber measurements for reference.

The view of the other wing wall. You will notice that the one on the left has rail where the one on the right has timber poles. It seems that the bridge I saw may have had the timber poles fail and the rail was a repair job. The other difference on the real structure was that the timber was full lengths on the side with the poles, the side with the rail was reconstructured from used sleepers. I was a bit too lazy to copy this.

Opposite side of the bridge.

The stock ramp now with a coat of paint. You may remember the post I did on this one earlier in the year.

I think it may need a bit more of a grayish dry brush, it still looks a bit dark.

The First Bridge is in.

I might appear to be rushing ahead on the layout but, there has been a real need to get this part of the scenery complete. The trains have been unable to cross this section of the layout, without the bridge in place the rails split and the Locos drop through. I thought I may as well get it close to complete and also give myself some idea of how successful the scenery methods I will use turn out.

The gap prior to installation.

The bridge is in. Slight problem, the legs aren't long enough. When I built this bridge I was hoping to create a shallow creek crossing......guess I got carried away when creating this creek?

There is more than one way to skin a cat, I concreted in the piers!

The view from the other end. I never did a post on this bridge, it was made from styrene off a Greg Edwards plan of a 14ft opening. The airbrushed and dry brused in spots for timber weathering and grain.

A close up of the concrete footings.

Another angle. These were made by cutting moulds from plastic and pouring the plaster in while in situ. Whilst still wet i scratched it with a tooth pick for some effect. It was then that I washed it with a diluted grey to give the appearance of concrete.

Gettin' Plastered!

Any spare time available at the moment has been spent on the layout. I have been doing the scenery with shaped poly styrene, then coated with plaster cloth. Below is the current progress.

The view from the terminus. I have put in the completed structures to give an idea of the overall layout of the station and yard.

Looking up towards the station. Looks like Boggabilla station as it stands today, no roof!

The legs of the station need to be buried into the platform.

Looking back towards the coal road and turntable.

A creek crossing, approaching Milguy.

Milguy is in the distance. The scenery for this area has not yet been completed. I am still deciding on putting a hidden stage behind this area, at this stage it is looking very likely.

My big mountain. I always wanted to have a big mountain on my layout so here it is! You can make out the timber overpass in the background. This is still under construction.

A rail motor to give you some idea of the scale of the mountain.

Pitty the holidays are over?

Another productive morning produced a cattle ramp.

The model was constructed with styrene, balsa and the black components are code 70 rail.

The loading ramp will be placed in the grain loop between Boggabillan and Milguy, it will only be for very small loadings. The only problem is that I need to get some BCW's, perhaps a order to Ron might be on the cards?

The pieces on the top of the gates are my addition. I thought it might be cool to have operating gates. Gates open.....

......gates closed.

The only cattle wagons I have, at this stage......

Again, time for paint but unfortunately back to work tomorrow, so this may be on the back burner for some time?

Paint 'n' stuff.

I got around to putting paint on the projects from the last post.

The crane, shed and one of the six buffer stops.

View from another angle.

The crane was only painted 3/4 of the way on the base as it will be buried half way on the layout. The photos don't do it any justice.

View from the rear. A little disappointed with the weathering on the shed, I think it is a little heavier than I was hoping.

Final shot, enjoy.

Scratchin' up a few things!

Here are a few bits and pieces I have been putting together for the "Boggabilla" end of the layout. Now I am not trying to recreate Boggabilla, so before someone pulls me up for inaccuracy, I am only modelling the aspects of the NSW railways that I like and scaling them to suit my available space.

The goods shed that will go in place on the Bogga goods siding. The idea behind the different length legs is to bury the long legs in for stability and the shorts will be at ground level.

A little scene showing the buffers goods shed and yard crane. The crane is a Uneek kit.

Same scene from a different angle.

A closer view of the crane. I cheated and super glued this one together as I couldn't find my low melt solder.

The coal stage I made over the wet weekend. Again not to scale length as I don't have the room or think that Bogga has the need for a 100 foot coal stage!

The hole in the end is due to running out of styrene, so I used the scraps. I will make this look as though something has fallen into the stage and broken the timber.

View from underneath the stage.
All they need is a little paint and they will do the trick.

Got the track!

The post man arrived after lunch today containing my order of track from Tom's. Thankfully I was having a day off work so I was able to get straight into laying it. The 2 pictures below are the afternoons progress. Plus I have added how to make points Dcc friendly.

The view from the terminus.

The opposite end.

Now I am not sure how many of you are aware how to make a point DCC friendly so I thought I would show you the process I am using. It is not my creation but something I found on the Internet and I thought I would pass it on. This is only relevant if you are using electro frog points. The points I am using are Peco.

Firstly you need to remove these jumper wires, indicated by the arrows. This isolates the frog area from the rest of the rails.

This can be done with a screw driver inserted into the gap, then twisted. The little jumpers just crack off.

One jumper has been removed. Remember to do both before installing your point.

Peco have kindly cut and insulated the rails for you. (The jumpers connected these two rails underneath)

They have also been kind enough to provide a small wire which joins all the rails in the frog area. You just need to extend this wire and install it into a single throw switch. It will need to be connected as to provide the correct polarity to the frog area depending on the position of the point.

The above schematic shows the wiring diagram to the frogs when the point is thrown. (click on the picture to read the text) I realise that I have coloured the bottom throw rail black when it should be red, only the frog changes colour/polarity, see next diagram.

The point thrown in the opposite direction. Note the polarity change on the frog.

You also need to connect the two rails on the either side of the point to give the throw rails the same polarity as the rails they are thrown against.

Hope this is of help.