Also, SWMBO demanded that we have trains run on the birthday. Now, if you remember, a few months ago I took everything up to clean, inspect and check - in part because of the perils of buying second hand track and also because last year's running season was so poor that it just didn't happen.
So, we start off like this:
Not a single piece of track to be seen.
After about 2 hours we get to this...
This is the most difficult bit - given that it actually goes through the garden and has to cope with the bushes. Previously I'd put some bricks down and the track was on decking boards on top of those. There had been some weed barrier beneath but I'd not got around to putting stone chips or some other coverage on top. Now we have stones to keep barrier in place. The front piece is weed barrier with larger parts of the ex shed roof to keep in place. Laying this was much quicker than I thought because of the previous work.
A couple of hours saw me reach the far side of the garden and the "station". Given this is "Summer 2013 and possibly beyond" layout then it's all R1 points and nothing fancy like double slips, three way points, all of which are part of what I need to check work properly.
I found I could work in around 45 minutes stints and then have to go into the shade and drink fluids for 15 minutes. Coming round the right hand side and nearest edge of lawn then this time (compared with March) I had enough track to go on the concrete path rather than have to short cut across the lawn with all those attendant problems. In this respect I think t was the purchase of a second box (12) of 60 cm straights from ebay that speeded things up and helped. I find the 60 cm length to be good versatile size for what I have.
So, after 4 hours we are finished and have the first train of the day. Number 13 gets chosen yet again for all the dirty work in case it all goes up in a puff of blue smoke.... And it goes round first time without much in the way of complaints. There is a slight stutter on "murkey corner" - the first corner between the two bushes you see but a gentle prod and off she went again, and a slight upping of the power meant no more stops on later circuits. So, seems reasonably flat - I laid everything quickly by eye without the use of the spirit level - although that was used last year on putting some of the bricks down.
And here's me a the end of 4+ hours in the hot sun, running the first train of the day. Sharing it with a Belgian blonde (beer) that a work colleague bought me for my birthday. Loco went round with the (empty) beer bottle in the truck without it tipping over which is good.
Whilst I cleaned myself up ready for evening festivities, there were some unauthorised extensions laid...... ( I think for delivery of cups of tea or glasses of ginger beer....)
The evening festivities were supposed to be fireworks (well sparklers - and I discovered we had one left in the tube) and the light faded fast as I was trying to get organised. Earlier in the day I watched the you tube video of Mallard opening up the festivities at the York Railway museum, and anything they can do, we can do better..... A couple of years ago when we went to the Llanfair steam gala (and railway show) we discovered that there is a bit of "railfan photo shoot" in taking pictures of locos by night, steaming up just outside the engine sheds. I suspect the yard lights plus the steam and ambient warmth of the engines themselves make for reasonable photo shooting conditions.
All I therefore got of any quality was a couple of still photo (with no sparkler...)
In the following days I went back and got a photo of the "station" area. The arrow indicates where I'm around 25mm short of a join. I think its going to be a hacksaw job on a piece of track to make the join.
So, all in all a worthwhile exercise. I still need to spend some time finishing off the "station" area and dealing with the right hand and near edge of the line where it is all just single track and there is scope for some passing loops etc. The whole thing though is much neater and better proportioned than we had in March 2012.
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