Shunting on a Bank Holiday!

 It was a day of shunting for me at the Rocks By Rail Museum on Bank Holiday Monday.

Whilst many of our guest were enjoying brake van rides....

...the 'action' was taking place in the quarry!

...

That is the coupling between the locomotive and the first wagon of the rake to be shunted.

Mr D was the shunting loco ably driven by John.

This is the face shovel ably operated by Martyn.

Every hour or so we swop the rake of wagons. So this set of tipplers is replaced by these four hoppers.

The hoppers do make an impressive sight.

For those doing the shunting swapping the two rakes over, getting the brake van on the right end of the outgoing rake and the loco at the other can be a hectic time but having done this for many times we can generally swap the two in about ten minutes!

Then the outgoing train sets off back down the line with everyone happy that it has gone well!

My fellow shunter, Gary, took the opportunity whilst being in the quarry of looking over his new purchase...

.. one of only two LIMA cranes in the UK. It needs a lot of work but hopefully Gary will be able to get it into some form of working order in the next few years when it may be able to be on show to visitors!

They look fairly effective especially from a distance which is a point from which most of my modelling should be viewed from!

You may be wondering what these are?

And these.

Well the next picture should explain!

They are of course the coping stones that adorn the top of the wall and pillars. Simply cut from card - the old backing board to a pad of paper, and with pencil lines to denote the joints they look fairly effective especially from a distance which is a point from which most of my modelling should be viewed from!

The airbrush has also been out weathering the walls with browns and greys to take away that pristine look of the brick papers and again I think from a distance it looks OK!

Hopefully I can start to get things back in place on the layout and maybe actually run some trains!

It is a sizable piece of infrastructure!

With the wall section off the layout for cables to be attached and weathering plus finishing off a few other parts to it you can see it is a sizable piece of infrastructure!

It is 6 foot in length and any work on it takes time dealing with that size of modelling.

However, the two cables are in place and weathering is now to commence which should be fun with something this big!

Now what do we have here?

 Now what do we have here?

A number of bits of plastic strip cut to 1cm lengths but why?

Well once painted grey....

..and with the wall section behind the station removed to the convenience of the floor...

...they were glued to the wall. OK! Nut why?

Well, they form the brackets to which the cables will be attached giving a representation of the real life situation where cables along railway lines are attached to nearby walls! More to do but it is getting there!

I do like a nice bit of cake!

 Its a wet and rainy day at the Rocks By Rail Museum!

So what happens on such a day?

Well, it seems as though everyone gathers round something in the Restoration Shed! But what?

It is actually Richard who is the centre of attention using Oxyacetylene to try to separate the mounting flange from the broken chimney of steam loco Uppingham! 

Not sure what is going on here but yet more volunteers sheltering in the Shed!

And yet more!

Even I kept in the dry sorting out some more banners!

However, not put off by the rain, Rob continued work on the Eucild dump truck. However, even he had to admit welding as not a safe option but he could grind and paint in the shelter of the tipper body!

It is birthday on Sunday, Happy Birthday Rob, so he brought in cake!

I do like a nice bit of cake!

Not sure what they contain but it could be some mysterious matter!

 Having had a calming time stacking the pallets with the sacks all included in the Ratio pack it was time to paint.

A coat of light grey was applied as a unifying undercoat.

Then the colour was added. Using a similar technique to that I used on the planks on the Hornby flat wagon wheel carrying wagons, the pallets look worn and used. The barrels probably want another coat of yellow but look a bit brighter than they did and the sacks are in a blue with a yellow dot. Not sure what they contain but it could be some mysterious matter! However, they do add a bit of colour. I just need to add a bit of weathering to them.

Stacking pallets!

 I have enjoyed stacking the pallets with the sacks included in the Ratio pack - most therapeutic!

I just need to paint all the items up ready to find a place on the layout.

Also therapeutic was a bike ride taking in the local canal where the rain of the last week has made an impact! 

The water now touches both sides! I didn't think that we had that much rain but there is the proof!

A bit of wire in the foot!

Those concrete slabs at the base of the 4mm scale figures I have been painting have been removed!

Painful as that must have been for the plastic figures the next indignity that they suffered was having a hole drilled through their feet and a piece of brass wire mounted in it! That wire should enable the figures to be mounted on the platform securely.

Whilst I am working on the smaller details I dug out this pack of Ratio pallets, sacks and barrels from the WMD Stores which should add some additional detail around the Station baseboard. 

There are lots of other things I could be doing like jobs on Mrs. Woody's list of chores!

 Whilst awaiting the ballast to dry from yesterdays deployment of it, there are lots of other things I could be doing like jobs on Mrs. Woody's list of chores and 'things for me to do' list. However I avoided those in preference to some painting of figures of which some will find their way onto the station platform that I have recently been working on. These are the old Airfix figures now produced by Dapol and to be fair despite being about 60 years old they are still a fairly detailed set of figures.

Once painting is finished they will get a coat of matt varnish and that concrete slab base will be trimmed away allowing them to be positioned with their shoes firmly on the platform surface!

Before weathering it I have painted the wooden boards of the catwalk on the signal gantry. Nothing too special as all of the gantry will be weathered which will alter the appearance.

Now, what jobs am I going to be doing tomorrow? Models or Mrs. W's list?

Lots of other things in the meantime to keep me amused!

Time for some more ballasting on my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout which unfortunately is not the last of the ballasting! 

The usual method of brushing and prodding the ballast into place was employed before dilute PVA glue was dribbled over the area and left to dry.

 Because the curved track had come slightly loose from its attachment to the vase I added some weights which should help it all glue back with the ballast and be level too! The good thing about the warm weather is that the glue dries quickly but given it is not quite as hot as during the heatwave I will leave the weights in place for two days. Lots of other things in the meantime to keep me amused!