Cane River and Winnfield Rock.

[danielb]

As there were only 3 weekends left before TVNAM, this long weekend saw a lot of work done on the layout, though most of that was wiring and structural work.

Wiring needs connecting up tonight, and then I plan on spending the evening playing trains. This weekend coming will see the legs and lighting rig finished off.

Between then and now, I'll be working on whatever small project takes my fancy on that day.

For example, last week I scratchbuilt a scrap baler for the scrap yard:


The weekend's work now has the layout looking like this:


Though I did misjudge the length of the screws I used and ended up doing this:


Oops.

Time to get a little creative in disguising it - I started working on scratchbuilding a water tower for the lumber yard - I figure there's some sort of sawing machinery that needs to be kept cool. I have no idea if that's plausible but it'll hopefully look cool so I don't really care! Here it is so far just hanging in place by the end of the screw it's designed to disguise:


It's made from the lid of a Pritt Stick cut in half, plus a load of split and broken balsa that came off my old layout, cut into strips and recycled. Waste not, want not! The pipes are from cotton buds - Q-tips to you yanks! I get pots of them from the £1 shop as they are great for applying weathering powders, and afterwards the plastic sticks see use as pipes, poles, oil drums, etc:


Good times!

It would seem as well that my fleet of motive power and stock is going to grow considerably at TVNAM. I'm currently lined up to get 9 locos and about 30 freight cars at bargain prices, so expect to see a couple of unscheduled locos appearing on the layout on the day.

I'll keep it as a surprise for those who are attending! Photos taken on the day will of course be posted up here for those who can't make it.