Saturday, September 17, 2011

Saturday Morning

Well, another morning here at Schloss Dandruff (I must fine a suitable Germanic font for that).

Not much modeling or thinking going on lately. I did a couple of 1 hr sessions out in the Man-sion during the week, but that was just installing power feeds and check rails, which from a blogging point of view is about as exciting as watching paint dry (however if there are those of you out there who would like live commentary on paint drying drop me a line. I think we can get help for you). I have been thinking about other projects on the layout though, and its occurred to me that I have not done any building modeling for over a year. something I need to sort out I think.I came across this picture last night which reminded me of the plan from almost exactly a year ago.

'Local spots of interest'

I've made a start on the base for the water tank. though I've made it a very tight squeeze between the main and loco depot tracks. The rest are just on hold waiting for that to get started.
At least they will all be cheap (the car had an expensive trip to the car hospital last week, which has left me wondering how I was able to drive it. it was making awful grinding noises though). I've just noticed that I have not included the signal boxes so that will ahve to be done as well.

I've also been musing (to myself) recently about the path not taken. Paekakariki is a project that does tick all the boxes, but in hind site maybe I would have had more fun building some smaller layouts instead. I've had a few ideas for small country stations that would have been interesting to build (and one day might actually get built). The flip side of this is that I would not have been forced to learn how to make track as if I only needed 3-4 points I would have brought PECO or Atlas(with some mutterings as I've never really liked the look) and I may well have not bothered as they woudl not have been challenging enough. With a large project the common problem of not finishing it is pushed so far out that it no longer becomes a problem. The flip side is that there are times when despite ones best efforts it appears that no progress is being made.

I might get out to the shed this afternoon, but there is beer to be bottled as well (which really needs to be done) and then the summer beers need to be put down as well. The weather is not good enough today to garden at least...

3 comments:

sxytrain said...

On the bright side, theres no snow in the garden either, so the Man-sion shouldn't be too cold.
LOL who am I kidding. You're not here in the sunny Bay. Of course its still cold!

Anonymous said...

Paekak was a fantastic idea - steam, diesel and electric, shunting, loco changes, action +, all on one convenient location. Whereas a few La's and an Ab bumbling along to shunt two Kp's... hmmm and DCC to go with that?
You'd have to make a few smaller layouts to keep it interesting.

Motorised Dandruff said...

Well, didn't make it to the man-sion today. Got co-opted instead to do (insert you favorite expletive here) gardening. Now personally I'm the sort of chap who likes green, an isn't overly fussy about whats doing it, but I keep getting outvoted.