A Farm house and some more scenic work.

     I at last managed to do a little work around the farm. I placed the homestead (farmhouse to
 anyone who doesn't live Downunder!) on a rather small level area, a little too small in hindsight.
 Never  mind, I still hope to place a shed or barn somewhere near the house.

    Between house and road I always intended to have a dam (pond) for the stock. It again turned
out a little smaller than I had hoped for, but I really don't have the acreage.

    I fear that the sheep and cattle may wander off, get run over by trucks or otherwise disappear without trace, as I haven't constructed any fences anywhere... they are on the top of my list of
projects to be done - in the meantime I can only hope they like the grazing well enough where
they are.-

    Some more work was also done at the level crossing on the Alexandra road.

  

It may be of interest to also look again at the approach to Yea, as some work was done there,but 

   the area is still being improved. Again, no fencing yet...                                                                    

Finally, once more, the yard at Alexandra... well, the rail fans will just keep taking photos. :-(

***

   There are a lot of details yet to be added - gutters, downpipes etc., etc. Then there are bigger        projects, such as Yea Station. Alexandra platform needs its picket fence mended.                                                       

 And, and, and ...                                                                                                       

 

Enough  for now.

A very Happy Christmas to everyone

and a Healthy and productive New Year,

 with a lot of fabulous and satisfying Model(l)ing .  Walter.

Things are about to move at Alexandra

       The afternoon DERM (Diesel Electric Rail Motor) is due for a crew change and getting ready                       for passengers to board for the journey to Melbourne.

  

           The Goods (Freight) will be leaving behind Y145 half an hour later.

Goulburn River at Molesworth

Just another view of the road- and rail bridges at Molesworth.

Ballast by the tonne.

Crew were walking around in mud, puddles everywhere when it rained... it was high time to ballast
Alexandra yard.
I mixed a few different colours from my supply of gravel, until I was satisfied that it approximated
the look of an old yard. I will still apply oil and soot here and there - and a lot of weeds!
I used Woodland Scenics cement, but I could have used diluted white glue - much cheaper...

I'm satisfied with the look though.

Taking Stock...

I can't be certain, but I'm guessing that there still was a little livestock traffic in 1975, so I decided
to give Alexandra some stock ramps and holding pens.. They may have been larger than what I have space for and they would have been fairly dilapidated by then . Well - I can do dilapidated.

Old butterfingers had quite a difficult time with them, but I'm reasonably happy with the result.

A very close friend of mine with a farming background maintains that sheep and cattle would
not have been loaded into 'L' and 'M' wagons at the same time, but even though she is pretty gorgeous, I'm ignoring her...

I did have quite a time finding the Preiser Friesians ( I can never tell Friesians from Holsteins, someone please tell me ...)

By the way - the sliding door on the cattle ramp needs repairing already :-), it lies in the grass at the moment . The clumps of sheep, intended as loads for the 'Ls' will be replaced for the pens by Preiser
animals, which are quite finely crafted.
I think the pens will have to get some watering troughs...

Little mistakes that bother ...

Sometimes it is seemingly little things , wrong decisions, that grate and eventually need to be rectified.
When I first started construction of this layout, I decided, because it wasn't very deep, the points would be operated by push rods, housed in aluminium tubes. That was o.k. and eventually all 18 were
fitted and worked well. I had , however, fitted the piano wires with wooden beads from Spotlight and failed to recess them into the fascia. This wasn't too bad in areas with no traffic other than operation,
but was a damn nuisance where people crossed the room, brushing against them, as it was a major thoroughfare in the house.

The solution to the problem wasn't that difficult: I simply fitted a 25mmx12mm strip of pine
to the top of the fascia, thus protecting the push rods. I also came to the conclusion that the
wooden baubles were quite unnecessary and simply bending the end of the wires into a hook
made the push rods perfectly workable. They even became almost invisible under the strip, yet
were easily found.
At the other end of the system, a little loop attached to the Peco points did the job, painted in
the appropriate rust colour. In the other aisle, where there was only operator traffic, I left things
as they were . I'm happy with the result.

Happy New Year !