Weekly Photo Fun 09/03-16/03

[doctorwayne]

In addition to buildings with roofs that won't stay put, I also had a similar problem recently with bridges...





Actually, I had been ballasting the last portion of the mainline on the upper level of the layout, and had run out of the rock ballast given to me by my good friend Charlie. It was made from screenings used in his driveway, so I picked up a couple of 50lb. bags of similar stuff from my almost-local lumber yard, and set about sifting it to get useable scale-size material. Each successive screening yielded smaller and smaller pieces, but also a lot of dust. I would have done the work outside if it had been nicer, but with snow and cool temperatures, the layout room it was. After getting and applying the needed material, almost everything that could be removed from the layout in that aisle was removed, although some of the structures were vacuumed in-place.

Of course, the waters of the Maitland River and Chippawa Creek needed the same treatment, and the bridges, built to be removeable as single entitiies, were lifted out for the cleaning...



...I used the brush attachment on my shop vac, and you can clearly see how severe the problem was...



...nearby Chippawa Creek was similar, seen here partially cleaned...



The ballast work extended from where the camera was for this view, to just past the jugs of white glue and Woodland Scenics ground foam in the distance - about 11' of double track, including several turnouts and a crossover, plus a couple of feet into a local industry in the distance and a couple more feet into an industrial district near the camera....



The work also included the tracks leading off the the right to my good friend Ed's Leetown Sub of the CNR...



...beyond the ballasted area, the tracks will be hidden by scenery. They (two tracks) lead to a staging area in my former paint shop.

Wayne