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Catching the Shinkansen

"Shinkansen! High line! Now!" yelled the voice into my ear.

I needed no further encouragement. I killed the computer, grabbed my camera and keys, and jumped in the wagon. We tore up the highway and soon the sky was darkening. Hmm, I flicked on the radio and picked up the emergency broadcast system. "SEVERE PRECIPITATION, FALLING AS SNOW ABOVE 1200 METERS FROM 1800 HOURS" droned the robotic voice. Checked the clock. 1625. Curse. Squeezed the gas pedal a bit more.

A couple of minutes shy from 1700 I slammed on the breaks and yanked the steering wheel to the left. Power slide. Forgot about the ice here. Gunned the gas and the tires dug in. We fishtailed up the access road, snow everywhere now. I winced as some buried ice attempted to reconfigure my transmission. Two more turns. One more turn. Last corner. Mashed the brakes. Felt the wheels skid.

Grabbed the camera bag, whacked the horn. Cripes. Loud up here. Jumped out of the car and into thigh high snow. Checked w...

My first scratch built turnout

Relations between Utrainia and the United States of America have recently taken a turn for the worse. Aggressive foreign policy against Utrainia has seen stiff economic sanctions put in place, which has forced the Finance Minister of Utrainia to acquire vital railway equipment from elsewhere. The Kato Corporation of Shinjuku, Tokyo have become a leading contender of motive power, passenger equipment and building supplies, and the Utrainia Rail workshops have been tasked with the remaining construction projects.

In case none of that made any sense... I have been buying model railway supplies for many years from the US through Modeltrainstuff.com. While finalising my latest order from them a few weeks back I was absolutely gobsmacked by their shipping changes; $US50 for $150 of products! Their shipping charges have always been high, and I often had to pay $20 to $30 for a large order, but now their shipping charges start at $40 for a single item. For a loco, a third ...

An engaging build - part 3

Continued from part 2...

Rachel's Building

Here in Masterton there is a building curiously named "Daniell's Building". It turns out it is owned by our major, Garry Daniell, and there is a bit of controversy surrounding his reluctance to get any of his buildings earthquake proofed: "I haven't commissioned the detailed structural analysis and I'm not required to yet", "I'm not necessarily going to do anything other than comply." Hmm. One glance at his brick and masonry building and it screams "earthquake risk", not to mention it has people living in it. Certainly a shining example of leadership!

The building itself however is interesting, with DANIELL'S BUILDINGS embossed into the concrete, an interesting mix of architecture, a sloping roof and even a balcony complete with greenery.

Under pressure

I've been doing some work on casting lately. When I first started casting it was a revelation, but then I realised that I was getting tiny little air pockets in the corners of many of my castings.

To get rid of these took very careful mixing, careful pouring, careful prodding in corners of the mold with toothpicks, and then a bucket load of luck. Out of about 20 castings, only 4 came out with no noticable air pockets in the corners; a rather poor success rate.

I did a bit of thinking and decided there were two ways to get rid of bubbles:

More luck, or, Using a vacuum to remove any trapped air from inside the resin before casting.

I tried using a vacuum to degas the resin; it ended badly. I poured the mixed resin and poured it into a sy...

Making trees for the High Line

Modeling anything in the Sierras or Rockies requires a lot of snowy conifers. I had a few 55-packs of Heki conifers on hand, however these are quite short. Nothing jumped out at me on ebay as being worth my money, so I set about making my own. After some more prolific googling I settled on sisal rope trees, rather than the more commonly used furnace filters technique; I just couldn't get the filters to look right.

I started by buying a metre of sisal rope from Mitre10 and some 22 gauge wire; I wanted thinner but that was the best they had. I figured if it was too chunky I'd use some stripped electrical wire.

The first step is to comb out the sisal rope; Rachel very kindly donated one of her many combs for the job.  I warned her it would never be the same again but she said she was willing to make the sacrifice! Oh for understanding partners!

Building the High Line

While preparing a summary page of all the modules in Utrainia, I realised that I hadn't actually posted anything about the construction of my second module. Let's fix that...

I have a particular fascination with snow, and have spent many weeks in the USA trudging up hills through knee deep snow and chasing blizzards to get the perfect snow photos. I always enjoy it and I love the look of fresh snow on the railroad. So for my second module I decided to model a stretch of the BNSF "hi-line" in Montana, where the BNSF main line crosses Glacier National Park. Full of conifers and representing mountain railroading at its finest this seemed the logical place to model. This module is the transition between double track and single track mainline, and so features signals, a #10 switch, a switch heater (to stop the points icing up), a signal shed, and some assorted railway detritus.

The inspiration for the scene is this wonderful photo of the ...