Windy Day

Windy day here in Utrainia, with a very strong winds making their way through the country. Unfortunately Sod's law was in full force today with numerous delays affecting all trains. First of all the power went out for 7 hours, taking with it the signals. Trains had to tip-toe over road crossings and radio through the paperwork for every signal. Slow to say the least! Then a loco break down meant one loco too few to run the morning services, and no time for a replacement to arrive either. As if that wasn't bad enough, the morning Shinkansen service had a rather nasty surprise when it rounded a corner to find a very large tree, split clean down the middle and all over the track!

That was the end of any kind of regular service for the rest of the day. Busses were brought in to ferry people to work, however then it was discovered that Utrainia doesn't own any busses, and so everyone got a day off work instead. Everyone except for the hard working Utrainia crews, who had to get ...

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!