Not much to report this month as we have been busy out in the garden with plants & removing fences so we can view the railway from our lounge, which looks great I might add! The Freelance page has been up dated with new happenings on the 2000 Class. And yes ballesting is still being done on weekends with steady progress. Until next month Happy Modelling!

February 2010

Well January has gone & summer still hasn't showed up! So there is not much happening outside but ballesting is still being done when weather allows. To date the main-line is complete from the East end of the shed to the begining of the passing loop & is looking not to bad. Below left; The loop is being prepared for re-ballesting with the old being removed & the base being cleaned, this is how it is sitting at present time as we have had rain every weekend.

Above right; Well, the designers have been using the wet weather to there advantage & have come up with this! They have designed a short, modern looking & pratical loco, the New 2000 Class!!!! Work will start on this project very soon & will be posted in the Freelance section.

This month the Locomotives page has been up-dated with all new photos so enjoy.

Ash-rail has made a major decision over the last couple of weeks in the form of modelling another 1:24 Railway. We are currently researching locomotives & rolling stock of the PNR (Philippine National Railway) so this should be a great project as there are only a few in the world who are modelling this system & it would be nice to preserve some of there items if only in model form. Here is a link to an interesting site to give you a bit of a taste of things to come. http://philippinerailwayhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/

Until next month all the best in modelling..

January 2010

Well 2010 is here, I hope everyone had a great Festive season & got plenty done on there railways. Progress on the AFR is steady-ish but no matter how slow, it is still progress.

The main job on the go at the moment is ballesting, this is not the first time we have tried this but hopefully we will be more successful this time. We are using a dry mixture of crusher dust, mortar, cement & blk oxide, above left is the first step where a product called CE-MIX is brushed on. This is an industrial bonding agent for giving better adheasive strength when bonding to existing concrete. Above right the mixture is sprinkled on & brushed to clear flange ways, below left. The final step is to wet it using a garden sprayer, below right.

I hope this method will give the lasting results I am looking for, I have read alot of articles on this but with fingers crossed & a couple of winters under our our belts, time will tell.

Ash Rail has a new adition to its loco fleet, it is an Aristocraft FB unit (below) for some time now we have been thinking that a free-lance diesel is needed for the increasing freight traffic. Now the designers have the job to come up with a double ended unit to serve the railways needs, we will keep you posted!

Last of all there are some updates on the web site in the Structures & Picture Gallery sections, until next month Happy Modeling!

December 2009

The weather has been great the past couple of weekends so have been outside doing some unfinished jobs in the garden. Above left; At last the capping has been added to the top of the raised garden which makes a great seat while operating trains. Above right; Just in front of the back fence has also had some attention with planters being added with shrubs being planted to hide the fence in the future.

There has been a Picture Gallery page added so the odd running day, special occasion or visiting rolling stock can be recorded for every one to view.

Another short video clip has been added to Youtube. Ab730 is the star this time hauling a short goods train under No2 bridge.

November 2009

Well all I can say is it has been a long time since an up date & thought it was time to make more of an effort now that family life has settled down a bit. So here we go, we are going to try a monthly update & post it in the first week of every month as things are still not progrssing at a great rate of knots but should be enough done on the railway for a few lines and a picture or 2! Well as you can see the web site is under going a few changes with a new address & look on the site, this is a big step for me as I have had to learn a lot to get this far in web page construction. A big thanks must go to Andy for puting up with my constant questions when things don't go the way I think they should & helping out with the site.

Ok, we are going to combine a couple of months in our 1st upate so here we go, things have been happening both inside & out during winter with major rock wall construction taking place. We decided to use what was cheaply available, as a result we used Ruapuna bolders. They are big grey boulders which have been doug up out of farm paddocks over the years and stacked in piles, so they are only to happy to get rid of them. These have been dry stacked to retain the upper level garden, the other method being used is a bit more time consuming with mortaring rocks in place mainly used around the bridges & tunnels on the railway. See pics below.

We also have a new name running on the AFR with Ash-rail being the major hauler taking the railway into 2010!

Above Left & Middle; Workshop has been busy through the winter with 3 more Yj's being added to the roster. Above Right; The Signal section has been busy as well with the inside yard being completely wired up with all turnouts electrically operated & isolated sections for loco storage.

The web site will be worked on when spare time permits so be prepare for a few more changes this month, so in the mean time Happy Modeling!!

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