Latest
Updates.
March
2010
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.

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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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