Distractions

Currently for Philip's Creek, the primary objective is to finish the basic scenery for the newly named Kingston Plains branch line. Two posts ago, I wrote about completing the scenery on the Hall's Creek Bridge module which forms part of this branch line, but work on the scenery at the terminus has not started.

The last three to four months have seen a number of activities distracting me from that objective. The most significant of these was a two month holiday, but even before that, other events conspired to impede. A few months ago, my wife showed me one of those articles that frequently circulate on Facebook. This one described how a person got up one morning with the good intentions to achieve a number of tasks but quickly became distracted from the first task, then got distracted from the previous distraction. And so it continued for the whole day until by the end of the day, the person had achieved nothing but felt exhausted by all of the day's activities.

My story was similar and it began when 3123 stalled on a short section of track which bridges the Mount Windeatt branch line modules. Ok, so I'll remove the piece of track, clean it up and replace the joiners. However, as I started this, I accidentally pulled up a longer length of rail. Bugger, but not a problem, I'll replace the damaged section of track and improve the alignment as it was always causing problems for 3123. But to do that, I need to remove the unpainted backdrop that separates the Mount Windeatt station from the unsceniced Muswellbrook staging area. Ok, so while I have the backdrop off the layout, I may as well attempt to paint it to match it up with the section my wife painted a few years ago. But wait, while I'm relaying track near that staging area, I may as well do something to address the chronic overcrowding which can occur. The only realistic way to achieve this was to construct a shelf that will hold surplus rolling stock until these are required. Consequently, by the end of this deductive process, I was left with a number of major projects, none of which contributed to the achievement of my primary objective.

The realignment and replacement of the damaged track was simple, but for someone of my very limited artistic skills, the backdrop painting was a bit more challenging. I chose to use pastels as I was not confident in my ability to merge or blend paint on the backdrop to ensure a good transition of colours. The photo opposite shows the right hand side of the backdrop over the newly realigned length of track. The photo below shows the left hand part of the backdrop back in position.















Increasing the size of staging area was a bit more complicated. The challenge was to provide supports for the upper shelf without restricting the width of the passage way or the space available within the staging areas. I decided to use threaded rod mounted on the frame supports. This also provided a means to ensure that the shelf was level.

So at the end of this period of fairly intense activity, the three tasks have been completed and then it was time to head off on the holiday. But still, I was no closer to achieving the primary objective. 

And I wonder why it has taken me 20 years to get this far!