I had thought that the return of the winter weather would have resulted in slightly more activity on the bench, the new low score being -27^oC, but as per usual life managed to get in the way of the things I would have liked to have done.

First up some housekeeping on Hingston Down Halt. After much deliberation, including considering picking somewhere that was a double to single track junction, I have installed a missing catch point on the siding for the quarry. Apparently it’s very much best practice to rip up perfectly good 2FS trackwork at some point, although I feel a bit late to the party.

Admittedly I probably should have realised a catch point was required when I was laying the original track, but then planning and building the baseboards in an afternoon means that these kind of details are missed. Days after I had glued this down and wired up the new feeds, I took a look at some photos of Luckett on the Callington Branch, I realised that the blade should have only been on one of the rails. Nevermind…

This went together in an evening, even with evil chair plates. Unfortunately there is a very slight curve to the whole panel, presumably as I hadn't put enough tension on the rail when soldering. The class 22, bubblecar and minerals that I tried all seemed to navigate through without difficulty, so I'm not worried, just means that you’re unlikely to see a shot looking down through there any time soon.

I thought it would be wise to build a small cover for the layout to avoid rails being bent, buildings being smashed up (“when I get around to it..”) as the storage picnic hamper also holds the power supply and controller. Cue some handy foam-board and a few offcuts of square dowel, and hey presto… one cover.

Secondly I felt that I needed to revisit the planning for Lydford, 7 boards of 2’3 x 4’ just wasn't going to be practical for storage nor building strength. So I reduced this down to 6 boards of 2' x 4', using a little more compression to the mainline and removing the down war sidings. There is still over half a mile of scale running, plenty of opportunity for locos to stretch their legs. I'm still unsure about including the Lyd viaduct on the Southern up side, as I don't have any measurements and the views are obscured by the dense woodland in the valley.

Having settled on this for the time being, I went off on my bike to collect the materials needed from the local “Hardware Store,” The result was probably bemusing to most locals to say the least:

Extruded polystyrene boards made the most sense to me thanks to their low weight, and if they couldn't be taken with me, they would probably make a nice pontoon to swim out to in one of the many local lakes. The wood was attached with no-nails and 3" screws to provide the foam some protection on the edge, more than anything structural. I suspect that this may yet prove to be a hindrance when I try and marry the boards together with dowels, as the hardwood maple was fairly green when they were assembled meaning that in all likelyhood, nothing will be square. I will most likely put 3mm ply on the top surface before laying track, as it is still pretty vulnerable. It turned out that I just had enough room to lay 5 of the constructed boards out... Aren't I glad that I didn't choose to have 7!

Finally, in the run up to heading back for Warley this year, I attempted to build a decent length of Stephen Harris’ mineral’s to bung up shunt the goods yard with on St. Ruth. Despite being snowed in at Sudbury airport for 6 hours, drinking the bar dry, I made it with my wagons intact.

Thanks to some fairly disastrous shades of grey (yes, the vac fitted 21T’s are supposed to be brown, so I realized,) and drinking fine beers instead of applying transfers and weathering powders, they didn't make it and a number have been stripped off waiting for improved weather and another attempt.

This is likely to be my last post in Canada as I am about to be relocated to the neighbours in the south. I happened to stumble upon a Flickr photograph showing that a miner having to up sticks from Cornwall isn't a new thing. At least I have some hope to have a return to the UK someday...

cornwall - gwr emigrants train arriving redruth station by johnmightycat1, on Flickr

Until next time; my fellow ostriches…