Northward. And Ballasting.

Entry posted by Miserable in Ballasting September 30, 2020

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While waiting for tree canopy stuff to turn up attention has moved to the north end. The builders yard has shuffled up a bit to make way for ballasting. I'm doing the, cough, reception road which should be ballasted (if not very well) as opposed to ash/mud. The grey ballast will get a varying coat of grime sprayed on to take away the newness, possibly some patches of lighter at rail joints for a bit of variety. Work has started on the totally unnecessary platform to near signal box barrow crossing. I like barrow crossings. And making them is not ballasting. Due to the incredibly unlikely over-signalling there's a lot of (single run - phew!) signal wires to go in, along with a stretch of point rodding (and the ground frame rodding), but this time I'm ballasting first before fitting pullies/cranks. This is because I think the ones I put in after at the other end look better with the heights being set by the ballast.

The assorted heavy weights are patiently holding down some cork. With 20/20 hindsight it would have been a lot easier to cork the whole thing and cut away the bits not required rather than cutting round the track. Filling the gaps back up is a non fun activity, especially with the second batch of cork I bought - despite being rolled tightly in the opposite sense and left overnight to get it to lay flat (like the first lot did) this stuff seems to be memory cork...