I spent sometime working out the curve that will take the standard gauge rolling stock down to the dock from the mainline. I used the RDC-M as the test article as it's the most sensitive to tight track radii and will be the featured vehicle on this layout. Some previous testing indicated it could negotiate an 8" radius curve, but I couldn't replicate that with this configuration and had to reform the dock access track to slightly more than a 9" radius. The RDC-M goes around this track just fine now, but, as you can see, the dock track no longer has that interesting diagonal swoop. Design work continues.
I was able to drop by the Havelock yard twice this week. Although there wasn't much to write about in the yard, across the street this morning was a fresh batch of Railroad Bread at the Wildflower Bakery & Cafe.
If sourdough bread isn't your thing, don't worry, there are several other types available.
They do have parking out front, but right now the road is in the final stages of being repaved.
Although they have many types of fresh bread available everyday, Railroad Bread is only available on Saturday, so plan appropriately :-)
So, if you're doing some train spotting in Havelock early on a Saturday morning, don't forget to get yourself a loaf of lovely Railroad Bread.
Railroad Bread toasted with homemade Black Currant jam courtesy of our friend John.
It's especially good toasted! That's one thing I learned from watching too much MuchMusic:
The first of 2 drops of 5,000 litres of water with the Conair Dash-8 400-AT at the Gatineau Airshow.
Yesterday Steve and I made what is becoming an annual pilgrimage to the Gatineau Airshow in Quebec. This was one of the last shows for the Snowbirds (the very last event in the Ottawa-Gatineau area), and when they resume show operations in 2030 or so they'll be flying the new Sisken II turboprops and their Tutor jets will be only a memory. The Snowbirds have flown the Tutors for something like 55 years, so this was an historic event and the place was jam-packed!
The Conair Dash-8 400-AT parked after the show. It has a 10,000 litre tank
The show featured much more than the Snowbirds. One plane that caught my interest was the Conair Dash-8 400-AT, which is basically a De Havilland Dash-8 that Conair converted to an air tanker that can do things like fight wild fires. According to their website they've converted 20+ Dash-8s to this role, and the first one flew in 2020. At the show they put on a demonstration of what it looks like when 5,000 litres of water is dropped from this airplane.
The second of two drops of 5,000 litres of water.
It's quite an impressive sight. I didn't know that a Dash-8 passenger plane could be converted to do this sort of thing.
I'm used to seeing Dash-8s used as passenger planes, like the Dash-8 100 operated by airCreebec in the above photo. Apparently it's quite a versatile machine.
On the way out I saw this enticing ad to "Become a Bush Pilot". If I had to do it all over again, maybe I'd take them up on their offer, and hope some passersby did. Until next year!
I finally got around to finishing the inserts for the large end openings and 'glassing' the windows with clear plastic.
I used thin strips of 3M Transfer Tape to attach all the second storey windows to the frames, and the frames of the street level doors to the clear plastic windows. This went well, but some of exposed tape edges have attracted dust and grit that I'll need to carefully scrape out. All the other windows were attached to their frames with Weld Bond glue.
As I've said many times before: the digital camera is a harsh mistress and I see many areas that need touch-up before the building takes up residence on the Way Out Layout.
I've made the end door inserts so the entrance doors line up with each other, implying that the inserts are mirror images of each other. So, it's possible to walk straight through the building.
Up there is the base supplied with the kit. As you can see, a pair of plastic rails run right through the building, and they are HO gauge. I checked :-) But, they're plastic, so can't be powered. They just contribute to the odd overall design of this structure. I've done some cursory investigating into the origin story and possible prototype for this model, but have found nothing yet. I'm sure there's something out there.
Anyway, I replaced the base with a suitably dimensioned and painted piece of 0.060" styrene sheet.
Next up is constructing a removable roof from the kit's roof and adding lighting.
I'm still not sure what business will live here, or what will be inside. Interiors are a weak point with me as I have many buildings with clean, serviceable, well lit interiors, but are empty. Clearly some soul searching is required. Maybe AWB can help me out:
Designing Inglenook Lake has really captured my imagination. I identified a few issues with the layout in the previous post, and I've started to wrestle with them.
Over on the right in the above photo I've made two updates. The rightmost track piece has been replaced with a 12" straight so it'll fit the loco I plan to use on the layout and a 40' box car with a little wiggle room. This change will allow the Inglenook switching game to be played. The second was to replace the Atlas switch with one from the Peco Setrack range. The straight portion of the Peco switch is around 6cm shorter than the Atlas, so I can recover some length on the long straight section at the back to try and get the total length of this layout into 4'. I may replace the switch on the left side with a Peco too to get another 6cm back.
Speaking of the left side, I've added a 9" straight to the switch so the proverbial 40' boxcar can be parked there.
I've been thinking about what sort of buildings might be located on the layout. After some diddling around I think I've settled on a forest fire lookout tower that also performs some air traffic control functions.
After surfing the internet a bit it seemed the old lookout tower in Parry Sound had the right look: tall, solid looking with its square cross section, but still looking scary with its spindly framework.
I sized the tower to 'tower' over the airplanes so they aren't the largest objects on the layout.
As I built it I started to think that even though it's a toy, suitably painted, and with some selected details added, it would make a nice homage to the Peter-Austin construction sets. Some might consider that defacing a classic toy, and others might see it as a crude addition to a layout, but to me it seems right to include this Peter-Austin reference. Also, I think it's interesting to use a play set that was once meant to build bridges and roads to now use it to fight forest fires. A new role for an old toy! Everything old is new again :-)
