Brads old place & the railway hotel

To populate Alleyvale and turn it into a thriving town. Brad told stories of his hard life going from place to place before arriving here on the back of a guards van firmly fixed in place with a ziptie. Thanks to my brother David I have a few sheets of plywood so used that to great effect. Still to sort the windows with suitable acrylic sheet. 

Roof was "Fine corrugated sheet" from bunnings

Window frames fashioned out of aluminum strip

Did the landlords special and just painted everything white including the counter, no healthy home standards here.

Fashioned up a bed from plywood covered with fabric from an old shirt, 2 pillows made from the same material. The dogs blanket donated a square to make a blanket. Everything hot glued into position, maybe a cat will use it as shelter?

House in position, still to reshape the land and install a g gauge loop around the house, driveway, carport & fence. In the rear the first section of road cemented in place.

Onto the next project, a small hotel with covered veranda, making good use of the jigsaw

At this point I think a veranda might be nice, a place to sit and look at the passing trains

Brad sizing the place up, showing off the "scrap wood" part of it. He does nothing but just stares out the window all day.. might get him a barbie, probably one that doesn't talk.

The bottom floor, here will be the bar area.

Everything somehow holding together long enough for a photo. Once the front balustrade is done the floor height wont be seen.

Look at the appalling situation with Brad. He has most egregiously defaulted on his rent for five consecutive weeks. Furthermore, he has absolutely decimated the property; the sheer state of the place is a disgrace, and there is absolutely no question that his bond will be withheld in its entirety. He has finally been served with formal legal notice and has a mere three days to vacate the premises. We will naturally have to undertake a thorough deep-clean to return the property to an acceptable standard before we can place it back on the market. I intend to have the entire place repainted and plush new carpeting installed throughout. With any luck, our next tenant will be a properly tidy young lady.

I found another 30cm male character named Tim "Buffer-Stop" Baker sitting inside the Da cab I completely forgot about, hes a bit more flexible and with more muscle than Brad.

Buffer-Stop Tim's hands are able to grab the handrail!

Given Tim's many years holding a job down as a driver and sick to death of sleeping in a chair for so many years I showed him the only house available in town until the hotels built. I told him about 10 minutes after paying the builder he disappeared without installing windows or working lights, so Tim offered half the asking rent until its fixed. Considering hes the only other bloke in town, I may have to accept his offer. He also wants to build a ride-on railway around the house, which is a little odd but at least hes not playing with dolls.

Dad tried out the road with his rideon mower to check clearances, made it through fine but could be a bit wider for comfort. Concrete held up without cracking.

I'm going to have to redo this area and widen it.

A splash of white paint later

Brad meets Tim in the hotel room, wood holding down the old reused carpet. If I used O gauge track & wheels under the peckett I think it would be close to 7.25" gauge in 1:6 scale? In my case i'm going to use G gauge track since I have it, good chance to use the tight radius stuff.  G gauge track at 45mm in 1:6 scale works out at 7.5mm, so if I had N gauge track (9mm) with a nz120 locomotive it could roughly represent one of Tim's G gauge NZR locomotives. The G gauge Peckett representing a 1/6 scale model peckett somehow also works. 

Tim showing brad his battery electric 12" gauge? very scale peckett, apparently it's going to run around a house one day when hes more settled! Brad mentions hes once again homeless, but once the hotel is finished hes should have himself a room under the Winz Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant. This will at least give Brad short-term, temporary accommodation (such as motels or backpackers) for up to 7 nights at a time. Until then Brad has been helping the hotel build posing for photos and helping hold the carpet down and in exchange hes allowed to stay overnight.. as long as hes tidy. 

A bit later on and ol Buffer-Stop Tim shows us why they gave him the nickname Buffer-Stop. Earlier he pulled out a G gauge Db locomotive he purchased from a guy who lives in a green bus that drew it up on computer and somehow a microwave oven thermal printer 2 or 3 dee printer something produced it! He claimed he worked on the Db class of locomotive way back but his age doesn't quite match his story! The yarns continued into the night, I'm a little bit nervous about the amount of rubbish but i'm sure its fine

Alleyvale

Showing the results of another day of building the mower road network, level crossings now have external H4 1.8m panels 18mm thick, yet to be painted black. I also plan to cover the gravel with a thin layer of cement then paint it black to look like tarseal and finally paint road markings etc. A few scale buildings to be planted and a small rural town will be born called "Alleyvale" a town nestled between the hills, named after my sister Alison Bryant RIP 2024 July 23rd.

The Tree Hut Branch line. Part 3 of ∞ " Paina Junction"

Now that I've built a bridge and got over it I find myself at Paina Junction, surrounded by tall pine trees. Today I borrowed a log sitting nearby and loaded it onto the log wagon and dragged it around the layout a bit, its currently on the wagon in the shed still. Managed the get the drone up despite the wind and got a few shots.

"Paina Junction"

A fairly heavy log

Leaving Paina Junction, heading across the river up the grade.

A birds eye view

Had to stop operations when the snow started, too slippery

Much later, usually clears by morning..

7.25" 2-6-0 E Steamer

Picked up another locomotive for the 7.25" railway, this time a 2-6-0 E Steamer from Dave Cole who converted it from a live steamer (simplex I think?) after the boiler failed its cert. Will cost roughly $10k to get a new boiler built. Everything runs well with no derailments so far.

A bit more done today, 1 side of the bridge decked out. Turnout at "Paina Junction" installed & operational. Sadly I've come to the end of the Aluminum track so its time to break out the 10 x 25mm bar and start welding

Safe walking platform almost complete on one side, on the remaining side I will deck out the bridge section only and back fill the other sections with dirt and top with Gap 65 Rock

The Tree Hut Branch line. Part 2 of ∞ "Boulder Creek Bridge"

The next hurdle is a bridge across "Boulder Creek". I had played with the idea of making a brick arch bridge but went with a simple timber affair to save time. Today I managed to plan out where the piers are to be, dig a few holes and cement them into place. I had a few bags of river stones laying around and excess concrete so figured I would layer the concrete like icing everywhere and then layer on the river stones. The main reason being when it rains the modest stream turns into a raging torrent and would no doubt wash everything away. This bit reminded me of building my nz120 layout although somewhat scaled up but quite satisfying.

How it looked before

Piers & river stones in place, waiting for things to cure

Looking North

Cleaned up, needs more rocks

Piers cut to the right height, the line is completely level from the flame tree 

Its largely a level run up to the bridge, I need to cut into the top ahead and redistribute the clay.

Given the distance to the build site growing further away from the shed the wagons have really been useful to cart materials and tools back and forth. A few pictures of various loads. Need to find a big log and cart it on the log wagon behind the climax. Once the railway gets past the big bridge I can see the railway being used to cart logs up to the mill.

Bridge progress after day two

More Piers firming up.

Day three bridge fixed in place, still to add pedestrian walkway alond the side and more boards & plastic, then to be backfilled with some clay.

From above, track ready to upgrade its sleepers

Day four sees track fixed in place with new sleepers

After some heavy rain overnight the waters flowing nicely with only a hand full of rocks swept downstream.

The next step, a bit of an embankment.

Work continues on the embankment, Da delivers another load of timber

Looking forward, the cutting starting to take shape.

In the process of removing problematic slanted pines before the railway gets built, should clear up the view a bit