A little addition to the 'townscape' ...

A police box, about the right size found in a charity shop for the princely sum of £1..

Track maintenance and first train running session of the year ....

Decided to do the track replacement in rockery cutting today. Nice weather, just right for faffing about outside. So up with the old track section ....

 I laid the track down in position and marked the overlap, to be cut off

after cutting off a inch or so from the end of the long straight, I fitted some new track joiners to the curves

new track section in place, now the bend is better positioned ....

---oXo---

As I worked I was being watched - a robin was keeping an eye on me. He was quite un-phased by me taking a photo of him

having had his portrait taken he flew off ...

 ---oXo---

With the track works done - time to run a train :)

Before I started I gave the track a good sweep and checked for any debris in the points. For a test train I used my Playmobil battery r/c diesel and a guards van.

 round the bottom of the garden through the town ...

up the back towards rockery cutting...

then through the cutting, watched by the engineers ....

nice to get the track sorted,  main pending job is to get the track cleaned for running powered trains.

Getting ready to run ....

Finally got round to getting ready to run trains again.

The trackbed has been weeded and sprayed with weedkiller as a preventative measure. So now ready to run battery powered trains, hope to get to work cleaning the track for electric powered trains.

A bit of track maintenance is required; derailments over the past in rockery cutting have resulted in an inspection by the company engineers..

a new section of track has been recommended - a rummage through the spare track in the garage is needed, plus a bit of use of a hacksaw to get the right lengths.

Flat wagon - generator load

A small enhancement to one of my Accucraft wagons; the flat wagon (single plank) had no load and I was lucky to find a generator engine of the about thee right scale at a recent Toy&Train fair.

I decided to make the load removable, so it was mounted on a card base cut to fit on the wagon...

I gave the card base a coat of brown and a wash of dark grey, then stuck on the generator. The load in place on the wagon

Break down train ....

After a track clean of the indoor garage layout I decided to run the breakdown train round, using the track cleaning loco in ordinary running mode.

the video clip shows one circuit of the the garage layout.

Indoor Layout - Trackside scenes

I like to have some interesting track-side scenes on my indoor layout, I've been tidying up and adding a few new bits; in addition I'm been re-basing the figures so they are on clear bases. Here are some of the things on view ....

rabbits gamboling by the track ....

 man at work in the woods ...

 mechanic at work ...

 fireman on an exercise ...

 house with garden...

 some sheep and other animals ...

 postman doing a delivery....

 forklift truck busy in the goods yard ....

New visitor attraction...

Something a little bit Jurassic..

The operators of the line are pleased that a local entrepeneur has opened a dinosaur reserve on the central plateau; specials to bring people to visit the attraction will bring much needed revenue to the line.

While the herbivores much the long grass, other more hungry ones watch ready to strike ...

[ The largest dinos from a box brought at a local toy store, will probably look better when the grass is cut]