Thursday 28th January

Worklist:
Wall copings
Lighting modules
Fencing

Geoff had been thinking long-and-hard about how to make the curved brick copings for the main gate and had produced the sub-structure. This comprised an aluminium ring with a triangular cross-section (apologies for not having a photo!). The 'ring' then had two quadrants cut from it. Triangular wood sections were super-glued to the ends and then fettled smooth. Plain (reversed) pieces of the embossed, brick sheet were glued onto the units and again fettled to produce two curved copings. Once fully dry, these will have the tapered, brick mortar joints scribed on them. These pieces required some working out, together with the radial oversailling courses (More anon!)

The radius of the copings required the corner unit to be moved slightly away from the corner so it looked right. With a car placed on the road (and imagining what a coach would look like) the pier was comfortably moved into a new position.

Stephen had taken the engine building, lighting unit home and glued the lamp-holders in position. The unit is removable, to enable the lamps to be easily replaced. The 9th lamp goes over the lobby area and a hole was required to hold it in place. A lead was made up using a radio-controlled car plug-and-socket to allow the wires to be fed down through the baseboard. One of the power supply units was fitted on the end and set to 12v.

Laurence could only join us for part of the day, but was able to complete the painting of the platform guard fence and should fit it next week.



Stephen demonstrated a mock-up of a freelance railcar he was planning, to run on the Kato Bo-Bo chassis he'd recently purchased.

A lot of thought had gone into the design. A double-ended cab was essential, as the terminus has no turntable. The width of the cab became full-width once Geoff had described what had to be included there. Seating - a centre gangway with longitudinal seating was chosen over compartments, which worked better and would allow people to 'disguise' the motor block of the chassis. Curved vs flat fronts, clerestory windows, engine fittings etc. were all discussed - not always with agreement, but all comments were gratefully received!