Meet 'Esky'

Our little basic general purpose locomotive has been re-purposed and re-designated. 
Meet Thomas's Friend, 'Esky'!

Down the S-Bends...

Both S bend kinks beside the house are finished. So the riding car with feet hanging out clears the water tank and the new slim shed. 
The track will be level with the top of the brick paving and filled in with granitic sand to the rail tops. Won't be used a lot so a quick sweep will clean the rail tops and clear for wheel flanges.

SRR successful opening...

The crash test dummies arrived on Boxing Day. Notwithstanding a re-jig of loco suspension, the Southern Riverina (Garden) Railway has had a successful opening week.

Nearly ready for Official Opening of Australia's newest railway...

The Siding...

 Beside the house we have added a slim shed, so we need another "S" bend for clearance. 

This one is a 2m length with 1m curve each way. So about half the displacement of the 3m bend around the water tank.

Day two...

Since the service car works I have put ends on and tidied it up a bit.

Folks, we have Australias newest Railway!!!

Main oval circuit is in one piece!

The main 33m oval is in one piece. All welded joins except the removable points which have welded plates at the bottom of the rail, double bolted together. No expansion joints as 2/3 of the track can move on the road bed - enough, I hope. I calculate about 1cm movement from 0 to 40C...

Still have some levelling and ballasting to do but...

And still have the Y to do, but have everything lined up and the track is nearly levelled - which affects the levels on the Y of course.

Back to track work

Now that the turf under the track has been dug out, and the track moved back, I have been levelling, welding joins, installing the sleepers, packing the granitic sand roadbed, and using it to ballast too. 

I am 2/3 of the way done - for the main 33m ( about 8x7m) oval. And it is starting to look like a railway.

With one big shove I can get the small bogie all the way around the 20 odd metres!!!

Railcar Frame/Chassis

The Railcar chassis will be MS rectangular bar 20x10mm. Made a start...

Sod all... gone

Finished digging out the grass sod from under the main oval of track. Weed mat down. 

Next weld, and level the track, install granitic base, sleepers...

The levels for the "Y" and the side track by the house are dependant on the main track, so they will be last.

Heatwave

Yesterday made 39 celsius, today looks like its done at 34, but it has been over 30 since 1030! Inside jobs tilit cools.

Have decided to use granitic sand roadbase for the railway base.  It should set well. 

I will get a trailer load and leftovers will fill a few holes in the drive...

Railway Navie...

Trying to stay in the shade this morning, but the sun caught up to me 10 am it's 30! 

Even after rotary hoeing a couple of times it is still hard to chip out the grass roots. None-the-less I have made significant progress...

Weed-mat might help keep grass out of the roadbed, I hope.

Rotary Hoe...

I'd sure hate to cut up the cooch grass by hand. Especially this next few days - 32 at the moment, then 34 tomorrow, 39 Thursday. 

Moneys worth out of the CHonda motor in an hour or so. All the spoil will go to filling in the dip down to the lake. The slope on the right is quite concave... 

Now to clean it out by hand - then cart the roadbed in barrow at a time... after I find the right material, at the right price! 

Took levels with Maz this morning. The ground level varies about 120mm, so will get the road bed level as I can, then top dress the grass up to level... eventually. But we really just need the main oval finished by Christmas. And FYI, it is a mere 33m around!

The Station, 'Platform 9 3/4' tidied up.

We have tidied up around the 'platform'!

Sprinklers re-planted; the green caps cover valves to control the flow to this pair of edge sprinklers.

At the far end in the pix the rail top is just below old ground level, the near end it is about 3cm above... 

So next job is to shoot some levels with the Lufkin 'dumpy' level. Then move the rest of the track rotary hoe and dig out the rest of the track base... 

Then a trailer load of granitic sand. 
Oh! and I still have sleepers to finish...

Start of the Railcar

Here is the start of a freestyle rail motor... A ride-on and tow vehicle. Driven axle (450watt) from Warrick Sandberg. Front bogie die cast wheels from Ian Ramsay (DNC). Pillow block bearings... China ($4 ea). Custom Axles, Peter...

Might look something like one of these...

Flush concrete Finished!!! ... well all but...

Well, here is the other end of 'Platform 9 3/4'... except for being one bag short! I think I will emboss something in the last little triangle...

Tried a new idea with this and cut 20mm wide strips of a 6-7mm old foam hiking mattress and put the strips in the gap... saved a lot of time cleaning out the rail-checkrail gap. Worth it! 

SW end (of the 'station' is) DONE!

Well it took 4 bags, not 2+.  I made the end a little deeper as the track is about 40mm higher than the old concrete - which is the starting slope of the boat ramp fillet. I have kept the track level to the end of the new concrete. Now for the north eastern end...

Even more concrete...

Doesn't look much, but that is 8 bags, 160kg+water, of concrete. 

Getting tricky as the adjoining extant concrete starts to slope to the boat ramp.

Only about 2 bags to go... on this end anyway! The lawn watering will be re-buried along the edge of the new concrete. The sprinkler about 15cm to the left of where it sits in the pic.

The other sprinkler will be similarly placed inside the concrete curve at the other end.

Yet more concrete...