Over the last couple of months, I have installed a lot of the xps foam between Doughboy Hollow and Ardglen and painted the backscene and ceiling “sky” blue.
The photo above shows the foam installed for the section where the New England Highway is just below the railway corridor and follows it up the grade towards Ardglen.
The roadway was formed by cutting out tapered strips of the foam at the same gradient as the railway and gluing down, following the curves I had previously marked out using some scrap pieces of thin foam, allowing it to bend and find natural easements.
Once these were in place, extra foam was glued down to build up the embankment between the road and railway. This will be carved to shape later, as will the rest you see above the railway line.
In the photo above, this shows the future hill behind the line that leads into the ballast quarry. On the right of the photo, there will be a level crossing, and in the foreground, another low hill. I won’t install the foam here until painting and ballasting of the track is complete so access is easier.
The photo above shows the foam in place for the embankment coming around the curve into Ardglen.
Timber risers have been installed to support future foam installation for the hills in front and behind the line leading into Ardglen.
As I was installing the foam in front of the track where the ballast siding is, I nearly forgot that there will be a couple of lever frames here to operate two turnouts. So after some quick designing, some recessed boxes were built into the benchwork to house these future lever frames.
The cutout in the benchwork for the first lever frame box.
The box is constructed from 9mm ply. The base/floor is removeable to allow for the installation of the lever frame later. The large scale “throw-over ball type” lever can be seen.
The box has been painted with the same matt black as I have used on the fascia. There will be a corresponding cutout in the fascia here when it is installed later.
There will be a second lever frame here in the right hand side box.
Another lever of the same type will be installed here for the catchpoints protecting the mainline from the ballast sidings.
This is the type of single lever that will be installed at the above locations. It will be made to a similar scale to that of the Kankool signal box frame.
The next jobs planned are to carry out some more ballasting between Doughboy Hollow and Ardglen where the track currently ends. I have also commenced work on some more turnouts for Ardglen with the aim to install these so I can lay more tangent track through Ardglen and through the tunnel. Carving of the scenery foam will also take place.
Liverpool Range 