Essence

A quick update on the scenery & redo of the short section between Coxes Gully & Nullo, with the addition of raised facia, embankment grassing & some trees/brushes I am happy with the way its turned out, problem is the weather being windy & rain affected has blown a lot of leafs on the track, hardly noticeable with the naked eye but gee the camera has picked it up.

The photo's are taken pretty well at the same spots as the post on 18th April, so some comparisons can be made.

For me much of the work is slow but until the surgery is done things will be getting slower around the layout though.

Looking from Nullo down the grade to Coxes.

Mid way down the grade, following wind storm, just as well I didn't put in any umbrella grasses

Looking towards, Coxes station with main & loop, yard to the right





 

Looking from Coxes toward Nullo.

 

 

A pet dislike of mine is having Kadee couplers on the front of loco's that did not have them in regular service, & only had hooks, had me thinking towards finding a way to keep the hook & still shunt wagons on the loco end.  My thoughts went to the old shunters match trucks prior to the many conversions, which in the main were any available S wagon, sometimes they were wagons condemned for main line working or restricted as they waited on works attention.

The above photo shows a TOR 32cl with an experimental S wagon attached to the front, & ready to do some shunting at Coxes Stock handling facilities, gotta get the wagons in to get the sleeping stock up & out.

I have done a bit of adjustment on an old Euro type coupler that came as spare in an Austrains 36cl, by cutting away much of the plastic part that holds the D type metal outer coupling ring in a fairly horizontal position, allows the link to droop a little, but not enough to hold it onto the hook on the engine.

I then bent the ring downwards, which means I have to lift the ring to drop over the hook & that sits nicely in place.  With careful shunting & pushing the wagon, the ring ends up being pushed up & off the hook & onto the buffer beam, but with the bend in it, when eased back the link drops back onto the hook with no problems.

Initial tests have been ok, but I will need to have one located at both Coxes as well as at Akuna for the use of the shunting engine there off the school train, so some more experimenting is to take place,

If this ends up working, it will mean that if I am to run double headed steam, I will simply swap the kadee out for the modified Euro coupler for the assistant engine. Experiments continue.

The photo also shows the almost completed area of the stock handling yards which includes resting type facilities.