The void increases

Well a week has gone since the start of the layout dismantling.  Ever the optimist I hoped all would be smooth sailing, but seems the layout was happy and wanted to stay as it was in some sections or more like some areas in the sections.

I had hopped that the dismantling would be fairly easy, and go smoothly, to date I would say its a bit of a 50/50 event that way, often a solitary hidden screw would cause a bit of frustration trying to find it by breaking up the scenes area, with the plaster having filled up the heads and time to scratch out the stuff. Some notations have been made that will mean a change in the method and location of where screws will be used in the rebuild.  The down side in a sense of this is that much of the scenery has broken up and had to be put in the bin, meaning some renewals in the future.

I missed taking initial photo's of the dismantling but there are photo's in previous blogs that will show how things were and how they stand as of today, my hope is that the whole layout bench work will be dismantled fully in 4 days as there is only 4 sections to go.

Photo 1 looking from Akuna down to where the Moblayne depot was, now its stand against the wall with the underside showing. The right hand wall is where the staging yard and a down approach to Akuna was

 Photo 2 looking from the same position as 1 with what was left of Akuna at the top and the double approach road underneath.  The right track comes directly down from Jacks Creek on the right through the tunnel portal into what is the down arrival staging yard. The left or outer track comes from the Up staging yard and goes direct to Moblayne via the bridge near the entry door

 Photo 3 looking from the other end of photo 2

 Photo 4 shows Jacks Creek with part rear removed and ready for removal.

 Photo 4 the backdrop wall is gone so is trackwork over the join that can be just seen, the black wire making a defiant stand before removal.

 Photo 6,  Jacks Creek is now gone

Photo 7, looking over Nulla Mountain saw mill prior to its removal today.

As I work and sections removed I continue with thinking of ideas relative to the future, while trying to visualise the future I tried to imagine how things might look without the large partition that seperated Nulla and Jacks creek, also provided a blocking of the view through to Akuna. Doing that was to try and separate the areas in the visual sense.  Looking over it I tried to think HO scale rather than just for the layout but also for the operator and imagined passengers on a train and train crews as to what they might see as they looked out over the journey.

Withe camera position just to the inside of the track that went down from Nulla to Jacks Ck, I aimed it across and towards the up end of Akuna.  The level that Akuna sits on is at the lower part of the backdrop painted board and partly covered by dismantled baseboards. During the pull down of the Mill area the low profile scenery was damaged enough that meant it going in the bin, meaning when renewed I will not have the partition as before but will have the scenery formation made up approximately 40mm higher, so that when looked at from the same eye level as the photo, the Akuna backdrop should provide something of depth to it.

Vision - Void & return

Essence started out as a Vision, which had no name associated with the layout at the beginning. The idea of a layout was only ever something that was a dream that developed into a vision, it became a reality only when we moved back to Sydney's west end of 1999.  It took near on 10 years in an early development that had to be fitted into rebuilt half a knock down asbestos garage of 6 x 6m.  In the end it barely worked but the shift to Wadalba the vision grew, and from there the new train room was formed out of another garage of the same size but it meant the room would be able to go to what my vision really had in mind.

From what was a void, of nothing, except the track and some items brought from Shalvey that I thought could be used to fill that garage from an void or empty space into the vision that I had. Largely that vision was attained but not to the success that I had hoped for. Thing was that being what in reality was a big leap forward into so many new areas for me, such as scratch building items that came out of memories such as the old Chargemans office at Werris Creek and other items, were challenges and many completed successfully while others? some have gone but will be replaced with new builds.

The planning for the future Essence has started so all things being equal it will return but when is another matter. With the house now on the market and some interest so far, its only been a bit over a week now, and sales up here are not bad but not like Sydney though, and the agents confident of a sale in not a long time frame, has meant a lot of ideas for Essence has been all but put back to the void status while house items and the like have taken precedence for sorting and packing up.

As for the layout I had been progressively packing up all the R/S, loco's and other moveable items as time permitted, with 99% of such items packed and moved out, over the last weekend I have made the tentative steps of dismantling the track and framework, a time of mixed emotions and very much a new round of learning.  As Essence was built up, I tried to plan as much as possible to have the whole layout to be in a type of module construction that was able to be dismantled without a lot of problems should anything happen to me. Was that a success? The answer, yes and no.

When confronted with the start, I went around the layout, checking out each area to work out where to start, the bridge was first to be removed, an easy choice, then the return section under Moblayne at the end of the staging yards, that allowed for a continuous run. This provided the earliest of challenges owing to the removal of screws, that suddenly were not as conveniently located as I had though. With that taking half a day, so what next?

As I needed space for any sections pulled down to stored upright, I took to the largest one piece section, a full 1220 x 2440nn 12mm ply board that the roundhouse and that end of Moblaynes yard and station. This took a fair bit of work just to get it seperated from the next section, being the same size but angled at one end towards the entry door. The depot end finally came down on Monday 10th.  This removal actually showed up how much amiss I had been with the design as I had thought that the various board and track layouts would both work wonderfully in alignments, that is a rail join perfectly situated over the joins in the base boards. Yeah Right!!. Rather than being a work of ease, I had a lot of breaking up of ballast, scenery and taking some track up, that I had hopped would not happen.

With lessons learnt (up to that point) Tues-Wednesday,11/12/04, had me take down all the staging yard and 2 sections of the incline from Moblayne up towards Akuna. There is now just one 2440x450mm wide section to come down, from the there and a full wall of 2 levels will be completed.

None of this work has been done without a lot of thinking about the void that will be created and what then to the return of Essence. The reality is that at our next home the room to house the layout while hopping it will be of the same or similar size such things as where the entry will be, means that Essence will have to more than likely have some changes to the layout plan. Initially I was thinking of it being less than it is now, something initially of dread was my thinking.

However, as the knock down progressed with care, my mind was also active in looking ahead, as each section came down, I had to break up much of the scenery and other items to get at hidden screws, the thought of this unplanned for damage weighed on me a bit, but as I plodded I started to see other visions that can see changes in the future that will add to what old Essence did not have. A wide section where I had to gouge out plaster and static grasses, is the perfect spot to have a watercourse flow through and under the track with a low level pier bridge.  Much easier perhaps than redoing the removed plaster.

The demolition is sad but out of the possible sorrow there comes the reality of a new vision, to see the empty void filled once again.  Over the next week I will be taking some photo's of what has happened so far, and I know I should have tried to take them at each stage. It's likely going to be 12 months at the least before the new abode will be moved into, so a lot of dreaming and planning will be going on.