Green Green Grass of Home

Saturday dawned, or hadn't by much, when I got out of bed and collected my stuff and headed off to the club. I wanted to get a good early start to get as much scenicing done before the train drivers started pushing for access to the tracks.

First order of the day was of course coffee, then dirt. I needed to cover all those putty piles I made on Wednesday. So it was out with the container of dusty dirt and a pile of 50/50 white glue (50% Aquadhere and 50% water plus a few drops of washing up detergent). I used a 25 mm brush to slap on a coat of this 50/50 and then sprinkled on a liberal amount of dirt until the glue didn't wick up any longer - nothing like a good base to work with.

Next I got out the Woodland Scenics Fine Turfs (ground foams). I used splotches of the Yellow Grass as a base. This I put on heavy here and there, mainly on top of the mounds. Then came the JTT Fine Turf coloured as Burnt Grass. This is slightly more bright green than the Woodland Scenics Burnt Grass. So the JTT went on a little over the yellow and then around the gaps, but not super heavy. After the JTT I got the Woodland Scenics Burnt Grass out and covered the gaps but making sure the dirt showed just a tad every now and then. Next just a tiny amount here and there, but particularly near or in ditches and gullies, I used the Woodland Scenics Green Grass and then the Woodland Scenics Weeds fine turfs. I think this combination works relatively well - but there are a million combinations you can do, I just happen to like this one.

So I was able to finish the "turfing" by about 11:30 am after about 4 hours of work, and talking, and drinking coffee, and talking.

Next order of the day was to get some trains out and run trains!

I had just taken receipt of a few new items of HO rolling stock and N scale of course. So the HO loco, a nice new EMD GP15 in Missouri Pacific colours, got a programming on the DCC test track, as did the 3 N scale Atlas EMD GP40's in Canadian Nations red/black striped livery.

But today was HO play day, so the new Walthers loco went on the track followed with a half dozen tankers, the new Walthers MKT liveried Type 21 ACF 10,000 Gallon Tank Car being the prime car for today. The Walthers loco is from their Mainline series and also can be gotten with a Tsunami sound decoder. So I got the sound version. Now do remember, this is not a fully functional Tsunami sound decoder you might be familiar with, it has cut back features. There is a bell, engine sounds (revs up and down of course) short and long horn toots and three light functions. It does all I want, so I am happy. pulling power was sufficient and response pretty good. So I whacked in a great heap of momentum, and shunted away.

I then also dug out the Broadway Limited little SW1500 in MKT colours I got some time back and played hauling a short rake of coal wagons around the place.

So all up a great day was had.

Oh and Peter A is now back from his OS trip as well and he was busy with the river scene with all the bridges.