Sunday 21 June 2015

Shed Clean Up

No more walls and ceiling.

Well, after the move of the layout a few weeks ago I have been busy pulling down the MDF on the calls and the 9mm ply from the ceiling.

Today marks the day that all the walls and ceiling is now done and the steel to hold the ceiling in place is also now down and ready to move.

Now I need to just clean up and move the MDF, ply and steel plus a number of piles of R6 insulation that came out of the ceiling.

I will take some pictures and update shortly.

Then, I will have to start planning the next layout. I will more than likely start a whole new blog for the new layout so I will post a link to the new blog once it is up. and running.

In the mean time, we move of the house in 4 weeks time and then off on our holiday with the kids for 10 weeks as we drive around Australia....

Stay tuned..!

Monday 8 June 2015

The End for D&H Version 3

Good bye old friend. It has been fun!

Well, today marks the last day of the D&H Champlain division.

It took Chris and I around 12 hours today to complete the disassemble of the layout and move it around to his shed.

I had already done a heap of prep work in readiness for the day but there was a heap to do today.

Here are a few of the progress pictures.













The last part of moving the walls was the most challenging. In the end we cut them in half and moves 2.5 meter sections.

The layout now fills Chris's shed and it will be a huge game of chess to get it all back in the right place.

I have really enjoyed building this layout and I have learnt a heap of thing to do on the next one and the things not to do.

I will probably start a whole new blog for the next layout and keep this one for them old one so we can compare the old and the new.

Thanks to all those that came and run on the layout and enjoyed it as much as I have.

Now onto planning for the next one.

Till then.. Have fun....

Tuesday 2 June 2015

Decomission Continues

More destruction - gently.

Time is marching on and the layout needs to be out of the shed by the end of June.

I have removed the fascia, valance, electronics and now Willsboro is free of the wall and on the floor.
Also the Pt Anne section is also down..

Once these sections were out, I removed the section of the staging approach that was under the Pt Douglas to Willsboro towns. This has enabled the wall cladding to be removed in readiness for the studs to be removed so the layout can actually come out of the shed.

See below for a few pictures of the mess..



More pictures to follow.

Chris and I have a big day planned for next Monday where we hope to move a number of sections to his place. Stay tuned..



Friday 15 May 2015

Decommissioning has started

Get the gas axe out. Time to decommission.

A few weeks ago I started to decommission the layout..
The first task was to remove all the rolling stock... All 500+ pieces of it.. Boy that was a big job..

Then I removed the fascia and started on the electronics as Chris is going to use a different system so the electronics will stay with me..

Here are a few progress pictures.










Nex the valance from the roof needs to come down.. Then by that time Chris will have his shed ready for the move..

Saturday 18 April 2015

All good things must come to an end!

Time to change things up a bit.

As announced to my local crew, my wife and I have made the decision to sell the house and build a new house in Sunbury. This all means that this will impact the D&H Champlain Division.

The layout must be dismantled and moved.. The new house will have a 3 car garage and 2 of the car bays will be sectioned off to then form the new Railroad room.
The new room will be 6m x 6m, where as the current room is 6m x 7.5m, so this is a down size but only by 1.5m in length.

Today we had the last session on the D&H Champlain division (version 3 as I call it).

We had a good turnout with Rod, Ron, Greg, Bill, Graham, Chris Elliot, Chris Cochrane, and Gordon a visitor from the USA that is here in Australia for the recent N scale convention held in Brisbane.

Here are a few pictures from the day.





























A great afternoon was had by all and the layout ran with out issue (apart from a run away bunch of cars back down the hill to South staging and ended in a roll over of a few cars at great speed. Fortunately, there was no damage.

As part of the afternoon there was breaking news. The news bulletin read as follows:

Breaking news

Saturday 18th April 2015

Following  the recent shock decision by the Delaware &Hudson (D&H) management to abandon their  entire right of way of the Champlain division, Burlington Northern (BN) approached the Surface Transportation Board (STB) with the view of acquiring the entire division. Following days of intense negotiation between D&H, BN, STB and various other stake holders we are pleased to announce that the STB has no objections to the acquisition. The BN management completed their due diligence whilst travelling over the Champlain  division in a BN observation car which was attached to the rear of the Laurentian on Saturday 18th April 2015, some keen observers may have noticed this unusual consist.
The BN will acquire the entire right of way and will work closely with D&H and their online customers to ensure continuity of service during the acquisition process. Current freight contracts will be honoured as is until their nominal expiry date. The D&H office located in Jackson’s Hill South will close in late June and all operations will then be transferred to the BN office located in Jackson’s Hill North. The STB has been given assurances that due to the local nature of the move job losses will be minimal and  given what would be the disastrous effect on the local businesses and economy.

The D&H management team would like thanks all past and present employees and contractors for their support and look forward to the next incarnation of the D&H in Jacksons Hill South.
 
Yep, you read it right.. The layout, as it stands will be lifted and shifted about 2KM away to my good friend Chris Elliot's new shed and be converted to a BN layout.. So all my hard work and toil is not in vein and I will then build a new layout, from scratch in the new house.. A great outcome for all due to the size restrictions of the new Railroad room..
I will take some more video in the coming few days and more pictures before the dis assembly begins.
 
Thanks for visiting and stay tuned.