December 2025

Merry Christmas to everyone.

The last month has been pretty quiet. Marie has put in an incredible amount of effort decorating the house, and everything looks fantastic.

Christine finally finished her fall term on December 17, about a week later than expected. Unorganized really doesn’t describe her school./profs.

Daniel arrived December 16. He had spent the previous week in Germany and Italy for business. He had a day and a half back in Austin before heading to Calgary. By his count, he visited 25 countries this year.

Nicholas and Jill are due to arrive the evening of December 24. We are really looking forward to having everyone home for a week.

The Railway

All the bench work prep, before my surgery, has paid off with some good progress. Laying track has proven to be good recovery therapy.

The left end of Oulton yard has been rebuilt to decrease congestion and give more space. I am much happier with the way this now looks. (Photos 1, 2 & 3 below)

Track power wiring has been delayed for a couple reasons. I am waiting for a power management module, ordered back in August. This will split the layout into 4 power districts. The intent is for each district to be electrically separate from the others, with a dedicated circuit breaker. The result is that a short circuit will only affect one district, allowing the rest of the layout to still function. The other reason is that I didn’t want to be sitting on the floor, working above my head, while recovering from hernia surgery. Until wiring is complete, power is being provided by direct wiring to a track segment.

DCC wiring is relatively straightforward but does need care regarding power gaps. Trackwork has been laid with power breaks at each side of every turnout. This effectively limits locomotive travel to a single track, extending to the left end of Oulton yard. Testing new trackwork beyond this point is limited to a locomotive pushing a string of cars through the electrically “dead” areas.

I have now build a half dozen turnouts and each one continues to be a learning experience. I was very careful laying each turnout, carefully checking gauge tolerance and dimensions. I was therefore surprised that pushing a string of cars through the rebuild left end of Oulton yard found several derailment prone spots. Several hours with a track gauge eventually found the problems, allowing gauge to be a djusted within tolerance. Things appear okay now but further testing will have to wait until track wiring is complete.

Photo 1 - Not a great picture, but this photo shows the original layout at the left end of Oulton yard. The paper template represents the turnout position for the Oulton industrial area. It is effectively back to back with the left end of Oulton yard.

Photo 2 - The new trackwork at the left end of Oulton yard.

Photo 3 - A view looking right towards Oulton yard. The back-to-back turnouts are now separated by 22” of straight track.

Photo 4 - The new turnout separating the mainline from the Oulton industrial area

Photo 5 - The new turnout leading into the Oulton industrial area

Photo 6 - Laying track into the Oulton industrial area

I had an mental picture of how I wanted the Oulton industrial area to be laid out. This is the area to the far left of the Oulton yard, butting up against the workshop barn doors. I had previously figured out the planned structures would fit but nothing works like real life. The proposed structure kits were roughly taped together and set on the layout to verify location and spacing. The test showed it was better if the track was shifted a couple centimeters towards the front of the layout.

The structures in back (Photo 1 below) are the Pikestuff M.A.C. Milton Feed Mill and the Diamond Industrial Works. These structures will represent a feed mill or cereal manufactering complex.

The structures in the front (Photo 1 below) are the Walther’s Magin Pan Baking kit. I want to make this into a pet food manufacturing complex, very loosely modelled after the real Champions Pet Foods in Barrhead. Champion has another, and much larger, plant, about 15 minutes north of Mornville. Ideas from both of the actual buildings will be used to detail out this area.

Magic Factory A-4N Skyhawks

The kit’s parts, previously scattered around various locations of the workshop, were collected and put into a single spot, ready for work to resume. Look for this to resume in January.

Airfix 1/24 Spitfire

Weathering began last month with an overall oil wash. Time to represent more specific weathering.

Spitfires were notorious oil leakers. Oil leaks streaking back from the engine ranged from minor, to so dirty the underside turned black, The only picture I have of this plane shows the upper rear fuselage, and suggests the plane, despite being a year old, was kept relatively clean. Pictures of other Canadian Spitfires also suggests the planes were generally kept fairly clean. Some oil staining on the underside, and general wear and tear on the wings and cockpit, from handling and maintenance, will be the goal.

The uppper wings would accumulate dirt and oil from crews servicing the guns, fueling the plane, and accessing the cockpit. British airfields were typically grass, so it would be natural for dirty boots to track mud and dust onto the wings. This was represented using brown oil dots, applied directly to the wing areas, then scrubbed into the paint with a Q-Tip. The result is a subtle, soft, uneven brown tint to the painted surfaces. Photo 2 shows the effect, most noticeable on either side of the cockpit and towards the forward sections of the wing.

Underside oil stains was modelled in 2 steps. The first used brown and grey oil dot filters, applied directly to the paint, then scrubbed in with a Q-Tip. The intent was to represent a base coat of grime and oil. This was allowed to dry for a couple days before the second step to create more specific oil stains. Small oil dots were applied at the start of a leak, then pulled backward using a brush, just damp with thinner. The paint was allowed to dry a couple days before further staining was applied, using the same technique. I am tempted to add even more staining than shown in Photo 3 below, but will stop after two rounds. While there are pictures showing Spitfires with almost black underbellies, I go back to the one picture I have found which suggests the plane was well maintained. My assumption is that ground crews had time to wipe the underbelly, limiting the amount of oil staining.

Photo 1 - Starting to model the oil stains

Photo 2 - Applying oil dot filters to represent dirt

Photo 3 - More oil staining added.

With oil staining complete, the pigments were pulled out. Various pigment colours were applied around the airframe to represent dirt and gunpowder stains.

Finally, a black weathering pencil was used to add some minor oil streaking on the underside. A silver pencil was used to represent chipped paint at various locations, concentrating on the engine area, around the gun panels, and around the cockpit.

And with that the weathering is done. I will give it a few days and then go back to see if there any other areas that need further weathering.

Time to add the small bits. The prop back plate and prop was pushed into place, and the main gear doors were added. The masking was removed from the clear parts, and the main canopy was set into place.

Here are a couple photos to close out this month’s post, showing the nearly complete model.

Weathering almost finished

Weathering almost finished

That’s it for another post. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Stay warm and be safe.