Monday, Mar 26, 2012
High Res. – click to enlarge
Garratt at work
My Garratt is working.
You can tell from its rusty and dirty appearance.
High Res. – click to enlarge
It has even got its own driver now.
Sunday, Mar 18, 2012
The Garratt, again
My 0-4-0+0+4-0 Garratt is nearly finished: look!
Factory finish – it looks beautiful, if not realistic!
It doesn’t have the cab roof in place, or a crew inside, but other than that it’s looking good ….
The “bow” pen arrived this week, (specially imported from Haff pens in Germany!) so I could at last do the lining – red and white lines, which “bring out” the shapes of the bunker and water tank, and certainly improves the overall appearance. Two pictures at High Resolution (Click on the picture to enlarge it):
However I will now be going to “weather” the locomotive. I haven’t yet seen a picture of the actual loco. that didn’t show it seriously dirty and covered in coal dust, etc. I’m going for realism (and it covers some of the mistakes that I have made!).All to be published in the Scale Seven magazine ….
Saturday, Mar 03, 2012
Cricket, etc
It has been amazingly wet here recently.
I’m sitting at home whilst I should be watching our Ninth Grade side in their Grand Final: the ground was almost flooded. We have had so much rain that the Nepean river is flooded. Nick and Andrew’s school was closed on Friday and will probably be closed on Monday. The school itself doesn’t get flooded, but access roads have standing water, and teachers or pupils living on the far side of the Nepean/Hawkesbury River simply cannot get to school.
Nick was due to be in two Grand Finals today, and neither will take place. It’s unlikely that even tomorrow conditions will be good enough to play.
The semi-finals were both great to watch. From a parents point of view the Under 16 Div1 final was perfect. Facing 138 to win, on a sodden field where runs were very hard to get, the opening pair made about 85 off 45 overs (out of 60). Then two wickets fell in quick succession, and the task was just looking as though it might prove to be quite tricky.
Nick goes in at Number 4, and announces his arrival by hitting their best bowler for three (no stroke had earned more than two runs in the first 45 overs!), and immediately increased the run-rate to about 5 per over. He hit the winning runs with plenty of overs to spare. Just the innings that his side needed, and wonderful to watch as he systematically demolished the opposition attack. The ninth Grade Semi-Final was exciting and very different. Played on a sodden pitch with long grass, scores were low. GBCC Ninth Grade were all out for 127 off 77 overs. At the end of the first day they had the opposition at 4/15 off ten overs. By a few overs into the second day, two more wickets had fallen, but after that no more for too long ….
At 6/115 we looked lost.
However Big Willie (centre of the front row in the picture) never gave up, rallied the troops, and they were all out for 122.
This was not a match for the Coulsheds to “write home” about (” ‘blog proudly”?). David was on the sidelines, and Nick scored a duck and bowled only one over because of his very sore shoulder. However it was a great match to watch.
We might reach the dizzy heights of Eighth Grade next year – or will we form another Ninth Grade side with some new hopeless recruits?