Friday, January 27
8:10 am
It is -6 °C, with a high forecast of 0 °C.
From the Environment Canada website:
Today Clearing early this morning. Wind becoming west 40 km/h gusting to 60 early this morning then increasing to 60 gusting to 80 this afternoon. High zero.
Tonight Clear. Wind west 60 km/h gusting to 80 diminishing to 40 gusting to 60 this evening. Temperature steady near minus 3.
Normals: Max. -1 °C Min. -13 °C.
5:00 PM Cooking
We had our chorizo sausage dinner this evening. This involves combining 2 or 3 chorizo sausages with a sauteed onion and a red and green sweet pepper, plus a jar of tomato sauce.
Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and we have a delicious meal.
7:30 PM Model Trains
Much of today has been spent laying ballast on my inner mainline track. Both the Inner Mainline and the Inner Reversing Loop are now ballasted. I have also superelevated all of the curves for the inner mainline. It took almost 2 hours to get one of the curves working properly (i.e. a locomotive to go around the bend without derailing). This turns out to be very tricky as the difference in the elevation between a spot where it derails and where it then doesn't seems to be less than 1/8 ".
Here is a photo of CN 1720 rounding the superelevated curve on the inner mainline. This was taken before the ballast was added. You can see how the track bed has been raised on the outer side by placing a wire (diameter about 1/8") under the bed.
Every little improvement helps the overall impression of this being a "real" railway.