Friendship

It's easy to deduce from the frequency of postings that stagnation had settled on Morfa. Whilst in essence this was correct I had completed the woodwork for the staging sidings over the summer, a not hugely demanding shelf bracketed out from the layout edge behind the high ground of Barmouth and Abertafol. A half-hearted start had been made on the entry pointwork, a left, right and diamond combo. As a consequence of such indolence the layout itself had been co-opted to serve as shelf and storage, until an e-mail fixed up visits from friends on two successive weekends. For the first visit I concentrated on tidying up, all that should not have been on the layout was put away and the rails cleaned.

Unfortunately what had till then run reliably well, started to stutter and fail. I was disappointed and resolved to sort out as much as I could before the next weekend. Realising that temporarily tacked down track can't be properly fettled, I took to adjusting, sticking and ballasting the Abertafol curve. While the pva went off, the entry pointwork to the staging sidings was finished, gapped and had its tie bars fitted.

By the second weekend reliability returned along with my motivation. In the weeks since, the remaining staging siding points have been built and will be shortly fitted. very little of the temporary tracks remain, just a yard or so to the bridge and the bridge itself. Completion of the dull but necessary parts of the layout lie tantalisingly close. Better stop typing and start track laying.