Kensington Hill tunnel mouth under construction

Saturday night was spent making a start on the tunnel mouth for Kensington Hill. This is a dual curving track as it enters the 'Hill' so I have to make sure the clearances are OK. I have decided to proceed with a modified Scalescenes plan. I will use a piece of 2mm balsa sheet for the tunnel front instead of 2mm cardboard just to give it a bit of strength. unsure whether this will work but I guess that is what this hobby is about - trying things new. An hour on Sunday afternoon was spent with Lachlan helping me with the tunnel lining. He was getting cabin fever with all the rain that we had so some quality time with Dad was in order (or by order from Mum!). I will hopefully finish the lining and front brickwork this week and start on the buttresses. If all goes to plan possibly placing it into position next weekend sometime. Time will tell if the plan comes off this week or next! Photos will follow once in position.

On a side note, I mentioned a few entries back that one of the club members had suggested using ant nest 'grit' (for want of an official term). Well last weekend and Saturday just gone, I collected a few bags from the back yard before the rain drenched everything. It is worth pointing out an observation that not all soils are the same from the one location! Soil from one part of the yard is darker than soil from another. The granularity is fortunately the same as the same species of ant seems to be doing the work in both locations. ONE THING THOUGH - some of the little fellas were caught in the big scoop up, so I have three mini ant farms in plastic sandwich bags! Lord knows how long it will take for them to die before I can use the soil! If someone has a humane way of killing them off I would like to hear it.