Down on Beaverbrook: Off the beaten track…

I’ve been enjoying evenings of meditation this week, spending some quality mental time ballasting the last section of track on Beaverbrook…

‘Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap’ as I gently encourage small piles of fine grey ballast to deposit just where I have hoped, years of similar practice evident in the subtle movement of my fingers and wrist.

Then follows the model equivalent of tamping as a retired but still quality brush, a familiar tool in my now middle aged hands dancing between the ties, in a similar but not repetitive motion, arranging stray grains and piles alike leaving behind a neatly varied flat and tidy arrangement ready for securing in place with dilute matt medium.

This is a process to be enjoyed, not rushed nor merely tolerated. Through silence, quiet country or rousing rock music accompaniment the nightly dedication pays off as slowly visible progress is made alongside the less obvious calming effect it has on my mind.

I hear others describe frustration, anger, anxiety and more in relation to the same task, and I’m not suggesting that we all find the same elements of this hobby in the same way. That said, you don’t reach this point of practice without hard work and dedication along the way. The simple act of ballasting has become a ritual for me, and one that I miss when the trackwork is complete. A layout progress milestone, one that gives the opportunity for different practices, but a melancholic moment of reflection that the job is done and it can no longer offer the same head space that it once gave freely.

I’m really pleased with how this section of the layout is beginning to look, the variation in track weight, the varying height of the road, the former main and the spur across in section and along in length adding a believable (and intentional) undulation in model form. Until next time, more soon…

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