From Test Track to Spare Room Layout!

I'm sure that I am not the only person who is afflicted with the characteristic of starting off with a simple idea and quickly complicating it! After taking delivery of my Eureka 38, I soon tired of running it backwards and forwards along a length and a bit of flex track on my desk. And whilst I have a 7.2 x 7.2 metre garage down the yard, unpacking all of the unnecessary items since moving in around 6 months ago has been slow, and in the mean time I seem to have created an even bigger mess in there.

As well as having to clean up and make space, I have come to the realisation that no matter how much I hoped I wouldn't need to, the garage will need to be lined and eves installed to stop the atmosphere from entering the shed. Considering the roller doors are open maybe half a day a week, the amount of dirt and general air born objects that find there way inside is quite remarkable, and depressing. I can't imagine trying to keep a layout free of this muck, so realistically between unpacking the remaining boxes, fitting eves and lining the shed to some degree, it will unfortunately still be a while before Gunnedah begins.

However, the spare room has gradually returned to normal after being a half way room for stuff that needed to be in the house to be unpacked, but was yet to have somewhere to put it. Basically a queen sized bed, a sewing cabinet, my guitars and amplifiers (another hobby of mine) and some odds and sods is all that is now left in there. I have almost emptied the built in wardrobe which will will house my model making work bench which I am about to begin making, which will finally give me a permanent space with which to work on all the projects I have been gathering.

The built in wardrobe is about 55cm deep and around 140cm wide inside, and I had planned a simple test track on a level, with a couple of sets of points to simply test rolling stock on and make sure that all was well running wise. However it then occurred to me, that with the wall running adjacent to the wardrobe being an additional 3.3 metres long, I may be better running a length of track along that wall on a shelf. After all 3.3 metres is better than 1.4 metres at best, and while I'm at it I could ballast it, add some ground cover, a backdrop and a roof with some simple lighting to create a diorama effect.

So already I'd gone from a simple 140cm piece of track to a 330cm diorama in the space of a few hours. It the occured that if I was to cut a small hole in the door I could continue along the wall and curve into the wardrobe with the extra bit of length. That would give around 5 metres of running room which is not too bad for a test track.

But then I had a thought, why use just one wall? Overall the room is about 4.0 x 3.3 metres, and if I used the remaining 3.3 metres of the wall with the wardrobe at one end, then the 3.3 metres across the back wall and then the 4 metres back along the other wall, I'd have a bit over 10 metres of running track excluding what's in the wardrobe. Certainly not the biggest run, but with a few sets of points at each end to make a couple of roads, I could actually operate it in a point to point fashion with some shunting around at each end.

So now I'm looking at an around the wall shelf style point to point diorama, with the layout being only about 15cm deep along the longer walls and maybe 20cm deep across the back wall which would be above the head of the bed. I can easily use around 750mm radius curves as they do not protrude that much into the room space, and being at the end of each side of the bed, it's an area not really used anyway.

So I began drawing some planes of how the track would look, with a single line joining two small country style locations with things like a loading bank, goods shed, cattle ramp etc. With a few sets of points and two or maybe even three tracks squeezed in it would actually allow for some quite complicated shunting manoeuvres taking place to get each wagon in its siding and then getting the train reassembled with the brake van at the end and heading back.

So there we go, from a simple test track to an around the room layout in the space of an hour or so. But wait, there's more!

With the available run between terminals, if I ran up a grade from the wardrobe side to the opposite side, and then had another branch running back towards the other side, but also running up a grade, I could have the short side of the room double decked, giving two separate scenes one above the other, and in effect now giving me three terminals. So the train would be assembled at terminal A, continue around to terminal B where some wagons would be spotted into sidings, the brake van swapped to the other end of the remaining wagons, and then the train would continue on to terminal C sitting directly above terminal A. Using this style I could replicate some of those small country style locations where a branch line runs off in another direction. So although the actual layout depth is narrow, the potential operational interest would be huge.

I've added a simple track plan to show the type of thing I'm looking into, with the left hand side showing the upper and lower level next to each other (top on the far left) and the top left representing the wardrobe branch. I'm actually going through some of the NSW country locations where simple two track plans were in existence with things like a livestock ramp, goods shed, loading bank, small platform etc, so that I can model something that actually existed.

I've already gone to buy some wall brackets and have begun setting the levels around the room, and hopefully over the next few weeks I'll be able to get going on it.

So once again, I've managed to turn a simple idea into another rather large project.

We Never Knew What Friends We Had

To paraphrase a Billy Joel song (Leningrad), "we never knew what friends we had" is a very appropriate phrase for me at the moment.

Apart from some technology failure of late (my computer had a hard drive failure) it's usually my failure to keep up with things. I have a g-mail e-mail account which I think I needed to start this blog, but of course did I bother to check it occasionally? Well why would I, I didn't give it to anyone, so you could imagine my surprise when in checking it the other day there were quite a few e-mails in the inbox.

Obviously a few people read my blog, because in my inbox was an e-mail with a plan for the aforementioned E Wagon needed to build the bogie milk tanker BMT 1, and an offer to lend me some 35mm negatives from pictures taken at Hawkesbury River Station and surrounds in 1966.

Now the E Wagon plan was brilliant, and greatly appreciated, but the offer of a complete stranger to send me their forty three year old negatives for me to look at and get prints made up of if I wanted was quite humbling. These are things that cannot be replaced, and whilst not having great monetary value, are priceless in my eyes.

After getting sixty odd photos developed I was completely gobsmacked at the information I now had that would not likely have been available anywhere else. The station, refuge roads, water tank, level crossing, various sheds, sidings, and the coal stage that no longer exist to name but a few, in detail from many angles, some of which would have you prosecuted these days, all in beautiful black and white with crisp details, and showing things that no simple diagrams or plans could reveal. The picture of the warning sign on the coal stage is a classic example, and something I hope to duplicate when I build a model of it.

The thing is, that these things I asked for have come from people I've not yet met, and may not ever meet, who don't know me from a bar of soap, and yet through this wonderful hobby we share have felt compelled to share the information they have for no other reason than to help me try to realise my dream of recreating these things in miniature.

So while I have highlighted only two recent cases above, to anyone who has sent me anything, shared information, imparted wisdom or simply shared their opinions, thank you, friends.

Something Finally Arrives!!!

In this age of often pre-ordering the trains we want to buy rather than simply buying them once they appear in the shops, we sometimes find ourselves enduring quite a wait for these models. This is not to say that the people organising for these models to be built are to blame, as there seem to be some rather difficult challenges at the factories to deal with, where production slots are hard to get, any corrections add months to the production schedule and component supplies are not always available.

Of course there is usually a financial plus in pre-ordering, with a decent discount usually offered, you're certain to get the model you want before it sells out, and in some cases it helps to budget by having most of your money tied up in items you really want as opposed to randomly buying things as they appear only to find something else come out immediately after that you'd rather have bought but now can't afford!

It also has the effect of one sometimes thinking "gee I haven't bought a train for a while", when in fact the reality is more like "I haven't had a train delivered for a while". As of last Sunday, the "I haven't had a train delivered for a while" list included 1 x 38 class, 1 x 48 Class, 1 x 422 Class, 1 x 81 Class and 2 x 40 Class locomotives.

However that "I haven't had a train delivered for a while" feeling has been temporarily pushed aside with the delivery of a black Eureka Streamlined 38 class numbered 3803. My dear wife bought this for me as a surprise birthday present, two birthdays ago! Of course the 38 has had a few more delays than what is probably normal, but none the less it is finally here.

So armed with a metre and a half of track and a Powercab it was removed from the box and placed on the track. After the obligatory photo session (where I take about a hundred photos and find about ten are pretty good!) it was time for some shunting back and forth.

The default sound volume is like being strapped to the side of the real thing, so probably a bit too loud for my taste where I prefer to just hear them when they are in front of me. That's my personal preference of course, but I was glad when I figured out how to turn it down, with some help from my Aus_Model_Rail mates, thanks guys.

Running qualities are very good, with it smoothly starting at a crawl and accelerating gently away, and then slowing again to a crawl before stopping. I didn't test its haulage capacity because, well, how much rolling stock can you fit on a metre of track!

In any case, it was nice to have a new toy, and it has definitely ramped up my enthusiasm to get something done so I have a bit more room to run trains, or at the very least a decent module with some scenery to photograph some models on.

Brake Van Modifications Begin

With the era I'm modelling, brake vans were a must at the tail end of any goods train, so I will need quite few on the roster.

Now Trainorama have (or had) some beautiful brake vans that suit my era perfectly, however I was too late getting back into things to buy them before they sold out, grey OHG's in particular.

However as luck would have it, they have some MHG and PHG brake vans coming in 2010 which will fit the bill nicely. Highly detailed, very well painted, and basically need just a little weathering and they are right to go. As much as that's easy, it doesn't really give you that sense of satisfaction you get from doing something yourself.

About twenty odd years ago, Trax (now Powerline) brought out a model of the NSWGR MHG brake van. In its day, being made to suit the toy market and modeller alike, it was not a bad model at all. Drop the height, add some decent bogies, Kadee's and a bit of weathering and if you were keen some metal handrails and it made up into not a bad model at all.

They pop up on E-bay occasionally, and if you are lucky you can score one for around $15.00-$20.00, although I have also seen people get keen and bid up to $50.00+ for a standard one and $60.00+++ for a modified one. To me $15-$20 is top dollar for one, and I was lucky enough to pick up three in this price range over the past few months.

Today, armed with a little enthusiasm after visiting the AMRA Liverpool exhibition yesterday I thought I might make a start on doing the necessary modifications to bring them up to (or as close as I can manage) today's RTR standards.

The main body of the MHG is pretty good, however the door and louvred panel on one side is transposed. So armed with a very sharp and fine scalpel blade set I bought at Bunnings after seeing Ray Pilgrim advocate the use of them ( http://bylong.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-found-new-tool.html ), ironically for exactly the same job!

Cutting out the door and louvred panel took only a few minutes, with the very fine blade removing literally only the space between door, louvred panel and body without any of the actual panel or door material which is very handy.

I have also removed the sliding door section, as a feature of these vans was sometimes running with the doors open. Of course this will mean adding some degree of interior detail, but that just gives me something else to do to test out my modelling skills.

Apart from removing the doors, and doing a bit of removing some of the moulded glass sections of the one piece moulded insert, I didn't get much more done today. So still to go is refitting the single door and louvred section, installing the sliding door in an open position, and then drilling the body for metal handrails, lowering the bogie bolsters, fitting some underfloor details, Kadee's, and possibly fitting full height better detailed roof vents.

In any case it's just another project to undertake for the simple enjoyment of it, and depending on how well this first one comes up will depend on whether I undertake the same mods on the other two. If my skills mean that my modified MHG falls way short of the coming RTR version, I may just admit defeat, E-bay the other two and happily purchase some RTR ones, although I think as long as my modified ones look ok, I'd get more enjoyment out of watching them running around than something that I simply purchased.

2009 AMRA Liverpool Exhibition

I spent a few hours at the 2009 AMRA Liverpool Model Railway Exhibition on Saturday. Like most exhibitions there is the good the bad and the ugly, however by direct comparison to last years exhibition at Hurstville this was a big improvement.

Better venue, more space in the main hall, nowhere near as hot, better quality and variety of layouts, better trade stands that you could more easily access, and overall I left with the impression of it being a very good exhibition.

One gripe I have, which is in no way the fault of the organisers, is the utter contempt of some people, who feel the need to gather either in front of the layouts or in the isles, and carry on in depth conversations whilt being totally oblivious to anyone around them trying to see the layouts or simply walk past. It's something I've seen at all exhibitions but still never ceases to amaze me.

On the positive side, there were some good specials on hand for those lucky enough to spot them or simply be there before they disappeared. I bought a set of On Track Models GLX Louvre Vans, fearing that they will run out before I get around to buying some, I got a set of 2AE bogies for my BMT 1 Milk Tanker project, five "Railway Album" books by the NSW Transport Museum for $5.00 each which feature some great photographs of early diesel late steam action in NSW which is what I'm modelling, a lazy mans screw pin vice to save twirling the fingers when drilling fine holes in things, but the best and most unexpected score was a brand new Tuscan (or Indian - the debate rages on) Red Trainorama 44 Class numbered 4498 for $150.00 (rrp $245.00).

One of the highlights for me was the superb "Stringybark Creek" O Gauge layout featuring some fine NSWGR steam and diesel rolling stock, and was probably the first large scale layout I have seen in the flesh which actually did justice to the detail you should be able to apply to this scale. If space and money was no issue then this opened my eyes to modelling in this scale.

"A Tractiv Effort", the successor to "Time and Patience" once again stood alone in presenting the most realistic "typically Australian" outer suburban scenes with exquisite houses (with gardens, sheds, and detail to die for), vacant blocks (with grazing chained up goat no less), service station, and even the infamous wheely bins (our garbage bins are big plastic bins on wheels). I would have spent more time looking at this layout than any other, and yet I doubt I could tell you much about the trains that were running through the scenery, so occupied was I with taking in all the little details which could be missed without taking the time to really look.

Kieran Ryan ( http://www.krmodels.com.au/ ) once again had his Silo's, Grain Sheds and detailing parts on display, and the big four bin Silo there was very impressive and a look towards the future when I get around to getting an SO41 and grain shed for Gunnedah yard.

I've added a few photos, out of the 160 odd I took these ones really speak to me, and although I'm a very average point and shoot photographer I think they came out ok.

Where does the time go?

It's been almost two months since my last update, so after being inspired by another Blogger (thanks Bob - http://southcoastrail.blogspot.com ) to get tapping on the keyboard again, I thought I'd bring the blog up to date with the latest goings on.

On the domestic front, I can begin to see some light at the end of the tunnel in as far as the non model railway work slowly dropping off around the house. Once again any actual modelling has been scarce lately but I have been doing a lot of research and collecting ideas for future projects.

The latest bit of rolling stock for the wish list is the 1940's Dairy Farmers BMT 1 twin tank milk transporter (pic at top). There were some articles in AMRM many years ago with some detailed photos and drawings of the various milk tankers in NSW, and this particular one looks very interesting and will be something a little different.

The biggest problem with this particular item is that I cannot locate any coloured photos, nor can I find any drawings of what an "open framed" NSWGR E Wagon looks like. I assume it looks like an E Wagon with the decking removed, but to model it this way I will need to fairy accurately model the open frame. Anyone got an E Wagon frame drawing laying about?

Also there is some conjecture as to the colour scheme of the tanker in it's original livery. I tried contacting Dairy Farmers hoping they may have some archival colour photos but no luck there.

So far I have this information from AMRM .......

"Initially the colour scheme was dark (C38) green tanks with silver cradles and end retainers; the underframe, ladders and bogies were black. The lettering on the tanks was red with a yellow border, the lettering style and wording is shown in the photograph."

But then Bob G from aus_model_rail added this ......

"Back in 1965 I was working with a signwriter that had spent his yuth at Dairy Farmer's Ultimo depot. Sam would have been in his late 50's then and admitted to having dressed up one of the double tanks. To hi it was a job. I worked out that he musy have worked on BMT1 but could only get out of Sam that the tanks were a blueish colour."

In looking for information though, I came across some very interesting photographs from the state archives, of what appears to be the actual glass lined tanks, being delivered by two trucks to the Ultimo Dairy Farmers location, with signs attached saying .....

HYGIENIC GLASS LINED MILK

RAILWAY TRANSPORT TANKS

DAIRY FARMERS CO OP MILK co ltd

The following text went along with the image -

Title - Two of J McFarland's White trucks with new glass-lined milk tanks for rail transportation at Dairy Farmers Co-op Milk Depot.

Date of work 1933-34

Place - Dairy Farmers Co - operative Milk Co Ltd (700 Harris Street, Ultimo, N.S.W.)

Not that it really helps with modelling the tanker, but for me who likes to know as much as I can about things, this was a great find. I cannot see any reason for these not to be the actual glass lined tanks from BMT 1 before it was built?

I've ordered a NSWGR E Wagon kit, so that I can at least get a wagon of the correct size to begin the projet with, albeit with decking in place, and I'll have to grab a set of bogies to suit. I bought some PVC tubing of the almost correct size, so I can also being on some tanks and fiddle around with the various supports for them as well.

So the research on this interesting project continues and hopefully I'll actually be able to make a start on building it one day and adding images to this Blog.

Coming up is the big Liverpool model railway exhibition where I hope to be able to buy a few more items to boost the rolling stock numbers, and like always keep an eye out for those exhibition specials that often appear.

I'm also very much looking forward to taking delivery of a black streamlined 3803 from Eureka Models, which I believe are on the boat somewhere between China and hear and should be here soon. I believe there will be some at the Liverpool exhibition so I'll be able to see first hand what I will be getting, and I cannot wait.

That's about all the news for now so until next time, happy modelling to you all.

PS. My Casula Hobbies E Wagon arrived yesterday, however there is no frame detail whatsoever, so no luck with BMT 1's frame details as of yet.

I've e-mailed Greg Edwards at Datasheets ( http://datashet.actewagl.net.au ) to see if he has any plans that may help.

Another Pair of Points

The last couple of months have seen a lot of progress made with scenery, woodwork and some electrical work.

Unfortunately the scenery has been shoveling a few tons of blue metal, dirt and mulch from the front yard to the back yard, then into above ground veggie gardens, the woodwork has been making shelving to house my rather large collection of magazines and books, and the electrical work has been some extra power points and lights in various parts of the house.

However amongst the household duties I have managed to almost complete another set of points. This time I thought I'd try making a pair of points as a unit, as this is how they will need to be on the layout.

I figured it may be easier and quicker to make them like this rather than as two separate sets. I'm not sure if it was that much easier or quicker in hindsight, but it was certainly not any more difficult and I will definitely make any further sets like this.

Like most things, I tried a few different techniques with this set compared to the first set, and the next set will see a coupe of minor tweaks that I hope will make some small increases in ease of construction.

I think the next set I tackle may be a curved set as they look like fun to make, and will no doubt require some small changes in technique to get them just right.