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.

Collecting More Rolling Stock

Even though I still haven't begun construction of the actual layout, there's still lots of things to do that go towards the eventual goal of having an opperational layout, and that's collecting rolling stock.

As well as buying an NCE Power Cab, the Epping Model Railway Exhibition also saw a triple pack of Austrains FME LCL container flat wagons come home with me. These are very nicely detailed, and the wagon itself being of mostly metal construction are very nicely weighted. The LCL containers which are removable are very fine in detail and really are a very nice piece of work.

As well as the FME's, the past few weeks have see me scouring the dreaded Ebay for all manner of things, but mostly brake vans. With the era I'm modelling each train has to have a brake van at the end of it, so to even have a modest amount of trains running I'm going to need a good supply of brake vans.

So with a little bit of luck and some last second bidding I managed to get three Powerline MHG brake vans in the past few weeks. Now these have been on the market, on and off for nearly twenty years with no upgrades, so do not represent the latest in detail standards being achived by people like Trainorama, however they can be found for around $20.00 if you are lucky, as opposed to the upcoming Trainorama MHG's which will be about $120.00 a pair.

Now the Trainorama versions will be spectacular going by the advanced samples, and I will definitely get at least one pair of these, however the three Powerline one's I have bought will allow me to do a bit of modifying and actual modelling to try to bring them up to as close to current standards as possible. It's nice to be able to buy RTR stuff that doesn't need any real detailing, but where's the fun in that all the time!

Besides with work on the layout not yet begun, it's good to have a few other projects to work on through this cold and wet winter we are currently experiencing.

Buying and Hooking Up a DCC System

After many months of reading up on all the different DCC systems, looking at the pro's and con's, talking to different people and listening to their opinions, I purchased an NCE Power Cab at the Model Railroad Craftsman (http://www.mrrc.com.au/) stand at the Epping model railway exhibition.

Three weeks later I've only just had time to have a read through the manual, and look at hooking it up to a simple test track to have a bit of a play with.

Of course the first thing I needed to do was hook up some wires to the tracks and like most things that's not as simple as it sounds.

Like often happens, when it's 7pm at night and you begin these projects you can't just run down to the shops to buy the materials you need. This was the case with wire unfortunately, with me only having some big thick wire I normally use for wiring up rather beefy ignition systems in cars. However I did have some CAT5 network cable laying about, and thought that it would probably be ok for my simple test track use. I don't think this is the best wire for the layout however and will use something a little more robust.

So after stripping the ends of two pairs of wire, I tinned the ends with solder and began to solder them to a length of Peco code 75 rail. I don;t necessarily have any trouble soldering the wire to the rail, but it's always a fiddly job and I've wondered if there isn't a better way?

When building my points, I use printed circuit board for certain sleepers, and it occurred to me that this may also be a good way of hooking up power to the rails rather than simply wiring power directly to the rails.

So armed with a piece of pcb, I drilled two small holes through it, one at each end, and cut an isolating gap in each side of the pcb. The wire was fed through the holes so it was flush on one side, and then it was soldered on both sides of the pcb. The pcb sleeper was then very easily soldered to the rails.

I had wondered if there wold possibly be a voltage drop using this method, however after attaching a 9 volt battery to the wires, I grabbed my multimeter and got the following readings.

9.49 volts at the battery terminals, 9.49 volts at the end of the wires where they join the pcb, and 9.49 volts measured off the rails a couple of inches away from the pcb sleeper. This tells me that obviously my soldering skills are not too bad, and that at least as far as volage is concerned there is no perceptable drop with this method.

I can see some definite advantages by using this method, and can't think of any disadvantages, but I would be interested to hear if anyone can think of any.

After doing all the soldering and testing the voltages and taking some photos along the way, I decided it was too late to go and unpack my Garratt and give it a run, and decided to update this blog instead as I haven't written much lately.

Maybe tomorrow I'll finally start playing with my new DCC system!

Enjoying the Journey

With moving house the amount of actual modeling done recently has been zero. However I have had the odd moment to think and reflect on things.

It's a funny hobby we are involved in isn't it? At face value we simply run model trains around a model railway layout. If only it were that simple for most of us in reality!

Of course it's by choice that we make things so complicated for ourselves, usually as a result of the research we do into the models and areas we want to replicate. The more we learn, the more our perceptions change, and seemingly small things can in fact change the whole direction in which we are heading.

When I got back into my railway modeling at the beginning of last year after twenty or so years out of the hobby, I wanted to build a simple country single line style layout with the odd passing loop and siding to allow me to recreate a generic NSW scene and run my favourite trains from the 60's and early 70's.

At that point it all seemed so simple, collect a selection of NSWGR diesel engines like the 44's, 47's, 421's, 48's etc, a bunch of random freight wagons from that period, and maybe some passenger stock. How easy would it be to get what I wanted with most of this stuff either available or coming in the near future.

And then it began. Reading through some old AMRM's I read the articles by Keiran Ryan on the wheat silo's in NSW, and Gunnedah in particular caught my eye. For the first time, the realisation of the possible enjoyment that could be derived from actually operating the layout like a real railway became obvious.

And so with nothing more than an aim to try to recreate a likeness of Gunnedah circa late 60's early 70's I began to draw up the track plan in a HO friendly way, albeit with no actual space to build it. I now also had a idea of exactly what rolling stock I needed, lots of BWH's and RU's, cattle wagons and oil tankers. Twenty BWH's and two HCH's (with tarps) are now waiting to go into wheat service, and I have half a dozen or so random oil tankers that will need to be NSWGR'ised.

So the idea of a simple country line and random rolling stock had become somewhat more focused, as had the track plan and general location. This is a good thing though as it forces you to think about what you really need and work towards it without just randomly collecting stuff that down the track may not all go together that well.

Late last year, my wife and I saw a house that we wanted to buy, so an offer was made and negotiations began. The best thing about this place (train wise) was the 7x7 metre garage in the yard. Whilst not wanting to count chickens, I immediately began to think about how I might use this space for a layout. The initial track plans I have shown in previous posts on this blog. Gunnedah and its surrounding industries would be able to be modeled quite well within this given area and so the layout was really starting to have an aim.

It struck me soon after that this space would be great for a two level layout, but what to model on the other level? I could model more of the line that Gunnedah is located on, but I wanted something that would offer some variety.

I always wanted to have a black streamlined 38 and Garratt on the roster (the Garratt I have with a Eureka 3803 coming), and was aware that neither of these are really suitable for working trains to Gunnedah, so what other location would suit these engines. Talk about being right in front of one's eyes, but the station at Hawkesbury River along with the sidings circa 60's on the main northern line were a very busy place, and operationally quite interesting. Seeing as how I travel through this area twice daily commuting to work and it's a ten minute train trip away from home, my interest in it was suddenly awoken.

However once again as I looked into things, certain aspects became apparent. Steam traffic was quickly being replaced by electric power in 1960 with the electrification complete to that point, the 38's very very rarely hauled the Newcastle Flyer through there anymore as the 46 class electrics took them through to Gosford now, and the coal stage was no longer used for very long into the 60's, so that area of operation would not be able to be used in my given mid 60's to early 70's era.

But then it struck me, what if I was to model Hawkesbury River circa 1959/60 as opposed to the era for Gunnedah being later? I could then run the era of trains that I liked from the late 50's on that section, and run the later era stuff through Gunnedah. Of course I can operate anything anywhere I want if need be, but if a truly prototypical running session wanted to be run then the option is there.

I get to have my 38's on the Newcastle Flyer, and Garratt's, 59's and std goods engines as well as 42 and 43 class diesels and electric 46's grinding up the Cowan bank on various goods trains, and the 48's and other branch line diesels running through Gunnedah and surrounding areas hauling wheat, livestock and oil. Each area service by the correct engines for the line and time period, and not having to put up with those niggling thoughts of "as if" in the back of the mind as the 38 hauled Flyer trundles through Gunnedah!

I guess this has been a long winded way of describing how the more I learn about the real NSWGR railway eras, the operational aspect and how the trains I like were used within these areas, my ideas of what I want to model have changed and grown quite a bit in what has only been a little over twelve months.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this scenario, but I really do think that building a model railway can be so much more fun when coupled with the enjoyment of researching and learning a bit about the real thing and its history. The best thing is that unlike a lot of people who are interested in various historically based things, we can actually recreate on a small scale our interest and actually operate it like the real thing. Try doing that with your Spanish armada or lunar space travel!

In some ways our hobby is more about enjoying the journey rather than simply getting to the destination.