Space - The Final Frontier!

I can't believe how fast this year is going past! At the beginning of the year when I started the shelf layout in the spare room, I fully intended having a degree of track laid and trains running by March. Throw in a couple of changes of mind, a quick decision to re-do the bathroom and ensuite by the treasurer which turned the train room into a storage room for a while, and the decision to begin working on another hobby of mine involving my love of old Mazda Rotary engined cars, has really seen the trains on the back burner for a while.

That's not to say I won't be continuing with things, and now the spare room is again turning back to normal and I can get to the desk again, things should start to progress once more.

In any case I thought I'd update the blog, this time with a little project I did a couple of years ago, an N Scale layout housed within a purpose built glass top coffee table. Why you might ask???

My interest in trains had been rekindled, and although I dreamed of the double decked empire, I was still living in a rented villa, with no room at all to build any kind of layout. However, being full of enthusiasm I thought long and hard about a solution.

We had a coffee table, and looking at it one day I figured that something of that size could most probably fit a small N Scale layout on it. Trouble is that would somewhat reduce the ability to use it as an actual coffee table. But what if I built a coffee table of similar size, that featured a glass top, with a layout within it? It was a win win idea, the layout is housed inside and thus kept free of dust and anything that might fall upon it, and the coffee table is still able to function perfectly. When I mention the idea to my wife she simply said, "well, do it!"

So after some quick designing and figuring out the basics, it was off to Bunnings to buy some timber, a piece of 1200x600 MDF sheet which would be the base for the layout, and work commenced. My grandfather is rather handy with the wood working, and so with his collection of tools and guidance the table came together quickly, and more importantly, it worked exactly as designed.

A top that is hinged to allow easy access to the layout, and a sliding drawer underneath to house the power supply and anything else that gets shoved into drawers underneath a coffee table!

Rather than simple oval of track, I figured I could squeeze in a double over and under figure eight design, which would give me something around eight metres of track within that tiny 1200x600 baseboard dimension.

Track was mainly a bunch of second hand flex I bought off eBay really cheaply, with a few bits of set track curves bought new, and all the rolling stock was also bought second hand off eBay, very cheaply. It's amazing when you throw away a set prototype, era and location how easy it is to gather stuff cheaply!

Within a couple of months I had a fully landscaped, operating, and quite entertaining little railway that I could simply sit at the end of the day, with a nice hot cup of tea, and watch this little engine pull its twenty plus wagons up and down, around and around for as long as I wanted. Sure it's not prototype operation, it's not NSWGR, it's not even vaguely representative of anything in reality, but it allowed me to get my hand back in at building using wood, doing scenery, laying track, and just enjoying myself while I couldn't do what I really wanted to.

The links below show trains running both when the track work was first laid and in testing, and when the layout was close to being finished. I cringe at the speed of the train in the second clip, I hate fast running trains, but there you go!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN-qOASQtFo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir0Qr6KDHNI

So whilst I have nothing new to report, I thought that this little post on something offbeat, might just show that even if you don't have the time, the space, or the money to build your empire, you can still participate in the hobby, even if it involves thinking a little outside the square.

Recently I was looking at the table, and wondering how hard it would be to install another layout, still 1200x600, but in HO, DCC, and representing a small yard where short wagons could be shunted around to make trains in various orders, along the lines of John Allan's Timesaver concept http://www.gdlines.com/Timesaver.html

I can just imagine sitting down after a days work with a nice hot cup of tea, shunting some RU's, S's, K's, LCH's and other small wagons and a brake van or two around with a 48 or 18, 20, 26 etc steam engine. Food for thought ........................

Long Time No See!

Gee has it really been three months since my last post?

Whilst I've been keeping up with my fellow blogger's and their progress, I've made very little of my own on the train front. Life's other little priorities have been the main reason for my lack of progress, mainly because things like bathroom renovations have been going on, and whilst this is a good thing for the whole family (once they are finished!), it meant a transformation of the spare room into storage central for a little while making any form of modelling almost impossible.

However, I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, and with the spare room needing to be a proper spare room once again for visitors next week, modelling life should return to normal soon after that.

This weekend is also the Epping Model Railway Exhibition, and I spent a few hours down there this morning looking around, catching up with some fellow modellers and old friends, and just generally having a relaxing wander around. I got there about forty minutes before opening time, and the line up was quite small at that stage , and with tickets being sold before opening time we were ushered into another hall to wait for 10am, which beats lining up outside in the cold.

There were separate queues, one for the main exhibition hall, and one for the second hand stall. There must have been about a hundred people lined up for the second hand stall and about twelve for the main hall just before 10am. I took the relaxing approach and entered the main hall and had about half an hour of looking at the layouts and trade stalls with very little other people there, whilst looking through into the second hand stall where it looked like peak hour on the trains!

I wondered up there around midday for a look, and there was still some bargains to be had, even after a couple of hours of frenzied activity. An as new Punchbowl Hobbies 40 Class for $90, various packs of NSWGR K, S, U etc wagons with various tarps and loads for about $30 a pair, a set of four assembled and weathered LCH's for $60, and a few brass models including a Bergs 57 for I think $500 which seemed like a very good price to me? Not in my budget unfortunately otherwise it would have had a new home.

I did ok though, picking up a pair of IDR KF/CKF flat wagons, an In Front Models ABV Van, an AR Kits MLK, a Road Rangers '62 XL Falcon Wagon in Broadmeadow Green and '58 Holden FC Sedan in Fountain Blue, and my dear wife upon seeing the "cute" CHG Brake Vans on the Eureka stand kindly asked if they "suited my era" and after a smile and a yes from me bought a couple. So all in all it was a nice way to get back into all things trains.

I took a few photo's, but being decidedly sub par with my photography skills have loaded up a few that turned out ok. Three are of a logging style layout, which once again blew me away with its sense of depth, and really drew me into each scene with the stunning detail and that look of everything being in just the right place, just the right colour, with the right texture, and the big thing was the use of the vertical, which is not easy to do when modelling your typical wide open spaces Australian layout.

In any case, that's about it for now, and hopefully I can report on some actual personal progress soon.

Tie Bar MkII.5!

Essentially I want to get something that at least given an impression of the real thing, as seen in the image kindly sent to me by Ray Pilgrim, which shows a set of points at Crookwell.

So I've added a second tie bar to the points just to check out the overall look and make sure it works ok. It seems to be easy enough to add and I think gives a reasonable representation, or at least it should once painted and weathered etc.

Time will tell, although I'm sure I'll find a few more ways to do this before I'm happy!

Tie Bar MkII and some LOCOFONIC ACTION

Just a quick post this time as I haven't really done much of note over the past week or so.

Firstly, I had a bit more of a play with the tie bar design that activates the points, and have been able to fine down the size a bit more, and place it a little better so it sits neatly between the sleepers.

I've cut down the width so that there is almost nothing protruding from out under the rail on one side, so I should be able to ballast pretty much up to the rail side without hindering point movement, unlike using the whole sliding sleeper effect.

I've left a long bit sticking out of one side, as this will (attempt to!) replicate the point rodding that activates the points on the real thing. It will need a bit more shaping, fining out and obviously each set of points will need it in a particular size to suit it's location.

Am I going to install point rodding to begin with, no way. Would I like to at some point, definitely, and at least if I have something there to begin with it will save having to add something at a later date.

The cuts in the copper cladding will be filled with a bit of filler so they are not noticeable, but I figured a couple of cuts would be worthwhile as any touch between the tie bar and copper sleeper will produce a shot. Not that I can see any way of them touching, but Murphy's Law and all that stuff ..............

The other bit of news is that I recently won on Ebay a 45 (yes a record!) titled "Echoes of Steam - N.S.W.R. Steam at Work 1971-72" which features six recordings of various N.S.W.R. steam trains in action.

The cover made me chuckle a bit, with LOCOFONIC proudly sitting in the top right corner. Obviously a special kind of technology specifically designed for recording steam trains no doubt!

The recordings are surprisingly rich featuring a brilliant stereo effect, and with your eyes closed you feel like you are actually standing by the tracks as these giants pass by and the sound passes from one side to the other.

Highlights are probably the double headed Garratt's on a 1,200 tonne coal train tackling the 1 in 40 bank at Fassifern, a beautiful recording at Branxton Station where hearing the calls of the local magpies set the scene as a 3246 ambles to a stop, passengers alight and board, and then it wheel spins its way off again, and finally 3818 leaving Strathfield on a wet day heading back to Central, where its powerful exhaust beats signal the arriving power and then wild wheel spin occurs multiple times as it powers on towards its destination.

I'm not sure how common this record is, but if you are a fan of steam, and happen across a copy it's well worth getting.

The Finer Points of Making Finer Points?

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel the need to use catchy phrases for their blog updates? Anyway ..........

With Sydney's crazy humid weather continuing, doing anything more physically active than blinking leaves one in a lather of sweat, so it seemed a good time to sit back at the modelling desk and build another set of points. This is the first set I've built using code 55 rail, which in all honesty was not much different to the code 75 rail I've used before. If anything I think the Micro Engineering code 55 rail is made of harder metal than the Peco rail as filing it seemed to be harder by comparison.

Apart from the change in rail, this set was built using slightly different dimensions to the NMRA specs. Terry Flynn has published some dimensions which theoretically (and have been proven) allow your typical RTR RP25/110 wheels to happily run through the points, and also allow the finer RP25/88 wheels to run through without any wheel drop through the frog or crossing V area. Basically the gauge is set to 16.26mm as opposed to the std 16.5mm, and flangeways can be set to 1.0mm, making a visual improvement over the wider dimensions actually used, and actually aids smoother running through the points.

Without the aid of any gauges to aid construction due to the different dimensions added a slight difficulty factor, but apart from some extra time it all went fairly smoothly, and I was very pleased to run a couple of sets of bogies through the points at various stages with excellent results. There's a degree of backwards engineering going on here as well, as I will use this set of points to try to get some roller gauges made to aid in the building of points to these dimensions which so far I'm very impressed with.

Another item of these points which I have had a bit of a tinker with is the tie bar. A lot of hand lai points simply use a pcb sleeper as the tie bar, which is strong, easy, and apart from the visual aspect of a whole sleeper sliding along when the points change route, it's a proven design. However, looking at the real thing, the tie bars are quite thin, and do not project outside the stock rails obviously.

What I've done with this set, it use a pcb sleeper, but cut it to length so it's just long enough to sit underneath the stock rails and only project out a maximum amount equal to the the trow of the swith blades, and I've filed down the centre section as narrow as possible to make it look more like the proper tie bars.

This first one is a little rough and not 100 percent in the right position as the tie bar needs to be centred between the sleepers a bit more, but that's nothing a quick hit with the soldering iron won't fix. Even filed down to this size it's still quite strong, and really looks quite good, or is at least a big improvement over the full sleeper look. There's very little pressure put on the tie bar anyway so I don't foresee any problems with it breaking. It will mean a slightly different method of attaching a wire to move it from side to side but that's nothing too hard.

As you can see I've also put up a pic of three different pieces of rail, Peco Code 100, Peco Code 75 and the Micro Engineering Code 55. In my mind, and logically, I know that code 55 is just over half the height of code 100, but the overall effect is actually more dramatic, with the rail actually looking more like a quarter of the size of code 100, as it's not just the height, but the width that is proportionally smaller as well. For a branch line style layout, the code 55 really does look a treat, IMHO.

New Loco's but Not Much Else!

Not much to really report on for this update, but I thought I'd throw up a couple of shots of some new loco's I've just got back from a mate who has given them a bit of weathering.

4498 is a Trainorama 44 Class, the prototype of which I fondly remember from my school days. I used to travel by train from Allawah to Kogarah which is on the South Coast line, and sometimes found myself at Hurstville on a school sports day.

Anyone who knows Kogarah and Hurstville will know that both stations have the platforms covered by rather large shopping centres, so are to an extent mostly covered in. Kogarah is situated at the top of a rather long grade from the Rockdale end, and with the wind in the right direction I could hear the 44's coming all the way up the grade with a South Coast Express in tow, and they would blast through Kogarah station with their exhaust throbbing, and most normal people would instinctively cover their ears in pain.

Hurstville was a stopping station, so from a stand still the engine would rev up with the slowly increasing throb of the exhaust, then taper off as the train began to roll, and then as the driver notched up the exhaust would again throb as a dirty black mass would be ejected from the top of the loco. In the mid 80's the 44's were usually quite grubby, and so that's the way I wanted my 44 to look. Job done I think. Now I have to decide on a sound decoder that really captures that throbbing exhaust sound.

The 3531 and 3649 are both Austrains models, with the 35 being left reasonably clean, and the 36 has been given a more weather beaten western look, where they typically didn't get cleaned anywhere as much. I'm particularly fond of the look of the 36 weathering, and might at some point dirty up the 35 just a little bit more, once I get some weathering experience under my belt.

Both are factory fitted with DCC, the 35 sound equipped already which is a bonus, ans I particularly like the whistle as it has a really nice taper in and rich reverb giving a rather nice simulation of it echoing as you hear them in "real life". \

The 36 will need a sound decoder and probably have the tender pickup additions done to improve its running qualities, as shown on Marcus Ammann's web site http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/nswmn1/ExtraPickUps.htm

I've made a little progress in getting some track gauges made to assist in making my track and points. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks I'll have a sample to suit the code 55 rail and slightly different to NMRA spec gauge and flangeway spacings. These dimensions are totally compatible with RP25/110 and RP25/88 wheels which almost all RTR Australian stuff comes with these days. The slightly finer clearances suit the RP25/88 wheels a bit better then the normal NMRA dimensions. Details on these dimensions can be found on Terry Flynn's web site, http://www.angelfire.com/clone/rail/trackstandard2.html

I'm hoping to be able to provide these gauges at a reasonable price to other interested people, and if there is some demand and all goes to plan I will try to get some made to suit different rail sizes, and maybe even a small batch for those interested in hand laying true Victorian or South Australian broad gauge track. More on that as I make some progress anyway.

Apart from that, there's not much to report of any real interest!

The Realisation of a Dream ....... Or at least the Beginning of It!

I think I mentioned in a previous post that as a fifteen or sixteen year old in around 1986, I attended a modeling clinic at Revesby where I fortunate enough to see up close sections of James McInerney’s Lambing Flat featuring the Wombat Flour Mill. The thing that blew me away the most (lest face it the whole thing was very high quality) was the track. Very fine rail, highly detailed will all the point rodding and levers, it was truly inspirational and something I thought I’d love to try to replicate one day.

So here I am some twenty four odd years later, and after being a non active modeller for probably twenty of those years, a package arrived today from Brunel Hobbies with seventy one yard lengths of code 55 rail, some flux and track gauges, all ready to finally begin down that path of hand laying track and points in an effort to capture that look I admired all those years ago.

I’ve added a few pics of Lambing Flat that I took on that day all those years ago, and although they don’t show in super fine detail the track, I think they still convey the overall look that inspired me. I just hope my abilities are able to produce a result even vaguely approachig this level of quality!