Modules, Back Scene and Sky Boards In Place

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Two weeks on from my last update and I’m extremely happy to report that construction of the layout is ploughing ahead. From my point of view, the progress made has been nothing short of phenomenal, taking into account that apart from verbalising what is in my mind and how I think it should be built, the actual construction has been the sole effort of a mate of mine.

Making this even more impressive (to me anyway), is that until this project started my mate has had nothing to do with model trains at all, so building a reasonably large double level semi modular layout as an introduction to the hobby is no small feat.

For those of us in the hobby, building a layout starts with a picture in our head of exactly what we want, therefore from the beginning we have a fair idea of what we are working towards and a pretty good idea of how we will do it. Trying to explain in enough detail to somebody else exactly what is in your mind, so that they can visualise the finished result and then construct it, is not as easy as it may sound, and again I can’t thank my mate enough for the effort involved in the mental translation of my thoughts and ideas into an actual physical, practical and functional layout.

As for the actual progress, as the layout sits at the moment, all of the individual module assemblies that make up the lower and upper levels have been completed, the back scene boards have been completed around the entire layout on both levels, and the boards that are essentially the sky have also been completed for both levels.

Like a lot of things the photos probably don’t do justice to the amount of work involved in getting to this point, but I would estimate that from bolting the steel brackets to the bench top, to where the layout currently is, has taken six, ten to twelve hour days, so sixty to seventy hours in total. If you put that into typical “hobby time” terms, where you might spend an hour a day every day, or maybe four to six hours over the weekend, this would represent around ten to twelve weeks of work.

At the end of the final day’s work, we temporarily attached a piece of timber with two five meter strips of LED lights, one warm white strip and one variable RGB strip, illuminating a section of the bottom deck, just to get an idea on brightness, and how the variable colour RGB strip could be adjusted to give an acceptable hue, as getting a fair representation of natural sunlight is always a challenge with conventional lighting.

Without any actual scenery or trains in position I cannot say that I have found the correct mixture of lighting, but after having a short fiddle with the RGB colour palette, I am fairly confident that I will be able to find a setting that is more than acceptable.

The reason for choosing to use two separate LED strips, one being a variable RGB strip, is that the ability is there if you really want to, to get a representation of a sunrise or sunset hue which is typically slightly orange, or at the extreme, a night time hue which is typically represented with a blue colour.

The next phase of construction will probably centre around figuring out exactly how we are going to mount the fascia panels that the LED light strips will be mounted on, what mounting angle of the LED strips gives the best spread of lighting across the modules, and determine where power supplies will need to be positioned around the room to power the LED strips. Like most things there is a considerable amount of time thinking about these decisions as opposed to actually doing it, but the extra time taken in thinking these things through thoroughly is well worth it if you can do it once and it works perfectly.

If I had to make a few key points on the construction so far it would be the following.

The use of the steel brackets that the layout modules, back scene boards, sky boards and fascia boards will attach to, whilst being somewhat unconventional, are extremely strong relative to their size, as there is no way timber brackets made from only 25mm x 25mm sections would be strong enough to support what the steel brackets do.

Building the layout with each section as a modular assembly using the compressed foam panels with a light timber frame, produces an incredibly strong and very light assembly, that is very easy to lift into and out of position. This will also make working on each module extremely easy, no working upside down under bench work to do wiring, and being able to have the module in the centre of the room when working on it gives access to all sides, which will make constructing scenery that would normally be hard against the backboard very simple.

Modular construction also means that if at any time a section of the layout might want to be changed, it is a very simple process to remove and replaced with another module with different track layout or scenery, and while this is not something that would happen often, the option is there to do it very easily.

Another option would be the ability to take various modules that form a section of the layout to an exhibition, there are probably not too many permanent style home layouts that you could do this with.

That’s about it for now, but I hope to be able to report back in the not too distant future with some more progress reports.

Gunnedah and Beyond - Layout Construction Begins

It's been a while since my last post, but I am happy to report that some reasonable progress has been made recently, and the beginnings of "Gunnedah and Beyond" are well and truly taking shape.

I've often taken slightly unconventional paths with things that I have done over the years, a mate of mine often says that I'm slightly "left of centre", which is a polite way of calling me slightly unbalanced! When it comes to layout construction it typically involves timber bench work of some description, topped with plywood or MDF or similar, and in most cases when located in a permanent building, are made in a somewhat permanent and immovable fashion.

I have always liked the idea of layout sections being somewhat modular, and if necessary the layout is able to be disassembled and moved without having to destroy any part of it. Another factor that appeals to me by building something in a modular fashion, is the ability to move individual sections into a position where they are most easily able to be worked on, where access to all sides is available, and they can be flipped over so that any work needing to be done underneath does not involve working upside down or a contortionist act.

So taking all of this into account, I decided to go down the path of getting some one inch square tube brackets made up that are as previously mentioned basically in the shape of a capital E. Two holes have been drilled towards the front and rear of each horizontal section, and brackets have been attached by simply driving a couple of large hex head wood screws down into the bench top. The beauty of this is that nothing needs to be attached to the walls, no holes drilled, so that in the event of the layout needing to be removed, there is no damage left on any of the walls.

There is a small amount of sideways movement in the brackets as they sit, however once the piece of timber that will support the small fascia that the LED strip lights will be mounted to is attached, the brackets are all then essentially tied to each other and cannot move. The one inch steel brackets have a small amount of flex or spring in them if you really lean on them, but they are incredibly strong and will hold a massive amount of weight, more than any model railway will that's for sure.

With the brackets bolted in place and spaced at around 850mm apart (it varies slightly for various reasons), construction of the individual modules that will make up the layout commenced. I am using foam insulating sheets that normally going wall cavities, these are 1200mm x 600mm x 50 mm, they are very light, and more importantly they are very strong. On the underside of the panels goes a simple frame made of 38x19mm pine.

Corner modules are made up of two panels forming an L shape, that ends up being 1200mm by 1800mm along the back edges, having corner modules shaped like this then means that the track running across the joints to the straight sections will not be crossing the module joins at an angle, as the majority of the curve is contained within the L shape of the module.

Straight modules basically fill up the space between the corner modules, and depending on position end up between about two and three panels long. Again they are braced underneath in the same fashion as the corner modules, and the finished product is again very light and very strong, easily manoeuvred in and out of place on the steel brackets, and can be worked on in any position.

At the moment the modules which will make up top deck, which sits on the middle horizontal leg of the steel brackets, is about three quarters of the way around the room, and on the bottom level, the corner modules have been assembled, and the remaining straight module sections in between are yet to be assembled.

Also mostly in place are the backing boards to which the back scenes will be attached, the top deck again is about three quarters done, and the bottom deck has probably about half of the back scene boards done.

A friend of mine has been responsible for the amazing work done so far, because although the ideas and design are mine, physically building the layout and making my dream a reality requires somebody else's hands, so I am very lucky to have somebody who is not only capable of deciphering what is "in my mind", but building it to the required standard.

Something else that has happened over the past few months, is that I have met up with the local Central Coast Wednesday Night model railway group, which is made up of a great bunch of guys who have been most welcoming and helpful to myself, and this has been a great source of inspiration and enthusiasm, as well as literally decades of experience that all are only too willing to share.

Hopefully from this point on, updates will be slightly more regular, and all going to plan progress will continue at a reasonable rate.

Cheers
Darren

Gunnedah And Beyond - Back On Track!

Once again it's been a long time between posts, hard to believe it's been seven months since I collected my Trainorama 48 class, and whilst yet again I cannot report on any actual modelling, that is all about to change in the very near/immediate future.

I wish I could report that this is because my health issue has improved, frustratingly this is not the case with it continuing to progress slowly, but in spite of this annoyance I am determined to make the most of each day and try to achieve some goals I have previously had, building a nice layout being one of them.

With a massive amount of support and encouragement from my wife, and her insistence that we plough ahead regardless, I feel very fortunate to be able to report that I now have an almost complete dedicated Man Shed with which to build a nice layout within.

We are fortunate to have a large enough backyard that already had a double width carport attached to the side of the double garage, and because I no longer need to house a car trailer, box trailer, and other associated equipment you collect simply because you have the space, we have been able to build a 7.5 m x 5.6 m Colourbond shed, that has been fully insulated and lined, painted, nice flooring put down, and apart from the glass sliding door entrance, has a combination of cupboards and drawers with a 900 mm high 600 mm deep bench top the entire way around the interior walls. The inside dimensions after being lined are 7.305m x  5.485m, a very generous size I think.

All that remains to do is for the electrician to return and simply connect up the power points, light switches and down lights to the wiring which was all routed prior to the interior walls being gyprocked, the air-conditioner which has already been ordered to be installed, and the rest of the skirting boards placed in the gaps between the cupboards.

All of the cupboard doors and drawers feature the push to open latches so a gentle push with either my knee or foot sees them pop open, and a gentle push on him sees them close, much easier for me than having to grab handles these days. No fancy bench tops were used as they will be completely covered by the layout, no point wasting money on something that will never be seen!

It's probably an adventurous/ambitious plan, but I would like the layout to be on two decks with the bottom deck being a combination of staging and very loosely based on parts of the Main North line, and the top deck will feature a likeness of Gunnedah and some of the surrounding railway infrastructure, mainly the oil sidings, stock yard, abattoir siding and whatever else will fit without cramming too much into the area.

I am planing on trying the high density foam insulating sheets that you can buy from Bunnings, that are 1200 mm long by 600 mm wide by 50 mm deep as the basis on which to lay track and scenery. I'm thinking of placing either a plywood or MDF fascia sheet onto the front and rear faces of the foam that will be around 4 to 6 inches high, as well as some light bracing under the foam just to make sure there are no sagging issues.

I'm thinking I would like layout sections to be essentially modular, and not permanently attached to the bench or walls. I am thinking about getting some very basic steel frames fabricated, that are essentially in the shape of a capital E that will simply sit on the bench tops and against the walls, and will support the lower level deck, upper level desk, and a top roof and fascia. The back scene will be able to be attached directly to these frames, and when each scenic module is completed it will simply sit in place and but up against the back scene.

The fascia panel of the top deck will allow for fitting of LED strip lighting to light the lower deck, and the top roof and fascia section will house the LED strip lighting for the upper deck.

The only thing I haven't decided is exactly how trains will get from the bottom deck to the top deck. A helix I think is out of the question as they take up a lot of space, so I am thinking a simple long grade along the back edge of the lower deck that pops up in an appropriate place leading into Gunnedah may be the best way to do it, although to be honest this is not ideal either! I think this is where the dreaded word compromise comes into play.

Making this all the more challenging is that I really do have extremely limited use of my right hand and next to none of my left, so to a large extent both my wife and daughter will be very hands on in trying to be my hands in doing a lot of stuff. Like I said earlier this is an ambitious project, but with help, determination, positive thoughts and some luck along the way I don't see why it cannot be achieved.

Hopefully I will have some updates soon on how my foam module idea works out, and over the coming months more regular updates. But for now just take a few pictures of the room itself.

Cheers
Darren

6 Years 11 Months 2 Days = 2530 Days = A Bloody Long Wait!

Regardless of the time they have taken to arrive, I could not have been happier to pick up my 48 Class from Bob's Hobbies yesterday afternoon.

I ticked the option box when I paid in full on the 5/3/2008 to have the model weathered, and although I can't thank them by name because I have no idea who their "in house" weatherer is, they've done a great job on my 4801. I asked for it to be "medium"weathered and I think they nailed it.

Until I organise a DCC sound decoder to be fitted I'll just have to admire it stationary in the cabinet, but the test run at Bob's revealed a dead quiet and beautifully smooth operating unit.

The detail is crisp, the colour looks good, and overall it is a stunning little model. You tend to forget what a small unit they were, and as a model they are truly tiny.

Apologies for the dodgy iPhone pics, but we all like pics so I'm sure they are better than nothing.

Apart from that there's not too much happening, although I'm going to have a stab at putting together a pretty simple loop around the spare room walls to have something to run some trains on now that the "big layout" is off the table.

I'm going to use the foam insulating boards you can get at Bunnings, and they'll basically sit on top of book shelving around the room. I'll do some basic scenery and just enjoy watching some of my stuff trundling around.

Hopefully some updates in the coming weeks will appear here!

Never Put Off Till Tomorrow What You Can Do Today

Once again, way too long between blog posts, but that's not to say that I haven't been following the many blogs and admiring the work all you guys are doing out there.

Model railways as a hobby, to me has always been a long term journey, not just a short term destination, it's something that typically does happen over a long period of time, especially if an ambitious or sizable layout is part of it, or building up a collection of super detailed hand built or modified RTR stock.

It's also a hobby where lets face it, the availability of what you want rolling stock and motive power wise is not always available, or is on the horizon, but a long time in coming, and so it can take a long time to gather those pieces that fulfill the time period and location that we choose to base our layouts or collections on.

I was reasonably "into" my trains in my teen years during the 80's, and built up a nice little collection of NSWGR based items, mainly 60's and 70's era stuff in general as the current Candy colours, fiyr letter code and no brake van era didn't interest me as much, even though it's what I saw roll past whilst standing at Kogarah or Allawah railway station on my way too and from school each day. Thankfully there were still plenty of dirty old Tuscan/Indian Red 44's, 421's and 422's hauling the South Coast passenger services past to keep me happy at the time.

My late teens, twenties and most of my thirties saw other hobbies and priorities take over, but in January 2008 my interest in my trains was rekindled after opening the box containing my teenage years train collection, after not being opened for the best part of twenty years. They were laid out on the sideboard and pics taken, and that was it, I was hooked again.

Not long after that I started buying the Australian Model Railway Magazine again, and was happy to see that NSW prototype models like the Austrains 80 and 422 Class, and more impressively the Trainorama 44 Class were available, the 44 in particular showing 1980's "brass like" detail at a very affordable price. One was very shortly afterwards purchased!

Followers of this blog will then know that gradually I figured out that Gunnedah was what my long term goal was as far as a layout went, and the 60's era was what appealed with a mix of late steam and early diesels to feature.

Progress was slow or non existent on beginning the actual layout, but, I continued to collect items whilst other life priorities came first, but all the time knowing that there was no hurry, I was still in my late thirties, and had plenty of time to "get around" to building that dream layout.

Fast forward to today, having just turned 43 years old on the 29th of August, and whilst I don't like to use this forum as a conduit for less than happy news, as hobbies should be about enjoyment and fun, the news is not all that happy. In January this year, after having twelve months or so of a weakening left shoulder and arm initially, then some rather disturbing muscle mass and dexterity loss, I was finally diagnosed with Motor Nerone Disease, otherwise knows more popularly in the media as ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), and the reason for the Ice Bucket Challenge seen in the media recently, which is designed to raise awareness and funds for research into this at the moment incurable disease.

To this point I've lost most of the use of my left arm strength wise, now being barely able to lift it on its own let alone with anything in hand, and my hand has lost about fifty percent of dexterity in it, with my fingers gradually losing the ability to grip and hold things, and unable to straighten them up properly. Because of this any actual modeling has become quite difficult, soldering near impossible so building my own track and points in so longer possible, and in general any task which involves both hands is just not possible.

I'm not whinging, and not defeated in general, but with the progress of this condition now beginning in my right shoulder as well, it's obvious that in time to come it will follow the left and gradually become less than useful. From there who knows, it's hard to predict what will happen next, but in general it's likely it will progress to the legs, and long term it will take away the ability to talk, eat, and breath, although it doesn't effect the brain to any degree, so you get all the fun of being fully aware of what's going on well past the point of being able to communicate.

Thankfully for now I can still work, and overall function ok, am not in pain, and have a wonderful wife and daughter who are always there to help when I need it. But the reality is, as far as Gunnedah goes, it isn't going to happen now. I'm going to sell off a lot of stuff, but will keep some selected items and hopefully will be able to throw something small together in the coming months to be able to at least give some things a small run.

Again I hate to make this an unhappy post, but I guess my positive message is don't put things off any longer than necessary, enjoy today, and try to make sure that you don't waste time, because you just never know when it will run short.

Cheers
Darren

Old World Inspiration

Well, hard to believe it's almost twelve months since my last update, and harder to believe that in that past twelve months my modeling time in total has probably been less than twelve minutes in total, such has been the year that's past.

That's not to say that I haven't kept a close eye on all the other blogs I follow, plus the news groups which are no end of entertainment with the obscure, obtuse, nutty, pedantic, argumentative and downright rude posts that are written, all in the name of enjoyment no doubt, but you have to wonder sometimes the stress levels some of these posters much be getting whilst trying to battering ram style force their opinions down every other persons throats!

I must admit to dabbling in the odd "discussion" where I think there is something of note to add, but usually just sit back and enjoy the show.

On a positive note this year has seen two pre-ordered products arrive, firstly the Eureka HUB Set, and later on the Auscision 422 Class locomotive. It was nice to see something arrive that had been ordered some time earlier in the case of the HUB Set, and quite some time earlier in the case of the 422 Class from Auscision. But far from being annoyed at the delay, it was probably more relief that I had ordered these items when funds were more plentiful, as at the moment "cash for toys" is not quite as easy to come by.

Still to come in the pre-ordered stakes are an Austrains 8101 in it's "original" Tuscan/Indian red colour scheme, of which there have been no images posted as far as I know, so what will arrive is somewhat of a mystery! Word on the street is that this may arrive before years end, fingers crossed.

Then there's 4801 from Trainorama, who knows where they are up to and when they might arrive, but again it's paid for and will get here when it does.

And finally three 40 Class loco's from Eureka are still awaiting delivery, one in each colour. Again the 40 Class saga has been well documented with various factory problems in China, but I'm sure they'll get here one day, and will be mostly worth the wait.

But I digress somewhat from the actual inspiration for this long overdue (but sadly lacking in progress) post. A few days ago, I opened my browser set to my Google home page, to find the Google header logo in a very "Art Deco" "Streamlined" style, which instantly reminded me of the streamlined locomotives of the time. After looking into it I found out it was to celebrate the 120th birthday of Raymond Loewy, who was a very famous industrial designer back in the day.

Loewy was credited with designing the PRR GG1 electric locomotive for the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1936 PRR GG1 Electric Locomotive, and then the PRR S1 Steam Locomotive in 1938 PRR S1 Steam Locomotive

He did not design them in engineering terms, but used his industrial styling talents to bring the railroad out of the the dark dingy age and into the future. In addition to locomotive design, Loewy's studios performed many kinds of design work for the Pennsylvania Railroad including stations, passenger-car interiors, and advertising materials.

Part of his influence was instrumental in EMD's locomotive designs, which in time brought to us in Australia the fantastic looking Victorian B ans S Class diesel locomotives, the Commonwealth Railways GM Class, and the NSW 42 and 421 Class diesel locomotives.

No doubt the streamlined styling of Loewy also strongly influenced some of our local steam loco's, like the Victorian S Class, the NSWGR 38 Class, and the South Australian 520 Class.

So there, for anyone who likes to know "where things come from", that was a little bit info on where some of the designs for the most iconic locomotives came from, and all from a simple logo on the Google search page.
 

Too Long Between Drinks!

I've been meaning to add a blog post for a while, but I hadn't really taken that much notice that my last entry was in January! I'd like to say time flies when you're having fun, but this year has mostly been anything but for various reasons.

It's been one of those years where life does its best to challenge you, various illnesses in the family that have involved hospital visits, my job has been more stressful than normal, and my wife's position where she has worked for eleven years has fallen victim to the all too common "transferred to India" syndrome, effective February 2nd next year.

However, it hasn't been all bad, so lets not get all depressed about it, there have been some highlights as well, but almost nothing I have to say on the modeling front, which is a major reason for no updates.

For the first time in years I missed both the Thornleigh and Liverpool exhibitions, both due to things outside of anyones control, and while I did miss going to both of them quite a bit, maybe I didn't miss them as much as I thought I would.

It is probably a result of everything else that's been going on this year that have just taken away my attention from what I'm doing, but my train brain just hasn't been as switched on as it has been over the past few years. Am I losing interest in the hobby, not really, as I still thoroughly enjoy reading everyone else's blog updates as much as ever, and still try to get the latest edition of AMRM as soon as it hits the shelves.

However, the one thing that's probably played on my mind a bit more this year than most, is the continuing lack of delivery of projects that have been "coming" for quite some time now. I'm not whinging about it, and completely understand the reasons why etc etc, but gee it will be nice when the P.O. Box starts to be filled with trains again. Maybe this will spark a renewed enthusiasm and get me back on track, excuse the pun.

In any case, I should try to make some point of this post rather than rambling on with the "woe is me's!"

I think this hobby is one of the few that if you are into in any real way, it's part of your life in one way or another, for life. I remember getting my first trains when I was about five or so years old. They weren't new, but a buch of trains that I think were my Dad's at some stage. They were mainly Tri-Ang from memory, a mixed collection of 4-wheeled freight wagons and one bogie well wagon of some description, that if I remember correctly was metal and not plastic.

The stupidity of my teenage years saw most of these swapped or sold to buy "proper" N.S.W. trains like a Lima 38 Class, 12-wheelers, various A.R. Kits wagons etc. I also suffered a break-in to the garage where I had trains set up when I was in my mid teens, where a few of these models were stolen. Among them was what I think was an early Dublo model of a British Class 20 D8000 diesel.

This big green diesel was my favourite when I was young, the colour, the shape, and it had this strangely interesting"burning dust in the heater" smell about it when it ran, as well as a bit of a groaning grinding noise, which to me made it sound and smell just like a real one! I've added a pic of just what mine looked like, and truth be known if I could buy one in H.O. I'd proudly run it with my N.S.W. prototype stuff, just as a reminder of the old days.

The other pic is of me, Christmas day circa 1976 I think, with my consist of brand new Tri-ang V.R. B Class, with four Hornby Trans Australia carriages, and the rag tag bunch of old British freight wagons I'd inherited in tow. I couldn't tell you how many times they circled the pine board layout that day (it was probably until the little blue power pack grew so hot I was told to give it a rest possibly), and others to follow, but many many hours ours of enjoyment were had.

I also think that this is one of the great things about this hobby, that you can get as much enjoyment as a kid just watching a bunch or random trains running around chasing their tails, as you can from building a fine scale representation of a real location, with period rolling stock and every little detail in the scene you can manage.

The other good thing is that modeling is not always about the result, but simply the journey it takes you on through the various stages of your life, where life's other priorities may at various times dictate the amount of hours of finance you can put into the hobby, but none the less you should still be able to do something interesting to suit those constraints.

So while this year has been one of very little time to spend actually doing anything tangible, hopefully next year will allow a bit more time to get back into things, and continue what started thirty five odd years ago.