My wife took this photo of me working on the railroad. I'm working on my "Ga Hong Ha" N scale layout.
My wife is from Vietnam. We travel there from Sydney nearly every year and while we're there I usually visit, travel on and admire the Vietnam National Railways (Duong Sat Viet Nam). Unlike most of the railways in Australia, which have been dismembered and in a mad rush to privatise everything, Vietnam Railways is still very much a complete 'railway' in the old sense, it runs passenger and freight trains and is run as a vertically integrated system, even if most of it is metre gauge and even if some parts are partially privatised or at least run as separate units within the overall system.
So it was natural that I attempt to build a layout based on what I saw. Hence my layout "Ga Hong Ha" or Hong Ha Station based on 'Ga Thap Cham' a station near to where my wife's family lives.
After some thought I chose Japanese N scale 1:150 so that I could, as Japanese modellers do, use 9 mm track to represent slightly narrow gauge and so that I could use standard Japanese N Scale models and accessories. I did think of using 6mm track (Z scale) but the rolling stock and chassis were very limited at the time and very expensive.
Photos: 1. Cham Monuments bought in a tourist shop near Phan Rang Station. 2. People's Committee (local Government) building 3. Scratchbuilt "Co-oP Supermarket 4. Ga Hong Ha (Hong Ha Station) 5. Police waiting for a traveller off the Re-unification Express due in from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
If I were starting again I feel that I might try 1:120 (known in NZ as NZ120) sort of TT with 9 mm track which would make it correct and I could still use N Scale chassis and bogies as the New Zealanders do, but I've probably gone too far now.
It's been a long slow process, a lot has to be scratchbuilt but I feel that I'm getting there. I am pretty sure that I have the only relatively complete Vietnamese model railway in the world. There are some modellers in Vietnam but no complete layouts and they tend to model an eclectic assortment of US, British and European prototypes.
The layout is basically a partly folded loop with a main station and yard, Vietnam style It measures about 8 ft by 5 ft (2400 mm x 1500 mm) and it's not designed to be moved though it is made up of several sections. It lives in a spare bedroom along with my small workbench.
My other problem was that I didn't know very much about Vietnam railways so as well as building the layout a lot of research has been required. The result of my research is my website Railways in Vietnam which has been in existence since 2009.
My locomotives and rolling stock are still very limited, something I need to do something about in the near future.
Of course while I was involved in all this I just didn't have the time to build a NSW layout despite having locomotives and rolling stock to do so.
Now that I have retired I find that I have a bit more time to work on two layouts so my new "Barra Town" is being built in the garage.
It will consist of a station and yard based loosely on the facilities that used to exist at Coonabaraban in NSW. I was fortunate to find a lot of photos and drawings on the internet as well as two videos so I have a pretty good idea of the "look" despite never having been there.
On the other side of the layout will be a coal mine and facilities.
The layout is being built on a single board 6 ft by 3 ft (1800mm x 900mm), so it arguably isn't too large to transport to an exhibition one day.
Both of my layouts use traditional DC control. I'd like to have a go at DCC one day but it is expensive and I haven't quite grasped the fundamentals yet.
All the track, a mixture of PECO streamline and Setrack is laid on Barra Town and I'm just starting ballasting and a bit of scenery. I'll post some more photos in the next few days to show how it's going.
Until next time...
David
PS: Update: i noticed I uploaded the same two images of Barra Town as in the previous post, I've replaced them with two others.
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