Rainy day... dream away....

Welcome back.....

Plenty of work going on on my Barra Town layout this week. Roads and scenery have made some advances with more to come. As well I've been trying to make some sort of sense of the various unmade and partially completed kits I've collected over the years. I didn't know I had so many!

I suppose at some stage I will have to make some decisions about the 'era' the layout is meant to represent. At the moment the layout could be anything from the 1960's to present day. It's a real 'transition' layout, but I probably need to narrow it down a bit. Why is this important? Well it has a lot do with colour schemes, rolling stock codes (three letter codes or four letter codes for freight for example) and even things like, is it a CountryLink station with appropriate signs, or is it earlier NSW railways with the older signage? Anyway it's my layout so I suppose I can run whatever I like even if  that includes a Southern Pacific SD9 with a string of boxcars!

You might notice that I still haven't ballasted a lot of the track, particularly in the yard. This is because I want the ballast to appear on top of the ground rather than have plaster on top. I also want to do a little 'fine tuning' of the track before I finally apply the ballast. For example I've discovered that  a small part of the platform is too far onto the track, so wide rolling stock scrapes the edge. This will need to be fixed before the ballast is laid. Another issue is the backroad at the station. The track I used was poor quality 'leftover' track. I intend to replace it and the point which also seems to have  a problem. It's also much easier to solder track wiring when there's no ballast to get in the way.

You also might be wondering why I rarely show the other side of the layout. Currently it has a coal mine complex left over from a previous layout. I'm in the process of deciding whether it should be replaced with a wheat silo. The idea is to use that side as a makeup track as well so having a coal mine makes this a bit awkward because the mine building is over the sidings rather than beside them. Anyway I seem to have more grain hoppers than coal anyway.

As you can see there's a lot more work to be done.

Here's something to look at while you're waiting for the work to be completed:

 I took this photo yesterday at Campbelltown Station of a four car K set operating on the Blacktown Yoyo. These trains are often non airconditioned and overcrowded, so hot and uncomfortable particularly in summer. 45 degrees in one of these sets is no joke. Sydney Trains seems uninterested in putting on an 8 car set. Anyone who has caught this train, particularly coming back from Parramatta to Campbelltown in the afternoon peak will know what I mean. And of course they don't run at all on weekends. Did we do something wrong? You get the feeling that the powers that be aren't all that interested.

Your heritage photos this week consists of 900 class railmotor on the Up Canberra Service (Canberra-Monaro Express) in the 1980's in candy colours, and 6042 hauling passenger cars on a tour in the later 1960's.

There was always a bit of a disagreement as to how you actually said "Canberra-Monaro". I remember once listening to a station announcement naming the "Canbra/CanbErra- MonAIRo/MonAro" Express as the next train due. Two bob each way?

And from my Vietnam Railways archives:

141-206 on a plinth outside Da Nang Station. These 2-8-2 locomotives were built in China as direct copies of earlier French locomotives during the 1960s.

Well that's your lot for today. I hope you got something out of my ramblings.

Until next time.

First Day of Autumn

Welcome to autumn.

A lot cooler than the last few weeks and a little damp. Work on my Barra Town layout has picked up a little bit.

I've been continuing the work on scenery and in particular made a start on roads for Barra Town itself. I use 20 thou styrene sheet to make the road and then paint it in either Faller road colour, or if I can't find it, $2 shop grey acrylic which is very similar.

I still haven't finalised the placement of the town buildings but I think they're probably nearly right. Note the half finished DPM kit next to the general store. I found this and another DPM kit during a bit of a search through my storage boxes and drawers. Again they will have to be modified to Aussie styles at some point.

The other thing I noticed is that the Faller road colour looks OK on the roads, but looks a bit dark on the station platform. I might lighten it a little bit. A sort of 'faded' colouring. The signal box in the photo will not be used. It will be replaced with a  water tank at some stage with a water column between the main line and the passing siding.

I've also been working on some rolling stock.

This is where my KHG is at this time.

If you remember I spent some time looking for the correct colour for NSW Indian/tuscan red, This is Tamiya Dull Red and it comes in spray cans (TS33). It looks pretty good to me. Of course colours change and fade under the harsh Australian sun so you might disagree, but I'm happy with it. I started adding some decals, but discovered that my stash of M&J decals are way past their use by date so literally fell to pieces. I think I read on a plastic model website that you can refresh decals by spraying them with clear enamel or something like Testors decal spray. I will be trying this. You see being old I seem to have misplaced the decals that actually came with the kit! I think I do have other yellow stripe decals somewhere. My other decision is to whether use the three letter code or four letter code (KHG or NVKF). 

I've also been 'exploring' Coonabarabran using Google Earth. What a wonderful tool this is.

 My intention is to use Coonabbabran as a template for Barra Town, not copy it exactly. I used the street view and took some screen dumps. I really do like the clock tower. It may mysteriously appear on Barra Town at some point.

It's all very interesting and keeps me occupied.

Now for your prototype images for this week.

Above is 86 class electric locomotive 8619 in Bicentennial paint scheme at Central back in the day when authorities still thought that electric traction was part of the future. Before they got greedy and sold it all off.

This is what's at the other end. 8634 in 'candy' colour scheme.

Fast Electric Parcel Van with another van in tow leaving Ingleburn on the UP. Note that not only is the van no longer with us, but the very nice and very old house in the background also mysteriously disappeared one night even though it was supposed to be heritage listed. Ah Campbelltown. Beautiful one day, knocked down the next!

And your weekly Vietnam Railways image:

Type 1 D19E Class 937 about to pull out of Platform 1, Saigon Station on one of the 'SE' trains  1760 km journey north to Hanoi. Chinese built locomotive. Metre gauge. 1950 hp.A newer version was built in Vietnam.

Well that's your lot for this week.  I'll talk to you again soon.