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.