A tropical heatwave....

Wow, I hope everyone survived the heat last weekend. Unless you have airconditioning it certainly cut down on the modelling didn't it! Last week my wife and I travelled to Cabramatta on the Blacktown Flyer. It must have been close to 50 degrees in the non-airconditined S set we were forced to travel in. Why does Campbelltown still get all these non-airconditioned sets? Is it something we said?

It was so hot I should have displayed WOLO boards outside the station on my layout.

The photo above shows the start of my modifications to the Bachman Hotel. Basically I've changed the roof to a more Australian style and will paint and add NSW hotel signs. There's a pub in Coonabarrabran called "The Imperial". While it doesn't look the same the name sounds authentic. I still have to add corrugated roofing.

I'm also repainting some of the American shops I have various shades of cream and white. Also I will add canopies at the front as per Aussie shops and appropriate signs.

 I've also been thinking about my express train. As a temporary measure I have assembled some Walther's stainless steel coaches into a set which I will rename "Western Explorer".

Above is the tentative logo to be added to the sides of the coaches. Thanks to the guys on the Australian N Scale Facebook group for their ideas and thoughts on this.

 And now a couple of images from the past. The first is an interesting photo I took of the original 422 class colour scheme and it's candy replacement. 42213 and 42220 at Central. Date not known unfortunately. I believe the 42220 scheme was a one off, with more yellow than normal. It had
been upgraded as a test vehicle for the next generation of diesel locomotives then being developed.

The two photos below were taken in the late 60's possibly some time in 1968. The first one shows a non streamlined 38 class (3813?) on the afternoon down Southern Highlands Express at Regents Park while the second shows 3809 getting coal at the long gone Eveleigh loco depot. Sorry not 100% quality because of age but interesting.

With the work contining on my Barra Town layout, not a lot has been happening on my Vietnamese layout.

So here's a couple of photos I took in Vietnam. The first one is of  D13E 714. You might look and say 'hmm looks familiar". The reason why is because it's an Alco designed, Indian built locomotive (YDM4)  and clearly belongs to the 45/48 class family though it's rated at 1300 hp and is metre guage. Yes it does produce large clouds of black smoke! Typical Alco.  These locomotives tend to be based in the southern part of Vietnam and are seen more on freight than passenger trains. Note low level platform. These are gradually being replaced at major stations with high level ones.

 The second photo shows the main station building at the coastal resort city of Nha Trang. A combination of French and local design. Both photos taken in 2014.

 Well that's just about your lot for this week.

Keep cool and I'll have more in the next post.

Hot and Bothered....

Enjoying the hot weather are we?

I tend to get a bit tired and listless when the weather's hot, so my modelling productivity drops accordingly.

I have been reading the three part article in AMRM concerning Victorian wooden bridges (trestles). The most recent article is in the current (February) issue.It's just what I needed to get me off my rear end and build my bridge. Now I know it's about Victorian bridges and I model NSW but it seems to me that in N scale the differences are quite minor. So by next week the bridge should be finished and I'll be able to post some photos.

I also had a bit of a read of the editorial in AMRM. Bob Gallagher sems to have finally woken up to the fact that the hobby is becoming (is?) too expensive for many people and that as a community the hobby is rapidly aging with few 'young' people joining us. The amount of 'grey' hair in evidence at Liverpool last year was startlingly obvious. I and a lot of other people have been saying this for some time with a number of editorials and letters in the British press. In the US the hobby is a bit more reasonably priced and there are more modellers with a lot of money. Look at the many basement size layouts displayed in their  model press.

Unfortunately the importers here still haven't woken up. I hate to sound like the grumpy old man I am but it's a recipe for the demise of the hobby.

Personally I'm glad I model N scale, the prices for Chinese Australian outline HO are now way too expensive for me. With N scale I can build kits and buy the occasional locomotive and ready to run wagon (saving my pennies for the Gopher 44 whenever that's released). As a retiree my funds are limited so kit building is the way to go. Once the kit, paint etc is added together it probably isn't as cheap as I imagine, but I can spread the cost over the time it takes to build rather than forking out hundreds of dollars in one go.

I'm currently working on a peter Boorman KHG, and looking at starting on his 45 class kit as well as the bridge mentioned above.

I've just fitted the badger 2AT bogies I recieved in the post the othe day and now I'm ready to paint (don't worry I'll remove the bogies before I paint).

Talking about painting. An interesting discussion on the NSW facebook group about the best paint for NSW "indian red". My understanding is that there were two red/brown shades used by NSWR, tuscan red and indian red and I also understood that tuscan was the darker and browner and indian the lighter and more red. One member of the group suggested Export spray cans of Indian red, others the Railey brand, another box car red.

The 'Export' sounded good so I got hold of a can this morning and tested it on a metal CPH body I,ve had sitting around for years.

It's a bit weird. When I look at the result using my own eyes it looks quite dark and brown, not a lot of red there at all, but when I take a photo (see above) it's lighter and I think I can see a touch of red. The actual coverage is good but I'm still not convinced it's the correct shade.

Just a quick shot of some work I've been doing on my Vietnamese layout.

It's mainly the road side posts. The white posts with the red tops. Most main roads seem to have them. Every kilometre or so one has the distance to the next town/city on it.

Oh well, I'm off to the Vietnamese TET (new year) celebrations at Fairfield Showground tonight so that should be fun.

Untl next time...