April showers.......

Welcome to April.

I've been a bit lax with blogs in March. Hopefully I can get back to once a week in April, which was my original intention.

Some History

As I noted previously I've been going through many of my old photos and scanning them into my computer.

So here's one for the books. Sorry about the quality but this photo shows my original attempt at Australian modelling. It's HO.

The models are the original HO NSW kits, a UME flat wagon and MRC refrigerated van by MRC models (in wood) and an RU wheat hopper and BDX open wagon (in carboard!) by Rod Tonkin. The RU used a Lima chassis and the BDX had a very rough cast metal underframe which gave it the weight it needed. Later I purchased the original Berg's brass 32 class for the princely sum of $59.95 I believe, an enormous sum for a student in those days. I still have the locomotive, but after being dropped on a concrete floor it isn't quite the locomotive it was! This would have been around 1967-9. I could check the dates for the models in AMRM but I haven't yet. I was introduced to Australian HO by a friend of mine Stewart Livesy who gave me a copy of a new magazine called (then) Australasian Model Railroad Magazine probably around 1966.

Before I entered the Australian model world I had had a Marklin layout since about 1963-4 which slid under my bed on casters.

My modelling was sort of interrupted (or at least slowed down considerably) when I went to Papua New Guinea in 1971 to teach for 7 years. When I came back in 1978 I had partially switched to N Scale. It was pretty rough and coarse and didn't run very well so later I reverted to NSW HO for a number of years particularly when the Lima models became available.

What's happening on my current layouts?

Below is a photo of the new legs ready to be fitted under the Barra Town layout. The horizontal pieces look a bit odd to allow for the layout frame. Currently the layout is resting on one of those white fold up tables. The frame will increase the height of the board considerably. Because I have limited space in my garage I have fitted wheels as per a recent Model Railroader Magazine article so I can move the layout to give me more room on the side I am working on. A bit of an experiment. I'll let you know how it goes. The big changeover is scheduled for tonight if everything goes according to plan and "she who must be obeyed" agrees to help. I'll let you know how that goes as well.

I finally got the three main trestle pieces fitted as well but still have to fit the pieces at each end and have started painting the river and adding water. Also the timber trestles need more paint and weathering.

 I have always used satin estapol to simulate water on my layouts, building it up in layers.

This time I have been trying a water based clear paint. A bit of a failure unfortunately. The paint has dried to a cloudy white colour, particularly where it's a little thicker. I don't know why this has happened but I'm going to have to go back, repaint the river bottom and then use estapol. At least I know that works.

Unfortunately nothing has happened on my Vietnamese layout since last post.

Your heritage photos for this week:

Again sorry for the poor quality. They are all photos of the opening of the electrification to Campbelltown in 1968 (4th of May). Taken with a small  126 'Instamatic' format camera hence the square images.

The same day was also the declaration of Campbelltown as a city.

The celebrations included a visit by the Vintage Train (1709 and 1243), a couple of S sets and a 20 class and 30 class tank. The AD60 was pulling the tour train I was on. The 40 class passed us pulling an UP Moss Vale Passenger (I think!) 1709 is seen being admired outside the long gone Campbelltown Loco.

Well, that's your lot for this week. See you in about a week's time.

Cheers.

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.

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...

Australia Day and Beyond....

 I'm just recovering from the excitement of Australia Day. We went down to our local park and watched the bands and the fireworks and ate sausage sandwiches. Mmm!

I mentioned last time I had joined the Australian N Scale Facebook Group. I have also discovered a NSW N Scale Facebook Group so I've joined that as well. The two seem to complement each other.

I've been doing some work on my Barra Town layout. I try to do a little bit every day but it doesn't always work that way. I'm finally close to completing my Harry's Hardware kit but as you can see it now has a different name. A little more touching up and a few extra details (I have a dog to put on the verandah) and it should be finished.

Also I've been doing some work on the layout itself:

 

The next thing I want to do is to start work on the station area itself with ballasting, a fence at the back of the platform, a ramp onto the platform, an upgrade of the L&J Station kit etc. I have all the bits and pieces, just trying to find time to do it.

There's been a conversation on the Australian N Group about how to store your models.  I found this A4 document drawer set in Target so I'm going to try them. I have to get some foam and create some divisions and we'll see how they go. More next time.

Some modellers feel that they might not be strong enough, but the plastic is hard, and N Scale models are pretty light.

I have bought several new buildings for my Ga Hong Ha Vietnamese layout:

The really new ones are the pink cinema on the left and the "Bank" on the right. They all need the Japanese signs replaced with Vietnamese ones. There are lots of buildings in Vietnam painted pink. Vietnamese people seem to prefer bright pinks, greens and blues rather than the pale creams, grays etc we have. The models are Kato and Tomytec models, fantastic value for the price. Some models I get from local hobby stores but increasingly I get them from Japan. The local hobby shops are becoming just too expensive, sometimes four or five times the price compared to Japan even with postage. For example I bought one building in Australia and paid $35. I found out later I could have got the same building  in Japan for about A$7 or A$8. Go figure.

One more thing then I'll let you go. I bought two more Gopher Models FO coaches so now I have a set of four:

Look nice don't they.

BTW: I understand the Gophher 44s now won't be available until at least April. I hope this is not true. Earlier would be nice.

Talk to you next time.