Narrow Gauge Downunder

The latest issue of Narrow Gauge Downunder is out and as usual it is a great read. The Editor Gavin Hince does a great job of putting together the magazine that showcases narrow gauge modelling. Not only does it cover modelling but has a good mix of prototype information too.

The April 2014 issue has a article on the farm yard that I built to take to the narrow gauge convention in Melbourne. I posted about it here back in April last year. While the diorama was in Melbourne Gavin took some lovely photos that he has kindly published. I have added captions explaining how I built the models as well as some photos of the buildings that I used as inspiration.

Here are a couple of my photos that aren't up to the quality of Gavin's, but hopefully wet your appetite to see the article

 

Thanks Gavin for the opportunity to showcase my modelling and I hope your readers enjoy it

Haskell Na

The wait is finally over and the On30 Haskell Na has arrived. The postman brought me one this week and it didn't take long for it to hit the layout. I don't have a decoder for it yet so I had to switch part of the layout back to DC to give it a run.

 

 

So what are my intial thoughts? Well it certainly looks like a Na. The level of detail is reasonable and it runs well on DC. It happily pulled a train of 8 wagons up a 1 in 40 grade without any problems.

 

Probably the one thing I found disappointing is the colour of the smoke box. It is a blueish grey that to my eye doesn't quite look right. It got the better of me so I fired up my airbrush this morning and gave it a coat of Testor's  Model Master "burnt metal" buffing metaliser.

 

 

This gave the smoke box a very nice pale silver colour similar to how the black Na's on Puffing Billy are painted. It wasn't a difficult job as you only have to remove three screws and the smoke box comes off the model. The wiring for the light stops you taking the smoke box off completely but it made it much easier to mask than if I had left it in place.

 

There are some extra detail parts that are included but you need to install on the loco yourself. I have already added the numberplates and pilots but I will wait until I have installed a decoder before I add the rest. I may also add some extra details like the pipes and levers on the sand domes before I give the loco some weathering.

 

All in all I am quite pleased with this latest addition to the roster.

 

 



 

 



Completing the mainline

After the inactivity on the railway of the last few months I have been fortunate to have some time to relax and work on the layout. I have been wanting to complete laying the track on the layout for some time. Late last year I got organised and ordered the Micro Engineering code 83 flex track & points I needed from The Railcar. I got enough Trackrite underlay and more then enough Masonite strips from Bunnings to build the spline roadbed. It was all sitting there waiting for me to find the time.

It only took me about a week to get the roadbed built around New Year and I have been laying track since. I had a big push this past weekend and yesterday I completed the mainline and the yard at Mt Bogong. This means that track laying is complete except for a couple spurs and maybe some revision of the yard at Geehi. It also means that I can run a train the entire length of the layout, and that is just what we did!

 

My youngest daughter Georgia had the honour of driving the first train into Mt Bogong. Without a stop it takes around 6 minutes to travel from one end to the other. With stops for water, shunting, etc, a round trip should easily fill an hour or more. I am keen to get some more rolling stock built so that I can give an operating session a try 

Seasons Greetings

It has been quite awhile since I have posted to my blog. Unfortunately life has been very busy and I haven't had much time to work on the layout. Late spring and early summer are always busy on the farm with hay making and harvest but this year has been busier than most. A late frost did quite a bit of damage to our crops which added to our work load because we had to cut some of them for hay. With all that happening I just haven't been in the mood to do much work on the railway.

 

Soon the little church in Buckland will be ready to host Christmas services

We have now finished harvest and I have found some time to work on some projects that have been languishing on my work bench. I have had a Outback Models St Agnes church started for sometime and I decided I would like to get it finished. I have added a vestry to one side to make this very nice kit look a little different. I need to add a few more finishing touches ( like some doors!) and it will be finished and ready to install on the layout.

Hopefully this coming year will see the rest of the track laid on the layout and at least a small area fully sceniced.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a blessed Christmas and hope it is a time of joy spent with family & friends and a prosperous new year. I would like to thank all of you that have taken the time to read my blog and those of you who have made comments. I really appreciate your input and I hope you have found it interesting.

 

Merry Christmas & happy New Year

 

Murray

 

September Update

 

 

It has been awhile since I have made an update. In my last blog post I had just completed laying all the yard in Coolamine and I have since started adding the scenery. I have been painting the rail using a woodland scenic paint pen and have painted individual ties with a selection of brown and grey paints.  I have covered the ground using my usual mix of Celluclay mixed with paint as a base and I then sift on dry tile grout using two different colours, a beige and a burnt ash. I am yet to add any foliage and I will probably wait until I have put soil on the entire yard.

 

 

I have also added some weathering to my rolling stock just using an air brush to lightly mist on some dust & grime. I need to do more but for the time being it is a good start.

 

 

I have also installed the Tam Valley servo to control a turnout and I am very impressed. It was quick and easy to install and I think excellent value for money. I was about to order enough servo's to fit out the entire yard when I had my budget derailed. I visited the exhibition at Caulfield which was very enjoyable but the most exciting thing to happen for sometime in Australian narrow gauge modelling was sitting in a cabinet on the Brunel Hobbies stand.

 

Haskell Co from Taiwan are producing an On30 model of the Na loco used by the Victorian narrow gauge system and still running today on Puffing Billy. A sample was on display and I was lucky enough to have a very close look at the pilot model. It has a good level of detail and it has been designed to fit a Loksound dcc decoder for authentic sound. I have placed an order for two hence the impact on the budget. Hopefully they should be available soon.

 

Gordon Gravett has been at it again, writing another book about his excellent scenery techniques. Modelling Grasslands arrived in my mailbox last week and it is a must have for any modeller that wants realistic grass on their layout. He also talks about soil, mud, roads and water and I bought my copy from The Titfield Thunderbolt bookstore

 

Coolamine yard

Wet wintry weekends do have some advantages. It has been a miserable winter here and I have tried to take advantage of the ordinary weather by working on the layout.  Since making the video tour of the layout in early June, my focus has been on building Coolamine.

 Coolamine is were the narrow gauge meets the broad gauge and is the first thing you see of the layout when you enter the shed.  It is also the largest yard on the railway so getting it built was important for a number of reasons. I would like to get some of Coolamine looking finished asap to give a good first impression as guests come into the shed. I also wanted to get the track laid so I can start running trains. Through experience I have found if I have trains running I am more motivated to work on the layout. On Sunday I finished laying the yard. There are a couple of sidings still to lay but they need some scenery work done first

 

 

I wanted the track to have a look common to many of the yards on the VR narrow gauge with the ties sunken into the ground . I had a chat to John at J&K hobbies who make Trackrite underlay. He custom milled some underlay to match the Micro Engineering On30 track I use and the 11 foot track spacing's the VR used. Thanks John you have saved me a lot of work and when I put my soil down the ties should just peak above ground level. I have tried to follow the track plan of the narrow gauge yard at Colac as close as I can. I am hoping that by being as prototypical as possible shunting the yard should be also prototypical and trouble free. 

 

 A feature of the yard will be the transfer shed and crane. When time allows I hope to add some broad gauge wagons to give comparison to the different in size. I had a week away with the family during school holidays and I managed to build a couple of Ian Storrie's beautiful NM cattle wagon kits. The layout currently swallows up rolling stock and I badly need to get some more kits together.

I still have lots to do like get the soil down, paint the track and install some lighting so I can get some decent photos! I have also been contemplating how I will control all the switches. I have decided to try a singlet servo built by Tam Valley Depot and sold here in Australia by Model Railroad Craftsmen . I have yet to install it but it looks like it could be a good option.

A new direction

As the title suggests I have reached a fork in the road with my modelling and have decided to head down a new path.

I have been freelancing for about 10 years and it has been fun creating a railway that was mine. Freelancing can give you a lot of freedom to have what ever model you want. There can also be a downside because there is no guide book to say how your railway should be. As some one who's goal is to have a realistic railway I was finding I was spending lots of time agonising about the myriad of choices that freelancing involves. Instead of enjoying my modelling I was researching different options and often dissatisfied with the choices I had made. There is nothing wrong with freelancing but at this point in my modelling life it just wasn't working for me.


If I look back I have known this for some time and I have been exploring prototypes to model both consciously and sub consciously for the last twelve months. There is so many options these days for a modeller to choose. If I was going to model a prototype it had to be something that had meaning, preferably something I have seen, have a reasonable amount of rolling stock available as I don't want to scratch build everything.

It probably isn't that big a surprise that I have chosen to model the Victorian Railways 30 inch gauge branch lines as it ticks all the boxes for me. The Bogong & Geehi has always drawn inspiration from the VR and I had planned to use quite a bit of the VR rolling stock. I wanted to model the VR when I got into On30 in 2005 but the lack of motive power has been a stumbling block. Since then I have managed to acquire a couple engines but I didn't have a model of the garratt G42 which I consider a must. I was fortunate to buy a kit produced by Phil Badger of G42 late last year. I now had all I needed and so I spent about 6 months considering making the change.

There is no doubt that modelling a prototype can cut back on creativity as lots of decisions have been made for me. That said I am finding I am getting a lot more modelling done and I am seeing details in photos I have never noticed before. I considered modelling one of the branches closely specially the Walhalla branch but that would have meant having to rip out what I had built and start a new layout. In the end though I have decided that a freelanced branch was the way to go. I don't have to make many modifications to the current layout as most of the towns are based on VR prototypes.

So the new layout is the Bogong & Geehi branch of the Victorian Railways. The branch was opened in 1903 to Geehi in north east Victoria and latter extended to Mt Bogong in 1908 to service the tin mines. I will be taking elements from all of the four real VR branches and possibly from the broad gauge branches in the region.

I have been hard at work putting a train together. The carriages need weathering and I still need to add lights to the Na but it is nice to see my first VR train trundling over the layout.

So I am happy to look forward to a new phase on my model railway journey. I have enjoyed the freelanced Bogong & Geehi and I have learnt a lot but it has now become another chapter along with On3 D&RGW, HOn3 D&RGW and HO American.