G42

G42 simmering away in the yard at Geehi

G42 has arrived on the Bogong & Geehi, and the management is delighted. Bernard Snoodyk from The Model Works Australia who built the loco for me, has done a brilliant job of painting and weathering it.

I need to add couplers and I am hoping that Mike Waters from DCC Sound will have a sound decoder with sounds recorded from the real G42 available soon.

 

The addition of this loco to my roster is an important milestone for both the layout and myself. When I decided that I wanted to model the Victorian Railways narrow gauge lines I really wanted a model of their Garratt. They only owned two, G41 & G42. They were purchased new from Beyer Peacock in 1926. G41 spent its entire life working on the Colac - Beech Forrest - Crowes line, while G42 worked the Moe - Walhalla line until that line closed in 1954. It was then transferred to Colac were it eventually hauled the last VR narrow gauge train on June 30 1962. Thankfully G42 was saved and restored to run on Puffing Billy in 2004.

G42 at Belgrave station in 2006

 

The two Garratt's made a big difference to the VR's operations. They had 27,630 pounds of tractive effort compared to the Na's 12,515 pounds. This made the railway more efficient (even though the narrow gauge lines still lost lots of money) and the two locos dominated traffic on their respective lines.

 

As I model the VR sometime between 1940 & 1954 (yet to nail down a specific date) and because I really like Garratt's, I have wanted a model of G42 for many years. As my layout draws inspiration from all four of the VR lines a G class Garratt was a crucial to achieve what I want to model.  I also have 3 Na's thanks to Haskell's which means in theory my locomotive roster is now complete. I am looking forward to my model of G42 hauling many trains between Geehi & Bogong for many years to come.



Climbing the hill to Coolamine

Testing a new toy

 

There is a new locomotive coming to the Bogong & Geehi...

 

 

This is a model of G42 almost completely scratchbuilt by my friend Bernard Snoodyk. He brought it over for a test run last week and after a couple of tweaks it ran beautifully. He is now painting & weathering it to look as it did in the late 1940's for me. I can't wait!

Mount Blue models

I recently became aware that Mount Blue model company have released their first Victorian Railways O scale kit, which is the ubiquitous lamp room. I ordered one to try from their website and a couple of weeks later a very well designed kit arrived.

The kit features a full interior with the framing all laser cut. The tin walls are paper and are also laser cut. This kit looks far more complex than it really is. I was able to put it together over a couple of evenings and it makes a very high quality building. There is an opportunity to detail the interior and I added some small drums on the oil shelf to provide some colour inside.

Mount Blue model company make a variety of VR kits in HO and I am hoping they increase their range in 1/48th. I will be adding at least a couple more of their lamp room kits to my layout.

Puffing Billy

Na's 7 & 14 getting ready for the day ahead at Belgrave

 

I was in Melbourne last week for my work and so I decided to head down a couple of days earlier so I could visit Puffing Billy . For those who don't know, Puffing Billy is a tourist railway that operates one of the four Victorian Railways 2'6" narrow gauge lines. The railway operates from Belgrave to Gembrook in the Dandenong ranges east of Melbourne.

 

I have been wanting to visit for awhile to get some photos and general inspiration. I have lots of books & plans about the VR, but nothing beats visiting and the aroma of coal smoke to get motivated to do some modelling.

Emerald station

 

I rode the train from Belgrave to Emerald and back. I mentioned to my friend Bob Prewett who models the VR narrow gauge in On30 and is a conductor on Puffing Billy that I was visiting. He wasn't working the day I visited but he mentioned to his friends that I was visiting. I would especially like to thank Bob, Alan and Mel for making a great day even better.

7a crossing the Monbulk creek trestle bridge on the way back to Belgrave

 

 

The hills are alive

Just a quick update to show what a difference adding some vegetation can make. I spent a few enjoyable hours on Sunday adding trees to the layout. I am really happy with how this scene is coming together.

The trees are sedum flowers that have been soaked in a white glue/water mix and then given a dusting of ground foam. I then give them a light spray of green paint to add some variety to the colour. I am planning to continue the "forest" to cover the hill on the right of the photo.

I still have lots of other things to do to finish the scene, such as adding some understory beneath the trees and grassing the foreground. I am keenly waiting for a shipment of static grass to arrive. All that then will remain to do is build the stockyards and add some details.

Video tour

In June last year I made a video tour of the layout that you can watch here. It is sometimes easy to feel like that I am not getting much done on the layout. When I watch last years video I realise that in the past twelve months I have gotten quite a bit of work done on the layout.

To give you an idea of what I have achieved this last year I have made another video tour.

 

 

Please forgive the shaky video as I shot it with my iPad. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for watching

July update

While I haven't been updating the blog I have been working on the layout. After my last post about simplifying the railway I have been making a few small changes.

I have moved the dairy coop building to the interchange town as I think it looks better there and was probably too substantial a building for the small town it was serving. I haven't bedded it in yet so the move may not be permanent. You may notice I am not using town names. The coop has a Geehi sign mounted on it that I don't want to remove so the town names are now also undecided.

In the spirit of making things simpler the town formally known as Geehi has been made smaller.

the shortened yard. The yard used to end in front of the loco.

 

It originally had a very long yard, longer than the run to the next station down the line. I was also not that happy with track between it and the next town as it came out of the yard and almost instantly went into a curve that only ended at the next town. I shortened the yard by about 6 feet and moved the whole town by the same amount to the left. It doesn't sound much but it gives me an extra train length between the two towns which looks a lot better. It also gave me the opportunity to add some winding curves that add to the look of a small narrow gauge railway.

 

 

It was a simple change as the yard was laid on a single board. All I had to do was remove the track at one end cut a couple of wires and shorten the board. I had to remove a couple of point throw machines and all in all it only took a day to do. I spent last weekend relaying the track & repairing the wiring and everything was going great until I went to reinstall the point throws. I have managed to put a point over a non moveable piece of the frame! Doh! It is only in the wrong spot by 10 mm but its still the wrong spot. I have been scratching my head since pondering what I will do. I am still undecided but it does reinforce the adage check at least twice before you lock yourself in.