Inspiration from the NSW Rail Museum

Sometimes you need to get out of the armchair and breathe in some fresh air and steam locomotive smoke! And that's exactly what I did yesterday at the NSW Rail Museum at Thirlmere.

 

Even though I am a longstanding member, it has been many years since I last visited the NSW Rail Museum. I naturally had heard about the modernisation of the museum and all the fantastic work undertaken by volunteers over the years. However, it's not until you see the scale and scope of the museum that you really get a full appreciation. There are locomotives, passenger and freight rollingstock, and even a wonderfully restored NSW railway pay bus.

 

In addition to the collection itself, and the steam rides on the loop line over the recent NSW school holidays, there is a special immersive display on the history of locomotive 1021 (Cardiff) which is very impressive. The museum facilities are top class and I was pleased see a large number of families about enjoying the museum and all it has to offer.

The highlight of the day was the 40 minute steam-hauled trip to Buxton and back. Locomotive 2705 did the duties. At Buxton, an enterprising railside business was doing a roaring trade selling jacket potatoes with butter and sour cream - delicious! Upon return to Thirlmere, 2705 runs around its train in preparation for the next tour.

It was a great day. I look forward to making future visits and spending more time at the Museum.

The mystery and subtlety of weathering

Last Friday I drove from Canberra to Sydney for a work-related meeting in Hornsby. When I travel to Sydney for the day I usually take the Exeter turnoff from the Hume Highway for breakfast at the Exeter Post Office cafe. This trip was no different. I can heartily recommend the turkish toast with butter and vegemite!

Of course, this route off the Hume Highway means one continues north from Exeter to Moss Vale and Berrima before rejoining the Hume Highway and onwards to Sydney. Taking this route means there is a good chance to see a train or two roll through this part of the Southern Highlands. I only saw one train at Moss Vale but I did see some shunting in the sidings of the Berrima branch, near the large Omya factory complex. The branch here feeds the huge Blue Circle cement works at Berrima and the Ingham stock feed factory (grain). This means there are usually plenty of grain and cement wagons in the sidings.

Now I don't usually stop to spend much time looking at these wagons but on this trip the road that takes you to the highway was closed, meaning I had to turn around and find a detour. A train was shunting some cement wagons behind a stationary set of grain hoppers and I watched this for a few minutes before I suddenly realised what a wonderful example of weathering was in evidence on the NPRY cement wagons.

My weathering antennae is very sensitive at the moment because a fellow railway modeller in Canberra has turned his attention to building 1:35 scale WWII tanks (I think it's just a phase he is going through). And this chap has been despairing at the sheer brilliance displayed by military modellers who have weathered tanks so realistically and in such fine detail. The many different weathering methods for tanks abound in military modelling magazines and the brilliant AFV DVD on acrylic techniques. I bought my copy of the DVD from Crusader Trading  in Fyshwick, Canberra, to see how it would work with model railways (Answer: yes it would work, but you'd never weather your fleet of rolling stock to this detail in a lifetime).

Anyway, if you're up for the challenge, here are a few quick photos of these cement wagons. The weather was overcast which wasn't great for photography but you'll get the picture. Just have a look at the different shades, textures, and general grime on these wagons. I doubt I could do justice to these examples in weathering my four AR Kit HO scale models of the prototype. The critical points of weathering interest, IMHO, are the subtle variation in shades, the peeled surface texture, and the streak marks.

I wouldn't mind seeing Mr Mig Jimenez having a crack at one of these cement wagons with his weathering techniques...now that would be something worth waiting for.

How much prototype is enough for Australian HO?

There has been an interesting exchange of opinions on one of the model railway listservs recently about HO scale models and accuracy to the prototype.

The focus of the discussion was the NSWGR S truck. However, the debate is relevant to all models of Australian prototype. But I want to concentrate on HO scale models for the time being, given the size of this market in Australia and the focus of the manufacturers to produce models to this scale.

I believe that HO scale model manufacturers in our hobby are committed to making their models as accurate as possible to the prototype. However, there are likely to be commercial and production considerations that make concessions to prototype accuracy necessary. These considerations might include the cost of production, the ease of construction during the production process, generic prototype fundamentals over individual prototype specifics, and whether detail items may actually be too fragile for the expected model railway use.

On the demand side of the equation, we hear that modellers want their HO scale models to be accurate to the prototype. We sometimes hear major debates about whether the sill detail is a scale 1 inch too wide on the model, or whether all the detail rivets in the undercarriage have been reproduced to "scale" thickness. On the other hand, models that have a number of omissions or errors are quite rightly criticised. But these are all value judgements.

The Australian manufacturers sourcing product from the factories in China, as well as a bevy of local "cottage industry" producers, all face the same scale-prototype dillemma - how much accuracy should be provided?

Austrains tries to make some differentiation between the level of detail accuracy with their basic (Basix) range and their more detailed "standard" models. This strategy is probably a good one. I do wonder, however, whether a significant portion of the buying public really care, and just purchase models based on the availability of their favourite or needed models.

Interestingly, I suspect that all scale model hobbies face the same issue: a commitment to produce accurate models with reasoned concessions to accuracy when applicable. For example, a few railway modellers I know have a penchant for model tanks. There are highly detailed plastic kits of model tanks in 1:35 and 1:72 scale, as well as a range of supplementary super detail items including turret assemblies and tracks.

The issue therefore becomes to what level of detail and prototype accuracy is required by the market (and the market is segmented to include collectors, rivet counters, "average" modellers, etc.) and what does this mean for the manufacturers who produce for this market? Should model railway manufacturers keep striving for even greater scale accuracy if the retail cost rises considerably, or the model becomes too fragile to handle? Is there an acceptable standard for prototype accuracy that could be enhanced with super-detail parts supplied by third party manufacturers?

I'd be interested in hearing from modellers and manufacturers what they consider to be acceptable tolerances for HO scale railway models based on the prototype, keeping in mind the differences in individual modeller's wants and the market realities in which the manufacturers operate within.

Adelaide layouts and NRM photos 2010

As I indicated in my previous post, I have a few photos to show from my trip to Adelaide for the Modelling the Railways of South Australia Convention.

The first two sets of photos show the two home layouts I managed to visit after the Convention. Both of these layouts featured (along with The Moping Branch layout) in the book "Recollections" by Kevin Kavanagh released last year at the Convention. The book gives a good insight into a handful of layouts owned and operated by like-minded individuals who have been part of the ABLO (Adelaide Branch Line Operators) group during the past forty years or so. The two layouts featured below still use a card operating system based on the ABLO method. The ABLO card system was featured in an article in the January 1977 issue of the Australian Model Railway Magazine (AMRM).

The first three photos shows the layout of Kev Kavanagh (not The Moping Branch Kev) that I was privileged to visit on the day after the Convention. The layout is the Huntingdale & Grange Railway. This layout was featured in the December 1997 issue of AMRM.

The next four photos shows the layout of Hugh Williams. This layout was moved in total from its former home in Belair to its new owner and new location - quite a move given the size of the layout and the complexity of the track plan. The layout runs around itself in three loops and each level is visible behind each other. As I said in the previous post, I did not find the visible layers distracting at all while I was operating my train. A description of the layout and a line diagram of the track plan are in the book "Recollections".

Finally, I have included a couple of photos from the National Railway Museum at Port Adelaide. The photos show, in order, a portrait of the front end of the SAR 930 class diesel; a shot of the Commonwealth Railways Budd car (that one is for Bob Stack), and the third photo is of a trio of LCL containers sitting in an open wagon (that's for Bob Gallagher).

I have already pencilled in some time away next year for the Convention plus a couple of extra days for "sightseeing". Keep a lookout for the 2011 dates that will be advised on the Modelling the Railways of South Australia Convention website.

Out of the armchair

Today was a beautiful crisp and sunny day in Canberra. Yet it all started routinely enough. By mid-morning, I was well into the morning chores. A little later, I got a phone call from one my of train photography mates, Andrew (that's Andrew with an R.).  Andrew told me that a good "lash-up" was on its way south and that we should meet at his place and then drive to Gunning to take some photos.

It was a simple choice: continue with the morning chores or head off to Gunning for train photos.

I managed to drive to Andrew's house in north Canberra pretty quickly and then we headed off together to Gunning.  By now, it was lunchtime and I was just as keen to get to Gunning for an egg and bacon roll as I was to take some photos!  We managed to get to Gunning in good time and I stopped for that roll, much to Andrew's concern that we'd just as likely miss "the shot" if I wasn't quick enough!

No worries. We headed north out of Gunning and found a spot called "razorback" in the Cullerin Range (between top and bottom bridges for us "locals"). Dazza was already perched on one of those big granite tors and it wasn't long before we were joined by three or four other railway photographers.

We didn't have to wait long. The train with four locos and a long tail of empty grain hoppers snaked around the big, wide curve in perfect sunshine.  Kevin Schultz was at the reins of EL60 with a couple of T's (385 and 386) and VL 352 behind for extra horsepower. Good stuff!

Then we all raced back to our cars for the chase; back in the direction of Gunning and Yass. Andrew and I managed to arrive at the road overbridge at Gunning just as the train peeled around the curve and we took a few quick shots. We then took off for the Hume Highway and then drove just south of Jerrawa for the next shot, and then onto Binalong for this last shot.

It was a great day to be out of the armchair and into the sunshine.

Back in Oz after US trip

I am back from my trip to South Dakota (SD) and Minnesota (MN) in the USA. It was an interesting two weeks travelling across two US states to follow a prototype railroad between Rapid City (SD) and Winona (MN). I drove almost 1500 miles during the course of my trip so there was plenty of experience driving on "the other" side of the road! The weather wasn't the best and I would have liked to have seen more prototype railroad action, but the trip was still worthwhile and enjoyable.

The full story is in my other model railway blog, DME Down Under.

I will get back into the swing of things with new posts to this blog in the next few days.

Modelling the Railways of SA Convention is over for another year

I returned home to Canberra this afternoon after spending an enjoyable day yesterday at the Modelling the Railways of South Australia Convention in Adelaide. I think that the attendance at the convention this year would have been one of the biggest since the auditorium looked pretty full. Congratulations and thank you to Les Fordham and the team who put together another great convention and another set of quality notes.

One of the key features of the convention this year was signal cabins. Over here in NSW, we call them signal boxes. Anyway, David Goedecke gave a great presentation on Modelling South Australian Signal Cabins, including detailed prototype notes and photos; describing how he built a model of the cabin at Ambleside. What was especially interesting was how David became interested in signal cabins. David told us that when he was a young boy he came upon a book in the local library about the life of a signalman in England - "Signalman's morning" by Adrian Vaughan. After reading this book, David became fascinated with signal cabins and their operation. I can well understand from my own childhood experiences where interests in later life originally formed. Random childhood events often have enormous impact on our lives, albeit at the time, seemingly so innocuous!

Signal cabins were clearly of interest to other people as well since there were plenty of examples in the model display area, mostly in HO scale but at least one in N scale. I have included photos of just three examples showing HO scale models of Ambleside (Goedecke), Adelaide (Gavin Thrum), and Penfield (Vic Kollosuhe).


I also really enjoyed the presentation from Lindsay Baker about oil depots. Oil depots are a particular favourite of mine. It was good to hear first hand from Lindsay who had worked in the industry for many years for Golden Fleece. Lindsay also gave us an insight into how he has used oil depots on his HO scale layout - based on Naracoorte - called the South Eastern Division. Lindsay highlighted the different types of petroleum products carried and distributed by rail, as well as mentioning the diversity of customers that kept oil depots in business. In addition, Lindsay reminded us that oil depots were supposed to be securely fenced! The combination of prototype information and his description of how he uses oil depots on his superb home layout was a great way to showcase an effective and believable lineside industry. Lindsay modelled an oil depot for the display area and I have included a photo below.


And speaking of the display area, there was plenty to see including signal cabins, SAR cabooses, locos and rollingstock. There was an even a small model of a Country Fire Association (CFA) shed and surrounding infrastructure. But possibly the pick of the display was Frank Kelly's superb model of SAR locomotive No.1 and train - photo below.


Other presentations from the day included early passenger cars of the Ghan by John Beckhaus, the 600 class steam engines of the SAR by Bob Burford, modelling SAR/VR joint stock Pullman passenger cars by Noel Potter and Stuart Hicks, SAR Webb cabooses in N scale by Mark Wilson, and photos of modern rollingstock by Noel Potter. The special guest speaker was Les Smith, ex-Australian National Chief Mechanical Engineer, who closed the day with a fabulous account of some of the goings-on during the AN period - sometimes fact is stranger than fiction!

Finally, in addition to the presentations, I really enjoyed catching up with people and meeting some new people (even a couple from Canberra) over the course of the day. All in all, it was another great convention and well worth the trip.

My weekend in Melbourne

Just a quick post about the weekend before a more comprehensive post with photos a little later on.

I flew to Melbourne on Saturday morning. I then caught the airport bus into Southern Cross Station. I bought my return ticket to Ballarat (about $20) and then boarded one of the Velocity sets (platform 8 south) to begin the trip. The train was delayed because of two defective cars that had to be uncoupled from the train. The train ended up being about 30 minutes late into Ballarat, not helped by a 12 minute delay in a crossing loop en route. From Ballarat station, I caught a taxi to pick up a rental car at Wendouree.

I drove from Ballarat down to Pittong and Skipton. The scenery here was more interesting - lightly wooded areas along the rail trail, green fields, and the occasional flock of sheep grazing - with mostly good sunshine but a chilly wind. Got plenty of photos of the kaolin factory at Pittong, some nice shots of parts of the rail trail, and some shots of what was left in the rail yard at Skipton.

I drove back to Ballarat, returned the car, taxi to station, and uneventful trip by Velocity train to Melbourne. Whilst no train photos, I still had a good day driving in the countryside and getting some good photos of an industry and some associated town and rail yard shots at Skipton.

I went to the Caulfield exhibition on the Sunday (yesterday). The exhibition was fantastic - great location, great exhibits, good trade displays, and good facilities. More about the exhibition (and photos) in the next post.

Day trip to Skipton

Next weekend I am flying down to Melbourne. As I said in a previous blog post, I wil be visiting the AMRA (Victoria) Model Railway Exhibition at Caulfield racecourse.

I am really looking forward to seeing some great layouts at the exhibition. I will also be interested in the commercial outlets and checking out anything new on show. For example, I understand that Railmotor Models will have a sample of their forthcoming SCT diesel locomotive in HO scale on display at the Caulfield exhibition.

However, the exhibition will fill only one of the two days for me. I am planning on taking a day trip by train from Melbourne to Ballarat in the morning and returning later that afternoon. I intend to hire a car and then follow the rail line south-west to Skipton, stopping to check out the quarry at Kopke and the Imerys kaolin operations at Pittong. I hope that there will still be some rail infrastructure along the way to Skipton, although I realise that the rails have been lifted and been replaced by a rail trail. Good to read here how Imerys worked with local people to help with the construction of the rail trail. If I had more time (and a bicycle), I wouldn't mind doing the Ballarat-Skipton rail trail ride.

I like exploring places (and industries) that I haven't seen before so the Skipton trip should be quite enjoyable.

Modelling the Railways of NSW Convention 2009

Yesterday I drove up to Sydney from Canberra to attend the 26th annual Modelling the Railways of NSW Convention. The convention was held on the very south side of Sydney at Loftus, next to the tramway museum. The drive took three hours one way via the Picton turn-off and Appin.

Two special recognition awards were presented to start the day's proceedings. The awards went to Peter Berg of Bergs Hobbies for his commercial and personal commitment to the hobby, and to Ray Pilgrim for all his help and assistance to the Convention organisers over many years. Both awards were certainly well deserved.

The 2009 Convention followed the format of previous years: attendees go to five selected presentations out of the eleven (twelve in some years) on the day. The five presentations I attended were as follows:

• Layout baseboard construction and base scenery by Terry Flynn.
• Transportation of milled agricultural products by Phil Collins.
• From raindrops to tender tanks (2 parts in one session) by Ray Love and Craig Mackey.
• Modelling NSW yard lights by Max Stuart
• Weathering track by Phil Badger
  

Rather than rewrite my notes of each session and summarise the articles from the Convention booklet, I want to just highlight some of the main points of personal interest.

The presentation by Terry on baseboards went through standard materials (wood, steel and aluminium) and construction (box, grid, and L-girder) procedures. However, I was very interested in the FREMO (free form layout standards) for modular layout construction. I can see how the FREMO standards might be useful for encouraging individuals to actually build a module that can be assembled with other modules into an operating layout. There should be no more excuses that one can't build a layout - just build a module instead and link it up with your friends or club members' modules! Terry mentioned that the Australian Model Railway Association (AMRA) has just published FREMO standards, based on the US FREMO standards. I later discovered some FREMO operations from North America in Utah and Calgary. There are more.

Phil Collins gave us a history of how milled grain products (e.g. glucose, flour, etc.) have been transported by rail in NSW. There were plenty of photos to illustrate his talk. Of special interest to me were the wagons used to transport glucose. Manildra (thanks for the correction, Phil) converted a former BMT milk tanker (BMT 1) for glucose transport. This vehicle didn't last too long since the underframe bent because glucose is much heavier than milk! The other interesting point of note was the use by Cargill of specially converted former DOT (Departmental oil tankers - thanks for the correction, David) into vegetable oil tankers.

The first presentation I attended by Ray Love (assisted by Craig Mackey) managed to put part 1 and 2 into the one session! Ray showed a series of photographs to illustrate the way the NSW railways obtained, transported, and supplied water to service steam locomotive requirements - essentially from dam or reservoir to water tank and water column. Of special interest was the pump house at Glenreagh which Peter Jarvis modelled very nicely. Naturally, like much of the New South Wales railways, there were plenty of variations in type and colour of water supply infrastructure like pumphouses, water tanks, and water columns. Reference to photos and dates is recommended.

Max Stuart's presentation on yard lights was the best presentation of the day, in my opinion. He combined both prototype and model construction in the one session with good photos and illustrations, an informative talk, and a very beautiful diorama to showcase the working yard lights. Max based his work on an article by Bob Stack on yard lights that appeared in an old issue of Australian Journal of Railway Modelling (AJRM). Bob Stack is of course the chief superintendant of South Coast Rail. I am sure both Bob and Stephen Ottaway (editor of AJRM) would be chuffed that Max was able to turn the information from that magazine article into an excellent working model. Attending the yard light presentation was not only informative, but practical as well. Max had some kits available of the yard light with a full set of pieces (including cast goose-necks) and instructions. I bought one complete kit but could very easily go back to Max for more!

The final presentation at 4.30pm was from noted Australian modeller Phil Badger. Phil is well known in model railway circles for his many presentations over the years and his practical assistance to the hobby with brass etchings of components and kits. Phil talked about weathering and how it impacts on track and lineside structures. A big reminder I got from Phil's presentation was to pay closer attention to track and lineside details when looking at photographs, noting in particular railway era and colour variations of track, roadbed, and lineside paraphanalia.

Thanks to Peter Jarvis and the other organisers for another successful Convention.

Notes on a layout - Winmar

I was searching through a bundle of papers in the study over the weekend and found my notebook about my Australian layout, Winmar. It was interesting reading to go back a few years and see how some of the ideas formed about the layout. Here are some tidbits from those notes:

• the layout was named after former St Kilda AFL player, Nicky Winmar
• the layout design was influenced by the prototype track configuration at Culcairn and Blayney, both towns in New South Wales, but on different lines.
• I liked the Main South Line for the types of trains I could run (express passenger and varied freight). I also liked the added operational interest generated by using a fictitious pioneer branch (inspired by a Lloyd Holmes article on Culcairn in one of the Byways of Steam books), and just like the lines to Oaklands, Kywong, Westby, and Holbrook.
  
• the layout baseboard had initially been built by my dad in the late 1970's using a 12 inch grid framed at the perimeter by aluminium lengths for rigidity. The baseboard is 16' x 8' with an operating well in the middle. I put a series of formers on the layout to raise the actual baseboard height above the grid so I could fit point motors and dip the scenery. The baseboard is now extremely heavy but after several moves, remains intact.
  
• the 8' long traverser that acts as a fiddle yard first used drawer rollers. These were not strong enough so I decided to use heavier steel rollers used to hold shelves of computer servers. This has been much better, although I intend to put in another roller in the middle to prevent some slight sagging.
• I had initially used a diamond crossing to get from the inner siding to a factory but was later informed that diamond crossings were very rare on the NSWR. I changed that to an 'S' bend from the inner siding to the factory/flour mill/biscuit factory (still undecided on that one) used 24" radius curved Shinohara track. This has since been replaced by 30" curved Shinohara track, requiring an insert in one corner of the operating well to hold the track and the to-be-constructed industry.
• a mixture of Peco and Seep point motors were used. The Seep motors seem a more simple yet just as effective mode of turnout operation.
  
• single track running is fine for home layouts
• the junction behind the station to the left (but at the front of the viewing area) at Winmar offers potential for future extension and the Lake Hume branch is gradually finding some "prototype history" to explain its existence.
• the Lake Hume branch could be used to bring coal to the power station and agricultural supplies to farmers, and ship out timber, livestock and grain. I made a subsequent note that perhaps a mineral sands industry (like Bemax) might be possible.

There were a few more bits and pieces of information in the notebook. However, much of what was important in the early planning and construction days were formed from the thinking recorded in the notebook and mentioned in point form here. Perhaps if I had started a blog back then, there would have been even more revealed and remembered.

Now, if I could find some of the digital photos that either Bob or I have taken of the layout to actually illustrate these notes I'd be very happy!

Signalling

One of the great challenges of model railways is signalling. On the New South Wales Government railways and subsequent authorities, working semaphore signals dominated the safety and perway landscape.


In model form, the best working semaphore signals I have seen were on the layout "Menangle", probably thirty years ago. Mind you, not many layouts even try to have working semaphore signals. Winmar, for example, does not anticipate seeing signals for some time (and not just because the layout is in storage in a Canberra warehouse). Working signals do look great - even working colour light signals.

Anyway, I was out last weekend at Gunning to see that the semaphore signals have finally been removed. The change to colour light signals in the Cullerin is pretty much complete. The remains of the semaphore signals and posts have been cut up and sent to the tip. The colour light signals that had literally been under wrap for a while now are now in action. You can see a before and after shot below. The photos were taken on the 5th and 27th June 2009.


There's something about working semaphores that really can't be outdone by their colour light equivalents - but colour light signals are much easier to model!