Australian HO broad gauge

At the Sandown Model Railway Exhibition last weekend in Melbourne, Bendigo Rail Models (distributed by Auscision) released the Victorian Railways flat top T class diesel locomotive in HO scale. The model is available in a range of prototype numbers and versions according to three different time periods - see info here.

The flat top T class had also been previously announced by Austrains. I imagine Austrains will release a statement to the market advising what their intentions are for their model; not necessarily in response to the new model from Bendigo, but because of some speculation already circling in news groups. Austrains had previously released models of the later versions of the T class (as had Powerline). The Victorian Railways T class is therefore a popular class of locomotive.

The T class, however, was predominantly a locomotive used on the broad gauge (5' 3") of the Victorian Railways. This list of VR T class diesels indicates that nearly all the T class diesels, certainly in the early years to the 1970s, were broad gauge locos.

Whilst my Australian model railway interests are largely NSW, I also have an interest in Victorian Railways and also the Commonwealth/South Australian railways. As such, the issue of track gauge always stands out. In Victoria, the broad gauge dominated for most of its history while in South Australia, all three conventional track gauges (3' 6", 4' 8 1/2" and 5' 3") were used. In NSW, the standard gauge (4' 8 1/2") was the norm. In HO scale, the 16.5mm gauge reflects the standard gauge track of the prototype.

But herein is a dilemma for Victorian modellers. As much of their railway was (and to a lesser extent remains today) on the broad gauge, what is to be done about the HO scale track gauge? The standard gauge track in HO scale (16.5mm) will be too narrow for modellers of the broad gauge prototype. The answer, to date, has been the production of broad gauge models with wheel spacings to sit on HO scale standard gauge track. This is the so-called scale track dilemma most notorious in British model railway circles where the OO scale (4mm) models are running around on HO scale (3.5mm to the foot) track.

In Britain, the compromise is readily excepted. A shift to HO scale from OO scale remains unlikely; certainly from the main model railway manufacturers servicing that market. From time to time the issue receives some emotional comment and correspondence in the British model railway press. There are many who are happy to stay with the 4mm scale motive power and rolling stock on HO scale track.

In Australia, the debate about broad gauge track has received less publicity which may also reflect less interest. On the other hand, Australian prototype modellers modelling narrow gauge (3' 6") in HO scale are quite aware of the scale-gauge issue and work accordingly using 12mm track (HOn3.5). Some modellers prefer to model the Australian narrow gauge railways in S scale (3/16" to the foot) using 16.5mm track (for example in Western Australia and in Queensland). Modellers of Australian broad gauge railways (mainly Victorian Railways) seem quite happy to ignore the scale-track gauge issue (and here I willingly admit to being one of them).

I therefore really have two questions to ask:

Firstly, is it necessary (desired?) to model the Victorian Railways broad gauge in HO scale using the wider scale track (18.37mm) instead of 16.5mm?

And, should manufacturers of model railway equipment for broad gauge prototypes like Victorian Railways ensure that a supply of accurately gauged locos and rolling stock are available for sale? Or, alternatively, produce models that at least can be be readily converted to the broader gauge than the usual 16.5mm gauge (using spacers is what I understand happens in the UK).

I am interested in what people think about this issue so please feel free to comment.

Model railway operation using staff control

I had an enjoyable operating session last night at the home of one of the local members of the Australasian Division of the NMRA. The layout is a fictional railway line located between North Geelong in Victoria and Eden on the far south coast of NSW. As a consequence, the line is standard gauge. The locos and rollingstock come from both the Victorian and NSW railways, as well as Freight Australia, Great Northern, R&H, and National Rail.

The layout is controlled using an older version of Easy DCC and works to a train order sequence. A card for each train gives instructions as to the origin and destination, and any operational requirements en route. For example, one of my trains last night was a goods train that had instructions to pick up and set out wagons at various locations along the way. Shunting in a number of yards and keeping to sequence was indeed quite a challenge, especially if through trains were waiting on me clearing the main to allow them uninterrupted passage.

There were about nine of us working these trains, including what the Americans would call yardmasters at the terminus points (North Geelong and Eden) and at the key crossing point (Latrobe Valley) midway between the two.

Operation was an interesting combination of radio control and staff exchange. This meant that one couldn't enter a new section of the railroad without permission (obtained through using the individual radio control handsets and microphones) and without getting the staff for that section. Upon leaving the section, the staff had to be returned. The photo below shows the staffs for the five key sections of the layout. You can see that there are two trains in operation by the fact that the staff for section B and section D are not in the box.

You can also see in the photo how the staffs are stored in a vertical position. The staffs sit in the box and actually operate a switch at the base of the wooden holders to indicate when a staff is in position in the wooden box or has been removed. The staff set-up also controls the signals to give the correct colour light signal for approaching trains. Very ingenious indeed!

I really enjoyed the operating night and using another type of digital control system. I am becoming more interested in using digital control every time I have the chance to experience a real operational model railroad, rather than simple loop layouts that are popular at model railway exhibitions. Operating a Victorian/NSW layout was also an interesting experience. It was certainly nice to see all those Austrains, Auscision and Trainorama locos and wagons in use.

Thanks to Rob and the other chaps for a really great evening!

Caulfield exhibition report

I intend to blog each day this week about the AMRA Caulfield model railway exhibition from last weekend. This is because there is much to report. I need to upload the full set of photos onto Flickr and then use the Blogger slideshow widget to link to them. In the meantime, I will blog a few different posts to show a small selection of photos in each, and to keep the length of the posts down a bit.

This blog post looks at layouts based on the Victorian Railways. I may come back to them later in the week with some additional images. In the next post, however, I will show some photos of other layouts of different prototypes.

The first photo is of the layout Murranbilla. The layout is a single track generic station and yard set in south-eastern Australia. The cattle yard (pictured) and cement plant were nice features, as was the dry creek bed and trestle bridge at the other end of the layout. The painted backscene on this layout was particularly impressive.

The next two photos are from the layout called Murri. Murri is another one of those generic prototype layouts also set somewhere is south-eastern Australia. The first shot shows a pair of SAR 930 class diesels hauling a fast goods service through the main station and yard.

The second photo shows a pair of T class diesels in post-Victorian Railways ownership - the lead loco being a CFCLA loco and the second being a Southern Shorthaul (SSR) loco. The pair are pulling a set of ballast hoppers out of the yard at the opposite end of the layout to the above shot.

The next image is of a delightful VR layout, Bright/Everton. The layout design was in the traditional loop format, although the operators stood outside the middle well and operated the layout from the front on both sides. This certainly made the operators accessible to the public! The layout featured Bright on one side of the layout and Everton on the other. In the image here a Y class diesel is pulling a short goods train out of the loop at Everton.

The last photo for this post this evening is from another excellent VR layout - the End of the line. The name says exactly what it means and shows a small terminus and yard of "a typical branchline terminus located on the Victorian Railways network" (so the program blurb says). I liked this layout a lot because it demonstrated what could be achieved in a layout length of a couple of metres. The gap between the backscene behind the station that was set further back than the backscene behind the yard to the right (to allow the entry of trains from a small fiddle yard) might not impress purists but I didn't let it detract from the overall display. The photo shows a nicely painted railmotor (a PSM brass or SEM kit ?) waiting at the station.

I thoroughly enjoyed these Victorian-based layouts and spent considerable time at all of them watching the trains roll by or seeing a range of different shunting movements.

My next blog post will have some more images from the Caulfield exhibition so stay tuned...

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.

Lake Hume

In a previous blog post about my current layout Winmar, I mentioned a possible branch line extension to Lake Hume.

My fictional railway junction of Winmar is just north of Albury. The equally fictional Lake Hume branch extends east towards a real body of water called Lake Hume. A real railway (the Wodonga-Cudgewa line) to Lake Hume exists on the Victorian side of the border. My Lake Hume branch would be the NSW equivalent of the Cudgewa line and would reflect the historical parochialism of state-based railway systems.

As such, some recent thinking has converged around the idea of using my (yet to be constructed) model railway terminus at Lake Hume as the basis for this small exhibition layout I have been rambling on about. If I did this, then this module would be available for both my home-based layout AND for exhibitions. I could develop the module along the lines of a four metre (a bit more than 12 foot) display with a traverser at one end, similar to layouts popular in the UK at exhibitions. I could perhaps turn the terminus into a L-shape with that power station or mineral sands industry extending onto a new baseboard beyond the station and yard itself.

And, what might be doubly appealing, I could run a session using some of my Victorian locos and wagons as well and pretend I was in Victoria! Don't know what the Victorians might think of that scenario but I am sure most exhibition-goers wouldn't know the prototypical difference. Hmmm.

AMRA Model Railway Exhibition - Caulfield

The 2009 AMRA (Victoria) Model Railway Exhibition will be held at Caulfield racecourse on the weekend of 22-23 August. I will be going down to Melbourne that weekend to take a look.

I went to the same exhibition last year, also at Caulfield racecourse, and was very impressed by both the venue and the layouts on display. It's always great to see new layouts and talk with people who model different prototypes (in this instance, principally Victorian Railways).

In fact, as I recall, I came home thinking about building a small Victorian Railways exhibition layout myself. I even started some rudimenatry research and was quite interested in the Skipton line that ran south-west from Ballarat (now a 55km rail trail).

I can't say I know too many people living in NSW or the ACT who build layouts based on the old Victorian Railways, although Peter Street on the NSW north coast has a nice example. And Stephen Ottaway has discussed with me the potential of building a layout with a fictitious NSWR/VR rail interchange at Delegate, near the NSW and Victorian border. Perhaps my interest will be rekindled at Caulfield in a couple of weeks time.

I am looking forward to the trip but must remember to bring a spare SD card for my camera this time AND have the camera battery fully charged!