Model Trains and Things

There’s always something a little forlorn and sad about a locomotive that’s sitting on the scrap line and the scrap lines at Enfield were perhaps a little worse than those at other places.

Here’s 4805 on the scrap line at Enfield back on 21 February 1998.

Photo courtesty of Brad Peadon.

Of course not every locomotive that gets shunted to the scrap line stays there but once a loco becomes a source of spare parts … as 4805 has … then it rarely makes a comeback to revenue service.

When this photo was taken 4805 was around 38 years old and so it would be reasonable to expect that the whole class of 165 locomotives would be on the verge of extinction but not so. A large proportion of the class is still in daily use hauling some major trains and even some of the early members of the class are still around.

Motive Power’s 2007 Fleet List lists 4806 in the Pacific National fleet and stored at Delec while 4818 is stored at Werris Creek. 4819 and 4827 are still in regular use with Railcorp (NSW).

By the way you can find more of the photographer’s work here and you can follow this link to a 48 class forum

My partner and I lived in Tasmania for a number of years and one of the most interesting railways we came across while we were down there was the Ida Bay Railway. We only visited it once and I didn’t get to take many photos while we were down there but that railway has been lurking in the back of my modelling thoughts ever since 2001.

With locomotives like this Malcolm Moore on the roster and a background of hauling limestone in a very lonely part of the world it’s hard not to find the Ida Bay Railway interesting. Just how lonely it can be down there on the Ida Bay Railway you’ll see when you read Sad and Lonely

Then at the beginning of December I  found that a very similar loco was now available in On30 through two hobby shops here in Australia.

One look at that model and I began to wonder if it might be time to switch from N to something bigger … something that my eyes might be able to handle a little better. So I began to search the Net for information about On30 and I’ve come across some very interesting and very informative sites out there.

I’ve also come across the On30 Conspiracy - a Yahoo group that is definitely worth joining if you’re interested in narrow gauge O scale. Now I’ve got some On30 bogies coming in the mail, I’ll be picking up some timber to start building layout and I’ve really been bitten by the modelling bug once more.

Now I don’t really think that I’m going to model the Ida Bay Railway but I certainly do blame the Ida Bay Railway

You’ll find the kit for this Malcolm Moore loco available from Bergs in Parramatta and Christmas Every Day on the Gold Coast.

Here is the very spartan cab of the Ida Bay Malcolm Moore loco and I’ll post some more photos from our trip at a later date. Until then you can find out more about this interesting little railway here.

Dave Frary has been a household name in the model railroad fraternity for many years and he’s still in action and still producing some absolute masterpieces.

Here’s a link to a brief tutorial on how he built a very attractive module.

Pac Nat

- cut off from it’s Brisbane terminal on Tuesday when a north bound QR freighter derailed eight wagons and left the main northern line blocked till Friday morning. You can read the news story here

- and out of the grain haulage business in Victoria. Oh the joys of privatisation where railway companies don’t provide services for for businesses that are affected by the drought. You can read that news story here.

Victoria recently bought back the railway lines from Pacific National - will we see government run freight operations reappear in that State?

On a positive note for Pacific National - they are very close to finalising some coal haulage contracts in Queensland. Expect an announcement any day now - not that it will do much good in easing the coal export problems because the choke point seems to be the ports and not the railways - although that depends on just who is trying to cover the bum at the time.