Model Trains and Things

This has got nothing to do with trains … I just wanted to give you all nightmares .

As you read this you should be aware that bull sharks are blamed for most shark attacks in Queensland - and it seems that you’re not even safe from them when you’re on a ferry.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/allpointsqld/2008/03/the-shark-rides.html

And don’t forget … they breed ‘em bloody huge in Queensland

Here is an interesting detail photo of a limestone hopper taken at Moss Vale down in New South Wales

It’s 5am on Easter Monday and I can’t believe I’m up. Yesterday we drove over 1100km to get back from Newcastle and I should be absolutely knackered (we also did over 1100km on Friday to get down to Newcastle) but I’ve had 8 hours sleep and that’s about my limit.

We went down to meet a couple of the grandkids who were born since we were last in NSW so there wasn’t much time to look around and no chance to get any photos - although we did see plenty of coal trains including an up QRN coalie hauled by two 5000 class locos. They were absolutely filthy and the QRN scheme is one that doesn’t seem to look good when it’s covered in grime.

Early on Saturday morning we went for a drive into the centre of Newcastle and it was so depressing - boarded up shops,  grimy streets, flies and cockroaches inside the McDonalds store in Mayfield and the staff didn’t seem to care - sad and depressing and not like the Newcastle we used to know.

A bit like this photo of 4706 taken by Brad Peadon at Carrington (Newcastle) in December 1997. The loco was destined for the Dorrigo rail museum.

It was good to get back over the border!

Every now and again … and likely to be every month for the for next few months … Toni and I have to drive up to Rockhampton and back in the same day. The highway doesn’t really touch the northern railway line till just after Calliope and from then on the road and the railway line run quite close together right through to Rockhampton.

That part of the northern line is coal country and you really should be able to see plenty of trains but until last Tuesday we had hardly seen a train on the line during our Rockhampton trips. Last Tuesday more than made up for it though and we ended up seeing four coal trains and three freighters.

Unfortunately I only got to photograph one down coalie running back to the mines  and I couldn’t get across the level crossing in time to grab a photo of it with the sun behind me. I really only had time to put the handbrake on, dig the camera out from under the seat and turn it on before the train was almost on me.

Leading the train is 4044 with one of the new 41 class in the shafts - further back in the train acting as distributed power was 4032. The last time I’d seen that loco was the year before last when it was under construction at Walkers/EDI at Maryborough.

There was some interesting motive power in Rockhampton yard too but there were too many poles in the way and we didn’t even bother getting out of the car and we just missed a 2200 class on an up work train running down the middle of the street on the northern approach to Rockhampton yard.

We’ll be back in a month so we might do better then.

If you’re into scratchbuilding you soon begin to realise that there are lots of everyday things around you that can be used as the basis for parts. Even the humble Bic biro has its uses and here is how one guy in Italy turns the caps into headlights for his locos.

In just four simple steps he’s got himself the cheapest headlight you could find. You’ll find those four steps here.

Update: If you’re wondering about what sort of adhesive to use for this project Mauro used a two-part epoxy.

Fuel tankers have always been of interest to me and last week Brad Peadon published an interesting recent photo of a couple of refurbished tankers here. That prompted me to dig through my collection of fuel tankers to see what I had to show you.

In New South Wales in later years the government railways coded all their fuel tankers ast NTAF and that code covered quite a wide variety of tankers. The first one I want to show you is this shorty that I photographed in Orange sometime in the early to mid 90’s.

Back in those days there was a small fuel depot adjacent to where Franklin Road crosses the line leading down to the station and a siding ran up a short incline to service that depot.

The next two photos were taken in Bathurst circa 1980. Yes, that’s a 4 wheel tanker and I was quite surprised to find it sitting in the Esso depot’s siding late one afternoon when I went down to fuel the car (back in those days if you had an account at the depot you had a key to the bowsers and booked up fuel on an honour system).

Seeing a tanker sitting in the siding was nothing new but I’d never seen a 4-wheel tanker there before … or after this one occurrence.

While I’m still back in Bathurst here are four more photos I took there. The first three were all on an up train that rolled into Bathurst late one afternoon around 1986-87. In order of appearance we’ve got a three dome tanker, a two dome tanker and a longer tanker that has no domes.

The rust pattern on the shed behind the train is also interesting.

The last photo from Bathurst shows a much longer tanker that I spotted sitting in the storage sidings behind the down platform in the mid 1980s.

The last photo was taken in Lithgow. This short tanker was sitting in the up yard sometime between January 1977 and March 1978.