Model Trains and Things

I was stationed in Orange in New South Wales for eight years from 1988 to when I resigned in 1996. During that time a group of live steamers got together and, by the time I left Orange, had established neat running area in Anson Street just on the outskirts of the shopping centre.

The group is still in existence and the track is still in place and becomes a hive of activity on operating days. These photos were taken during one such operating session last year by one of my sons who still lives in Orange.

Photo courtesy of John Livesey

Not everyone goes to run their live steamers on an operating day. Some come along to show off the work that has gone into their latest creation and get some input from other club members. Here are two members casting a critical eye over a partially built NSWGR C30T.

Barry Potter is well known as a loco builder in live steam circles and he has built a number of NSWGR 50 class steam locos for various people. It’s quite possible that 5035 and 5037 are products of his workshop.

Photo courtesy of John Livesey

Photo courtesy of John Livesey

The 36 class were one THE mainline passenger loco of the NSWGR before being bumped to lesser duties following the introduction of the 38 class and diesels such as the 40 class, 42 class, 43 class and 44 class. Here we see a model of the last of the 36 class sitting in the yard area.

Photo courtesy of John Livesey

3807 was one of the first non-streamlined 38 class locomotives. I’m not sure if it ever In real life it never carried the green paint scheme shown here (although 3813 and 3830 carried this scheme) but when you built a beautiful working model like this you’re entitled to paint it any colour you choose. (I’m not sure where my brain was when I wrote the first part of that sentence) All members of the 38 class carried a similar green livery at some stage of their working lives.

Photo courtesy of John Livesey

In a fit of madness a couple of weeks ago I thought that I might have been able to get back to a near-normal lifestyle as our business began to slow just a little. At the same time the scratchbuilding bug bit and along came the latest copy of Narrow Gauge Down Under.

In the magazine was an article on scratchbuilding a four-wheel Class A Climax and it caught my eye. One of those in On30 would look very good running on my yet-to-be-built layout.

Now the Climax is a fairly open locomotive and fitting a motor to such a beast is a bit of a challenge. The author of the article built his with the motor hidden inside the vertical boiler and I was thinking along those lines until I came across this.

Image courtesy of Hollywoodfoundry.com

This is a plan of a new drive system – called the Gurzeler – from the Hollywood Foundry here in Australia. The Hollywood Foundry has a number of drive systems available for model locos at prices that are very reasonable and a visit to their website is not to be missed.

This particular drive system is designed to provide the minimum outline size possible above the floor and the belt drive … something that’s not very common these days … allows for “considerable latitude in your design as the spacing between motor and the translator is not critical, as it would be with gears”.

It certainly looks interesting and one day I may actually get to build the loco and install a drive like this one … but I’m not holding my breath. The slowdown that I mentioned lasted all of 48 hours and now we’re back to working at well-beyond full capacity so the dreams of building and running an A Class Climax have been filed away for another day.

If you love the sound of an EMD diesel working hard and you’ve got a soft spot for the old Victorian B class – those locos that Americans think of as double-ended F class then here’s another treat for you. B65 and B61 are working a special passenger train north towards Sydney to position it for a tour on New Year’s Eve.

On a more personal note, for those of you who have been wondering what had happened to me and why I’ve been missing from here for the last month let me give you the short answer … nothing happened to me except for a huge amount of work.

Sadly that huge amount of work is going to continue well into the future … when you’re as good at what you do as Toni and I are you’re always going to be in demand … even in a recession. However, I do promise to try and get in here a bit more frequently than I have been lately.