Some time ago I was chatting with someone from the 7mm Ausmodelling Yahoo group and I mentioned that I had wandered through the Camelia/Rose Hill industrial area taking photos one Sunday back around 1970.
He asked if I could post them somewhere because some of the group were looking at the area as a modelling project so here they are … better late than never.
I found this photo when I was digging around in some old albums the other day. It was taken during the 1980s … probably sometime after 1985 and before March 1988 … and it was taken from the west end of the main platform at Bathurst.
It’s really a nothing shot and I’m not quite sure why I took it. The loco isn’t really in the picture … Bathurst West signal box really isn’t in the picture … and there are a couple of poles in the way as well.
I was going to toss it in the garbage until I realised that this is a photo that’s full of detail … detail that would be of interest to modellers. So let’s look at some of that detail.
The lower back wall of the signal box. Now the signal boxes at either end of the platform at Bathurst were basically identical but the lower wall on the lower back wall in the photo is quite different to what I remember of the same wall on Bathurst East signal box.
The gas cylinder … it appears to have been placed there with some purpose in mind (it seems to be sitting on a purpose-built base) but it doesn’t appear to be connected to anything.
The piping on the side wall of the signal box … each of those pipes serves a specific purpose and notice where the rainwater downpipe ends. Adding all that piping to a building would be a bit fiddly but think of how plain that wall would look if there were no pipes there.
The stained paintwork on the corner of the building nearest the locomotive. It’s obvious that when that photo was taken Bathurst West signal box had not had a close encounter with paint brush for quite a few years.
Now we modellers often go to great lengths to replicate generalised weathering but when was the last time you added some heavy staining like you see there?
The walkway that leads from the door below the signal box. It runs right across the yard to the workshop that’s out of the picture on the left-hand side. It’s obviously heavily stained.
The trash burner … no one seemed to even think about pollution back then and if there was rubbish to be disposed off then the quickest way was to stick it in an old 44 gallon drum and light a match.
Obviously that’s what the workers around this part of Bathurst yard had been doing for years … just look at the rust on that drum.
The colour of the ground … look at the staining on the ground in the foreground of this photo and around the tracks adjacent to the locomotives. There’s no clean ballast or nice brown soil here … just years of dripping oil from both diesels and steam locomotives.
I hope this nothing photo gives you some detailing ideas for your layout.
