Ixion Models have announced the production of a new fine scale injection moulded O Gauge loco … the standard 0-6-0 standard gauge saddle tank contractor’s loco by Hudswell Clarke.
Hudswell Clarke built 70 of these locomotives over period of 58 years. While most were sold to companies in the United Kingdom one loco was purchased by the Sydney County Council and brought out to Australia in 1926 to work the sidings at the Bunnerong Power Station.
The County Council sold the locomotive in 1947 and it ended up at the Wallarah Colliery just south of Newcastle.
The model will feature:
An injection-moulded, painted, ready-to-run body and chassis
Finescale wheels
Six-wheel electrical pickup
High-torque flywheel-equipped motor, driving the rear axle
40:1 precision gearbox
Compensated chassis
DCC and sound ready, with provision for easy speaker installation
Full cab detail
Sprung buffers
Hook drawgear, with three-link couplings
Choice of three liveries: lined maroon, lined green, and lined blue
Included is an etched brass fret containing a selection of prototypically correct cabside Maker’s plates, plus suitable saddletank nameplates, and engine number plates
Also included is a set of injection-moulded 7mm scale loco tools.
Ixion plans on distributing the model through hobby shops and more information will be on their website soon
Owanyilla is located between Gympie and Maryborough on the single-track rail line that runs up the Queensland coast from Brisbane to Cairns.
It was a fairly unremarkable place – I don’t even recall seeing a locality sign on the highway that runs to the east of the railway line – until a wood chipping plant was built on the eastern side of the rail line. The woodchip loader was served by a balloon loop that could be accessed directly accessed from the north so that empties could run straight into the loop and loaded trains could return to the north without the need for any shunting.
At some stage someone decided that a wye or triangle was also needed at Owanyill so now we have the perfect prototypical example for anyone who wants to build a continuous run on their layout. Once in the balloon loop you can just go on going round and round.
The woodchip loader has been closed for some years now although the satellite view does show some wagons on the loop. It’s possible that those are stored coal hoppers that have been superseded by larger capacity wagons. is so old that, as one commenter pointed out, that it shows a woodchip train being loaded.
You can see the current satellite view here and as at 23 July 2011 it still shows the train on the loop.
Google maps also indicates that there is a station at Owanyilla but that was removed some time ago.
For us it’s basically just down the road and next weekend might be a good time to find our way into the area and take some photos.
Earlier this year Queensland was overwhelmed with flooding and in many places railway lines were ripped up and washed away and some of the worst damage occurred on the eastern side of the Toowoomba Range.
Tracks were washed away, bridges were damaged and in some places there was almost nothing left. One of the worst affected places was the picturesque station of Spring Bluff. Apparently there wasn’t much of the roadbed left in some places.
Since the flloods Queensland Rail has worked day and night to reopen the line because it carries around 100 trains a week ranging from general freight right through to heavy coal trains. The line will re-open to traffic on March 28 although a lot of work still needs to be done.
Here you can see them hard at work repairing the track that runs through Spring Bluff.
These days it’s hard to believe that there was every a goods yard associated with the railway station at Rydalmere but there was one and in the late 1960′s it was a reasonably busy place.
When I visited Rydalmere on two separate occasions between 1967 and 1972 there there were a number of K trucks loaded with sawn timber waiting to be unloaded.
This photo was taken from the bridge that carries Victoria Road over the railway line.
Mungar … now there’s a name that doesn’t quite roll off your tongue. It’s not even a very attractive sounding name and unless you’re a Queenslander by birth or by choice you’ve probaby never even heard of it before.
Today it’s just a little village on the backroad from Maryborough to Tiaro but there was a time when it was quite an important railway junction … one of two junctions on the north coast line between Gympie and Maryborough and mainline trains regularly stopped at Mungar.
Branchline trains heading for the busy Monto branch left the mainline at Mungar by either the southern or northern leg of the triangle that was located at the southern end of the station. Trains taking the southern leg of the triangle avoided the station all together while trains using the northern leg could access the back platform of the station and a very small goods yard.
The rather attractive wooden station was manned and there was a loop off the mainline to allow trains heading north and south to pass.
You can see some photos of the station as it appeared back in 1992 here and this is what it looked like on 13 March 2011. At least the platform is still in place
QR in their wisdom mothballed the Monto branch a few years ago and finally closed it on 30 June 2010.
Currently though the track is still in place along the branch line and if a train did come in from the branch it could still access the main line via either leg of the triangle.
The signal guarding access to Mungar station limits from the branch is still switched on and local residents using the main road still halt at the stop sign even though there hasn’t been a train through there in years.
Of course the mainline still gets plenty of use and while we were there the southbound Tilt Train ran through but the passing loop doesn’t seem to see much use at all.
I was born in 1951 … I can remember travelling in wooden suburban passenger cars in Sydney … the Moss Vale passenger racing through Berala behind a roaring 38 class … Richmond passenger trains hauled by 30 class … the faint sounds in the distance of a 20 class shunting the sidings at Regents Park and riding country mail trains that left Sydney behind an express loco but ended their journey behind a branchline loco that had once hauled local passenger trains through Sydney’s suburbs.
If you arrived a little late for the party there’s now a great image archive online at WestonLangford.com that will show you what you missed.
Weston Langford has put over 21,000 images from his own collection on line for all to see. Those images include photos taken all over Australia, New Zealand and Canada and they are well worth seeing. Just one word of warning though – be prepared to spend many hours looking through that collection.
It seems that QR National has a new paint scheme. It may not be the most inspiring paint scheme you have ever seen on a locomotive but someone at QR National’s headquarters must have loved it.
Here you can see it on two brand new 41 class sitting in Maryborough West yard on January 16.
Thanks to a new lens and a new camera I can get you closer to 4142 than I would have been able to with my old Canon G10.
And just to compare the new with a couple of the old paint schemes here 1738D in what became known as the ‘Bronco’ scheme and another rather decrepit looking 1720 class in the much earlier blue scheme.
They were stowed at the other end of the yard on the same day.
The Coffee Pot was built in England in 1905 for the South Australian Railways and now you can have it as an On30 model thanks to Ixion Model Railways.
The model features detailed interior, cab backhead and pipework; slow, smooth running, directional fibre-optic head and tail lamps; interior lighting; DCC and sound ready.
You also get working chopper couplings and etched gates, complete valve gear; will traverse 18” radius curves.
The model is available direct from Ixion Model Railways or from selected hobby shops in Australia and the UK. Check the Ixion website for pricing and availability.
A lazy Saturday morning drive up to Bargara for breakfast and then back to Bundaberg to do some shopping was over and we were heading back to Hervey Bay. We were on the Isis Highway heading south near Lynwood when on came the warning lights at a cane railway level crossing and Isis Central No1 came into view. It was heading east with a string of empties and we just happened to have our cameras in the car.
Now in the 15 years we’ve been together I have never taken my Toni train chasing but we had nothing better to do so when the brakevan passed and the traffic got moving again I took the first left onto the backroads between the Highway and Goodwood Road and the chase was on.
The first few shots were taken from inside the car because we didn’t get a chance to get far enough ahead of the train to get out of the car till we got to the Hetherington Road crossing so Toni shot with my camera while I drove.
She used my Canon G10 … a good camera if you’re not in a hurry and one that Toni isn’t all that familiar with. So there were some good photos … and some photos of the dashboard too.
All trains on the Isis Central Mill system operate with a brakevan … there are some steep grades back towards the mill where loaded trains can easily come grief so the vans help keep loaded trains under control. Each loco is paired with a brakevan and even though these vans can operate with any of the bigger Isis locomotives (D1 – D6) the mill usually pairs each brakevan with it’s like-numbered loco.
Our second encounter with the train took place at a level crossing deep in the cane fields and here you can see Isis No1 overtaking a full bin being taken down to a loading point just to the left of the crossing. As you can see, it’s all good red soil in this part of Queensland.
Brakevan No1 began life as DH67 … a diesel hydraulic locomotive built by Walkers for the Queensland Railway in 1970. In 1991Isis purchased the locomotive from Sims Metal for spare parts and in 1995 the stripped frame was converted to the brakevan you see here.
It was originally numbered BV7 but in 2000 it was renumbered as BV1and here we see it as the end of the train nears the same spot the last photo was taken from.
From this spot the railway starts to wind through some low hills and for a while I thought we had probaby got close to it for the last time. We even lost sight of it for a while but when we crossed the Hetherington Road level crossing we decided to stop and see if the train was headed our way … and fortunately it was.
The stop and the slight delay while the train caught up to us gave Toni a chance to switch to her Canon EOS SLR … a camera much better suited for action shots.
At three frames a second she finished up with a whole bunch of great photos taken from the time the loco appeared above to the time it was across the road.
These locomotives may be narrow gauge and relatively light-weight compared to mainline locos but they still make the ground temble when the pass.
With Toni blazing away with her camera there didn’t seem to be much point in me shooting any stills so I switched my camera to movie mode and got this raw footage. The G10 is designed to be used with the backscreen but it’s not ideal … even in overcast conditions.
And that was where we ended the chase. For the technically minded Isis Central Sugar Mill No1 … or D1 … was originally built by Walkers Engineering for the Queensland Railways as their DH20. Isis purchased the loco in 1990 and Walkers changed the gauge and couplers in time for the 1991 crushing season.
At the end of the 1994 crush Isis rebuilt the loco once more to the standard profile used by the mill on most of their locos.
My thanks to CaneTrain.net for the additional information about D1
