Now here is an interesting idea that I came across at the Brisbane train show earlier this month … and it was especially interesting for me because I seriously dislike building benchwork.
Modular Train Tables will provide you with a kit to build the benchwork for your layout and then ship it to you in kit form. It seems that all the necessary fittings are supplied and all you have to do is assemble it … all the cutting has been done for you.
Follow the link to the website and you can place your order online.
Toni and I drove down to Brisbane yesterday to visit the 2009 Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition. We haven’t been to an exhibition in at least eight years so it was interesting to see where the hobby has gone in that time.
There were definitely some very interesting exhibits and the trade stalls were worth visiting too. I’ve posted some of the photos I took at the exhibition here. As you will see most of those are of narrow gauge displays featuring everything from HOn2.5 right through to some very large-scale models.
Here’s one photo you won’t find over there – it’s the O-Aust Kits 32 class – I rate it about a 10 on the drool-worth scale
If you’re into DCC control for your model railroad … which I’m not … yeah I know, Luddites have nothing on me … you should head over to the website of a new DCC supplier here in Australia.
RailCon Model Railway Control make their own gear and they have some very interesting modules for sale including 2 and three aspect signal controls. Follow the link and you’ll see all they have to offer.
As I’ve said before, I’m fascinated by unusual shunting locomotives, small steam engines and anything that’s just a little bit quirky. So is it any wonder that this caught my eye.
If you like to see interesting branchline trains and odd little roadside tramways then you’ll definitely like this.
Once again, work has got in the way of my hobby and Toni and I have been been working long hours every day for weeks but I’m grabbing 5 minutes now just to point you in the direction of a new website that’s out there and definitely worth going back to.
Scott Perry who is a very active member of the On30 Conspiracy list has started work on a new layout and his new website will take you through it’s construction. Scott has some very innovative ideas on layout design and even now … while he’s still in the baseboard construction period … there’s plenty to think about.
Back on February 21 I took a run over to Maryborough to have a look at what was out in the open at the EDI/Walkers plant and there I found 8306.
Pacific National will be moving into the Queensland coal transport market … perhaps as soon as the last quarter of this year … and they’re having two classes of electric locomotives built to handle that traffic. Once class is being built in Germany and the 83 class is being built at the EDI plant in Maryborough – the same place that built the PN class diesels for Pacific National.
This photo was taken from a public street … that’s where most of the EDI products receive their finishing touches.
From the EDI plant I headed over to Maryborough West and found two more EDI/Walkers products in the yard there.
The loco nearest the camera is 3532 a rebuild of one of the original classes of electric loco that QR had built when they introduced electrification to the north coast line. 3532 was waiting to head north where it will spend its working life hauling coal trains.
Behind the 35 class is Pacific National’s 8304 and off to the left is a the Maryborough West shunter – a 1720 class that was so decrepit looking that you couldn’t read it’s number from either side or from either end.
About every three months Toni and I have to go to Rockhampton so we drive up and back along the Bruce Highwayand. tThe best part of the trip would have to be the section north of Mount Larcombe right through to Rockhampton because that’s where the Bruce Highway parallels the main north coast railway line.
That’s also the section that was subject to duplication work a few years back so that it could cope with the large number of coal trains coming in from the west and heading down to Gladstone to unload. Queensland Rail runs some very long coal trains along this section and you will nearly always see two locos on the front of the train and one or two locos cut in at about the halfway point in the train.
It’s quite an impressive site to see one of these fully laden coal trains thundering along and I was surprised to read today that Queensland Rail limits the speed of these coal trains to 80km/h. It was surprising because we sure weren’t doing 80km/h when we were trying to keep up with this fully laden train on the last trip
Marklin – the German manufacturer of fine model trains - has filed for insolvency (something close to bankruptcy in most parts of the world) after being unable to repay a 50 million euro loan that fell due in January.
The company now hopes that the insolvency regulators will allow Marklin to restructure and emerge even stronger than ever.
That’s sad news for a company about to celebrate its 150th anniversary.
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.
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.
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.
