It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me

Enjoyed the Monday of the long weekend at the AMRA Liverpool exhibition. A few photos below. Particular thanks to Ron Everingham for the chat and the opportunity to operate Broxburn Sidings. The AJ coupling system is fascinating. It was also good to catch up with Bob Stokes from Coffs Harbour, with whose daughter I worked for nearly twenty years.
A few images from the day:

Electric Car Sheds

Wumbat

 

Valley Heights

 

 

Broxburn Sidings

 

Having a go on Broxburn Sidings

Behind the scenes at Coffs Harbour

Panorama inside Coffs

Bethungra

Mungo Scotts

Whisky Springs



I then had the opportunity for a bit of work on the RUB set ... which I'll cover in my next post.
Cheers for now.

Shelf life

Early in the month we visited the St. Peter's Anglican School for their annual fete. The Macarthur District MRC had their layout there, which featured some nice new SCTs.

Motivated by this, and with Alison & Kate at a church do in the evening, Brendan asked if we could work on putting the kadees onto my original Minimodels single deckers. Here he is doing his first kadee install.

 

The bulkheads & H bars were details added for me by Roy Howarth many years ago. He also opened some of the doors, and put ads on the bulkhead windows.

 

Alison & the kids are away again, visiting Italy, Greece & Turkey, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunities this presents.

First up was a slide night for a mixed group of modellers and grumpy gunzels. This saw 4101 and a BPV visit Rico on the Rio Grande Southern, on Brendan's layout. Another visitor was a blue round-top pig.

 

 

The slide night was followed by a return to the garage with a view to commencing bench work for Weddin Jct. However, I decided to improve the work facilities first, by re-purposing the remaining base boards from Yabbie Ck as work bench and shelves.

 Initial phase, adding legs to the old modules from the base of the U-shaped Yabbie Creek layout.

 I obtained a second 250x200x25 bracket to match one I had in the bits box:

 I propped everything up while I adjusted the position of the shelves and finalised the fixing points:

 Now I just need to bolt down the various key bits of machinery. There doesn't appear to be a good spot for my little bench grinder - might need to take over some more real estate in the garage!

 



Now looking forward to a bit of gunzelling at Streamliners on Saturday / Sunday, and the Great  (model) Railway Bazaar on Monday (apologies to Paul Theroux!). Seriously, check the floor plan on the AMRA web site ... it's 75% commercial stands!

Cheers,
Lindsay

Heave away, you ruler kings,

I'm bound for South Australia.
A couple of nights in Adelaide for an EL-001 meeting provided an opportunity to catch up with a few of the local gunzels for a feed, do a bit more work on the BHG & MBC, and visit that temple of fine gunzel dining, the Belair Hotel.
A few images of the prototype are on my flickr site (scroll left). After enjoying a nice scotch fillet at the Belair pub, I ventured out for a late running 3PM1 (6023/6028/X53), videoed at Glenalta, then moved a little further up the hill to Belair for NR2/8232/NR22 on 5AM5. Not really enough light on the standard gauge, but I thought I might as well record the passing parade. I'll have a crack at Sleeps Hill in the morning - haven't been there for 16 years. My last visit was with Steve Howard during our Bulldog Marathon, Sydney 2000 avoiding adventure.
After getting the coverage, I retired to the Rydges on South Terrace to work on the models.

 The MBC has had its body re-glued, with the corners reinforced with a bead of araldite.

The BHG sides & ends assembled. The Hawksmoor kit really is junk, nothing fits, everything is warped. The inconsistencies in moulding thickness, shrinkage etc are a real pain to deal with. I doubt that I'll invest in any of the others that have been "remastered" from the old Protype models. It would be far easier to draw them up in 3D and make new masters on a 3D printer.

 

 

 Underframe fitted. again, a lot of fettling required to get it anywhere near mating with the sides and ends.

 

The roof needed a little filing to get a snug fit between the ends.

 

I was thinking about putting in compartment walls and maybe even lighting this van, but the kit itself is so rough I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

Temporarily placed on 2AE bogies. There will need to be some packing to get the sideframes clear of the floor, and probably some milling out of the solebars to get enough play.

 

That'll do for now. The family is off on a big trip next week, so hopefully I'll get to make good use of the evenings while they're away!



Better be home soon

Well, the second coat of paint went on last night. After I got home from pipes this evening, I re-hung the curtains, then marshalled a train using most of Brendan's rollingstock. A few trips around the loop, and pose for a few photos, then back inside to attend to the housework before the family returns tomorrow.

The station, goods shed and hardware shop are Tyco kits that my sister & I received for Christmas many years ago, which Dad then helped us assemble. Most of the other buildings were recently donated by Roy H, left over from his late father's Christmas layout building sideline. The stockyard is a Sentinel kit (if I recall), that once graced Yabbie Creek. The tunnel portals are from a Lima double-track tunnel. I had to widen them by cutting out the key stones and spacing the sides a little further apart to get adequate clearance, as the track centres are were too wide.
Time for bed as I have to be on call in the morning for when they disembark Pacific Jewel. The kids are actually wanting to go to school!

I see a layout and I want it painted black

First coat of black was applied on Tuesday evening, before heading around to the Miranda Car & Waggon Works for an evening with Roy, working on the final three cars for my RUB set.

The parts for a Silvermaz SFS laid out. This one will be converted to an OFS following Allan Brown's article in the October 1990 AMRM.

Two SFS kits and one SBS de-flashed, the roofs scribed, hand rail holes drilled and also holes for a/c hatch cover lift rings. Vents fitted.

A close-up of a roof showing scribing, vents, and holes for lifting rings drilled.

 

Off now to have my dinner, then head out to the garage to finish "painting it black".



Hooray, and up she rises!

By Wednesday evening, I had finished the manufacture of one of the end diagonal braces, and trial fitted it to the layout. I must have mucked up the angle of the cut with the mitre saw. One end had to be 41 degrees, the other 49, but I think I transposed them. Not ideal, but not too big a drama as they won't be visible once the curtains are fitted.

After returning from piping practice (well, drumming practice, for me) on Thursday, I finished off the second brace, fitted both and finally returned the layout to its upright position.

I didn't have any lengths of salvaged timber long enough for the 4' diagonals, so had to splice 2 x 2' lengths as shown above.

The end diagonal braces fitted...

... tip her up the right way ...

... and you'd have to be pretty happy with a nominally flat section (through the station) coming in at 0.4 degrees right away, without even adjusting the legs!

Thus ended another late night in the garage.

Friday was a night off, as I had a group of mates over for an old-style slide night. All 35mm stuff, with a real projector and screen - none of this fancy digital, view-on-TV business. It was a great evening. Dennis brought shots from a trip to the narrow-gauge Weihe logging railway in northern China from 2003. Hoges had Mallets & ancient 2-4-0s from Java in 1983, and Scotsman trips from 1988-89 (including the record breaking Parkes - Broken Hill non-stop run). Derek & I had "run-of-the-mill" NSW stuff from the 80s and 90s, plus a bit more Scotty, and Silver City Comet. Unfortunately, Steve the Master Photographer wasn't able to bring anything, but it was great to catch up with him. Roy was there as an observer, never having shot slides, and also to inspect progress on the layout.

No progress was made on Saturday, as I went up to visit my parents overnight. On Sunday morning, Dad suggested a trip to Richmond Vale, which proved rather eventful. Clyde 0-4-0 saddle tank "Marjorie" was in steam, working a single car (HLF460) between Richie Main & Pelaw Main. This was the first time I had seen her in steam. However, some local idiots had dumped a car on the track just short of the latter since the last running day, and then torched it. The first couple of trips only ran to within a safe distance of the burned-out wreck. Eventually, X.217 was dispatched, propelling a rail-mounted crane to remove the offending article. Thereafter, normal service was resumed. I hadn't taken my Nikon, because ARTC controllers were on strike, and I wasn't planning to do much gunzelling, so I had to make do with the dumbphone, and also borrowed Dad's Fuji for a couple of shots where a zoom was needed.

 

"Marjorie" propelling the second train of the day back to Richie Main.

The offending article, about half a km short of Pelaw Main.

 

 X.217 near the level crossing, en route to the work site.

 

 Short work is made of the remains of the Commodore.

 

After picking Alison's mum up from the station and spending a couple of hours with her over dinner, I ventured back into the garage in search of the curtains, tracking etc. Half an hour was wasted looking for my glasses, before I managed to determine how best to utilise the tracking and brackets. There were five sections of curtain, which was enough to go along the front and both ends, with one spare section, but not enough to go around all four sides. No matter, it was a big improvement.

Tonight, I decided I would paint the fascia after all, there being just sufficient evenings left to do so before the family returns home on Friday, so I applied an undercoat and called it quits.

The pink blanket is protecting my uncle's N scale layout-in-a-coffee-table while I'm storing it for him.

 

Cheers for now.