She's baaacckkk...

After some 15 years 'out of service' with a crook chassis, 5303 re-entered service on Lambing Flat this evening, after I finished fitting a Tsunami DCC chip. She runs like a dream, thanks to the excellent chassis constructed for me by Hollywood Foundry.

Here she is entering the loop with a wheat train.

A closer look at the Wampu tender and the cab detail.

I still have a few things to repair and refit (like employing another fireman, her old fireman appears to left the service sometime in the last 15 years!), plus a little 'touching up' to the paint and weathering. However, Lambing Flat is once more host to a 53 class Standard Goods, a very appropriate locomotive type for the setting.

Btw, you can click on the images to see it at a much larger size.

The (almost) return of 5303

Some months ago I finally got tired of having my favourite locomotive not working, (see previous post (5303, a frail favourite... ) and sent it off the Geoff Baxter at Hollywood Foundry for a new chassis. His custom mechanisms have a justifiable reputation for excellence, and though he doesn't normally do steam locomotives, he made an exception in this case!

This morning a very welcome package arrived and as soon as I finished work for the day I fitted the new chassis to 5303.

This is the magnificently designed and built chassis that arrived in the mail. It runs very smoothly and I am looking forward to having the loco back in service.

(Photo by Geoff Baxter)

She is running under DC control, but there are a few things that need attention before she will be back in service, such as fitting a DCC sound chip and speaker, repairing the cosmetic damage that has occurred during her long period out of service and painting the chassis and 'touching up' the rest of the loco.

Hopefully it won't be too long before a 53 class Standard Goods is once more treading the rails at Lambing Flat.

Progress on the Rurr Valley

Progress on the Rurr Valley continues.

Not only have I been clearing the layout and making it trafficable again, I have also revived a locomotive construction project that has sat on the workbench, untouched, since late 2005. Here is a photo of showing progress to date on RVR (new) No.2.

It is a 'near enough' model based on the three Baldwin-built 0-6-0T locomotives used by the Mt Lyell Railway for shunting and local work. A photo of the prototype loco appears below.

Mt Lyell No.5 poses at the works some time in the early years of the 20th century.

This is my second attempt at a 'near enough' model based on these locos. The earlier was the first No.2, based on a Bachmann 'Lyn' 2-4-2T.



I was quite happy with the appearance of the loco, but its chassis and motor design was not up to the rigors of running smoothly on the RVR's 'hill', it would 'hunt' alarmingly coming down the hill, due to the 'slop' in the drivetrain. I purchased the LGB 0-6-2T shown below with the idea of combining the cab and boiler of (old) No.2 with the 0-6-0 chassis of the LGB loco, which would give me closer version of the 'inspiration' loco, which would also be a much better runner with a high quality LGB chassis.

Most of the basic construction is now complete and now I just have to finish off the detailling, paint it and install the radio and sound gear recovered from the old loco and I will have another 'useful' engine for the line.

I have also completed 'stage 1' of clearing the line. Trains can now run between Possum Point and Devlins, at the top of the old zig zag. (Stage 2 will have to wait till I rebuild the flood damaged bridges.)

This photo, a quick 'snap' taken with my mobile phone back on 19 August 2011, before I started the clearing described in the previous posts, shows the results of a year's neglect (and the five years of abandonment previous to last year's revival attempt).

Compare this photo with the last image, the 'tunnel' can be just made out at bottom right and the site of Devlins is middle left.

The shot below was taken at the completion of work on the evening of 22 September and show the site of Possum Point station.

The next image shows the entire 'zig zag' area of the line cleared and trafficable on the evening of Friday 24 September. I snapped it with my mobile just at dusk and it shows No.1 shunting at Devlins, about to head down the hill to Possum Point in the background with a works train. I'll replace the rotted away culverts and reballast the entire section before I move on to 'stage 2', which is behind the photographer.

Another day workin' on the railway...

Got in an hour or so of track clearance on the garden railway this evening. The line is now open from Devlins all the way down the hill to Bottom Points. The track is in remarkably good condition, considering the neglect the railway has suffered over the last six years. Not so the timber culvert about one third of the way up the middle road, it has disappeared completely! The wood has rotted away and will need to be replaced, but it is cosmetic only, the track is strong enough to span the gap so I can still run trains. (It does serve to allow water to drain under the railway, so it is cosmetic only in the sense that it doesn't support the track!)

When it had got too dark to work I spent a couple of minutes running No.1 and a few wagons up and down the hill. No.1 is running beautifully after her 'overhaul' last week. The old battery pack had deteriorated to the extent that I was lucky to get one trip up the hill out of her, but the new one is very strong, she is still running on the charge she got last weekend!

It was too dark to photograph, so I have used a photo I took at Bottom Points last year to illustrate what the location looks like now.

No.1 and a works train at Bottom Points on 4 July 2010 during last year's attempt to get the RVR operational again.

The Rurr Valley revival - take 2.

Last year I got about half the garden railway operational again after five years of neglect and three floods that damaged the two large bridges, cutting the main line to Underpool. Unfortunately, I did not do any further work between last October and a couple of days ago, for various reasons. However, the dispatch of the October issue of AMRM to the printer at the end of August (and the end of the soccer season!) gave me a little time for modelling. The first thing I did was to get No.1 running again, in order to review a MyLocoSound large scale sound chip (you can read the review in the December issue of AMRM). No.1 needed a new battery pack and speaker, and once I had done that and fitted and tested the new sound card, I decided it was about time I had some railway to run it on!

I started at the top station last week and cleared a short section, but didn't get another chance to get down in the garden till yesterday.

No.1 and the ballast wagon are standing on the section I cleared last week. The other side of the level crossing shows the results of a year's neglect. That is what the rest of the railway looks like!

Half an hour later and the line was clear through the station. There is a lot of 'scouring' of the ballast, so when I get the entire line clear there will be a lot of reballasting!

 No.1 stands at the Devlins platform.

An hour's work saw the track cleared down to through the cutting to the site where 'Top Points' were back in the days of the zig-zag, which is about a third of the way down the hill to Possum Point. Hopefully, trains will be running between Devlins and Possum point before long, but I will have to build two new bridges before trains can run to Underpool again.



The Clever Things You Find on the Internet...

Was reading the Australian_N_Scale Yahoo group when 'Mark' made a post regarding downloadable containers. Now Lambing Flat has no need of containers, and never will have, but I'm a curious sort of fellow, so I went and had a look. What I found was a German language site aimed at ship modellers, but with a page of downloadable containers in various scales (including HO and N scale) to print out on a card, cut out and assemble. Having a couple of pieces of card handy, I printed a couple out and assembled them, which took about five minutes.



They would look pretty effective as 'background' at a container depot and would be a lot cheaper than buying scores of injection moulded containers. They could even be used on wagons, if one was so inclined.

These, (and many others) can be downloaded at: http://www.igshansa.de/igsorg.html (then go to the 'Download/English' page.

Amazing what is available on the net these days...

From the vaults-5: Fruit trains.

It has been a long time since I have posted anything, and with the October issue of AMRM rapidly approaching its print deadline, I doubt I'll be posting anything else for the next month, so here is another 'from the vaults'.

This, taken on 24 December 2005 in pre-DCC days, shows my weathered Trainorama 4429 arriving from Cowra with a Darling Harbour bound fruit train, with a couple of stock wagons, heading for Flemington, attached to build up the load. Once the fruit train has cleared, the goods, headed by 5262, will get the staff for the short section to the junction between the lines from Cowra and Demondrille and proceed towards Demondrille. On Lambing Flat the junction arrangements reflect that found at Binnaway, on the cross-country line from Werris Creek to Dubbo, rather than the 'straight through' arrangements found at Young on the prototype NSWGR. This was done to make the operation of Lambing Flat, which is quite a small layout, more interesting, as every 'through' train has to be reversed.

Back on the model, once the Standard Goods has departed, 4429 will run round its train, attach any loading originating in Lambing Flat and then proceed towards Demondrille, once 5262 has cleared the section to Wombat. Up to the late 1960s, fruit was an important traffic on the railways around Young (where I grew up and the inspiration for Lambing Flat). It was so important that the local radio station 2LF, during the fruit season, would announce the time that the fruit truck arrived at Darling Harbour as part of the morning news!

Bowen Creek at the Thornleigh exhibition.

Andrew Campbell and Ian Millard's Bowen Creek was exhibited at the Thornleigh exhibition over the June long weekend. It looks fantastic and runs very well. I photographed it on Friday evening for a future article for AMRM. Here is one of the images.

On Sunday I also took some video with my old digital camera (it is much better for video than my 'work' camera). It's up on Youtube already!

It is a wonderful layout, it captures that '1970s' look to perfection, and it is well worth a long look!

From the vaults-4: Diesel era on Lambing Flat.

I've always tried to keep a consistent era on Lambing Flat, though I haven't always succeeded! Ostensibly, the layout is set in the mid-1950s, but with my excursions into pre-WW2 models and the fabulous r-t-r early diesel era models that have come onto the market over the last couple of years, LF's timeframe has 'stretched' a little.

However, while rollingstock can be taken on and off the layout to suit a particular timeframe, the fixed infrastructure can't, and so it is the buildings and other infrastructure that really sets the timeframe of a layout, rather than the rollingstock. Luckily for my preferred eras, NSWGR branchline infrastructure didn't change all that much from the early years of the 20th century till the mid-1970s, so I can 'stretch' my timeframe a little without having to call in the Detail Police and arrest myself!

About the latest I can go with levels of traffic I prefer to run is about 1974, when the 'fuel crisis' of the time gave the Department an excuse to cut most branchline passenger services. Once the passenger services went, the rot really set in, with the beginning of wholesale demolition of buildings and progressive reduction in services till, by the late 1980s, just about everything had gone; freight, stock and all, with the only thing left on most branchlines being bulk wheat. Even that went in most places eventually, leaving very little of the former extensive NSW branchline network intact by the 2000s.

So here is another photo 'from the vaults' (this one was taken on 30 December 2005, before the layout went DCC), showing Trainorama 4429 arriving at Lambing Flat, circa 1970-72, with the remnants of the Mail. (Click through for a bigger view.)

The train, as was typical of the period, has an MLV (Rails North epoxy kit) for parcels, and FS and BS (modified Trax) for the sitting passengers, then an EHO (see EHO1473, or is it 1469? earlier in this blog) for the guard and more parcels, then an ACM (Rails North epoxy kit) for the few remaining sleeping car passengers, with a CR (Workshop 5 epoxy kit) bringing up the rear with the through passengers to Murringo (the car will be detached and added to the Murringo Mixed after the 44 class has run around. The 48 class hauled Murringo Mixed will then enter the platform once the Mail has departed for Cowra). The yard is very quiet, a few S trucks at the goods shed in No.1 siding, while a K truck is being loaded with wool in the back road. The old D truck, of no use now that there is no steam locomotive ash to distribute as ballast along the pioneer line to Murringo, will soon disappear from the scene, probably sent to Junee to be burnt.

This was the how things looked at the very end of the NSWGR era. With the advent of the PTC and then the SRA, the passenger service will be cut back severely, then replaced with a road coach, the general goods and stock traffic will be abandoned and all that will be left will be bulk wheat and the occasional enthusiast tour... 

The 'work' camera has been repaired...

The post below on the 'fun and games' that happened on the way to the Hobson's Bay exhibition came about due to my damaging my 'work' camera (the one I use to take photographs for AMRM). For the News section of the June and the Gallery and News sections of the August issue, which I am working on now, I had to revert to my 'old' camera. Luckily it was a pretty good camera and the images are still of acceptable quality (though I can tell the difference!), but with extremely good timing (the Thornleigh exhibition is next weekend), the 'work' camera arrived back from the repairer on Saturday.

Of course, I had to check it and re-set it to my preferred settings for model photography, plus the settings had to be checked. Ideally, the 'test' shots would have been of something I had recently photographed with the 'old' camera, so as to get a direct comparison. The logical model to use would have been 5303, which appears in a recent post, but 5303 is still at 'Geoff's Hospital' in Victoria, so I grabbed the next best thing...

This is my Mansfield brass model of 5184, as she appeared while allocated to Lithgow during the late 1950s - early 1960s. The locomotive has been given some extra detail (headlight glass and crew) as well as a front coupler. The tender is not the one that came with the loco (that tender is currently behind 5262), it is, in fact, a superdetailled FSM whitemetal kit, dating from the late 1970s. Older modellers may remember the FSM range of whitemetal kits, they were 'state of the art' in the late '70s and could be made up into quite a nice model, as can be seen from the tender above and 5303, further down the page. The range consisted of the 53 and 55 Standard Goods locos, 24 and 25 class Moguls and a 35 class 4-6-0. I have a 55 class kit tucked away, and had a 24 class running for a while in the early 1980s (it has been sitting in the showcase for about 20 years, about 75% of the way through an 'overhaul'). I wonder how many of them are still running...

Anyway, getting back to the subject of this post, it appears that the 'work' camera has been restored to full health!