Some more activity!

Every now and then I get the yen to actually do something on the layout and, sometimes, I actually get to do it!

The first project to get underway laterly was to superdetail and fit a Tsunami chip to one of the Austrains 'roundtop' 36 class I have had lying around idle since I went DCC in the mid-2000s.

The work went well and by 9 November 2014 the detailing work was complete.

 The two photos show above show 'before and after' shots of each side of the loco.

This is a close up of the left hand side of the loco, showing the added Nathan lubricator, plus various pipes and handrails. 

 The right hand side of the loco with the various added 'bits'.

 The right hand side of the tender with fire irons, plus added lamp brackets and handrails and a fall plate between engine and tender.

By 13 November she had been undercoated.

On 14 November a start had been made on weathering.

 The inspiration for the weathering. John Stormont took this photo of 3607 at Cootamundra in 1954 and the photo was originally printed in the January 1990 edition of the RTM's 'Round House' magazine. I am aiming for a scruffy, but reasonably well-kept appearance.

While the weathering is nowhere near complete (plus the loco still has some details to be added, after painting) by 23 November she was 'under trials' on the layout. Unsuccessfully, it turned out, as there appears to be a bind in the mechanism! I'll sort that out before I do any more painting.

Meanwhile, some work has also occurred on the layout. I have finally got around to more work on the backscene behind 'New Yard' and made a start on the foundations of the scenery.

 On 16 November I had painted the section of backscene between the existing Haskell backscene behind 'New Yard' proper and the painted backscene behind the old part of the layout a nice sky blue and started gluing slabs of foam down to form the scenery.

 By the next day the glue had dried and I had carved the foam to the rough shape of the landscape.

 On Saturday 22 November I had attached a modified Haskell backscene between the existing one and the painted section and glued slabs of foam on the yard section of baseboard. The backscenes don't quite match yet, but a little painting at a later date and some judicious tree planting in the foreground will take care of that eventually.

 A shot taken from approximately opposite the station building, showing how the new section will eventually blend in. The road bridge and embankment already makes a good 'view block' between the two scenes (the station and the new yard).

Another shot along the length of 'New Yard' showing a bit more of how it all fits together. I'm looking forward to getting the scenery down as I am heartily sick of running trains on a 'Plywood Central'.

It's been a while...

Good grief! I've managed two posts in the same year!

No particular theme with this one, just a few random shots of models I have completed over the last year or so.

Lambing Flat now has a very modern diesel, an Auscision 422 class. It has been fitted with a Loksound chip loaded with the sound scheme from DCCSounds. It runs and sounds very well. It has not been weathered yet, but will be as soon as I can get around to it. As it is a *very* 'modern' engine for Lambing Flat it will only get a very light weathering so it represents the prototype in its first weeks of life. In the meantime, it is very nice listening to the lovely GM growl of one of my very favourite NSWGR diesels.

Another project almost completed is this standard NSWGR brick and steel road overbridge.The bridge was built from measurements I took in January 1995 of the road overbridge just south of Jerrawa Viaduct on the NSW Main South line, though the model has been slightly modified to suit the position it will occupy on the layout. The 'steelwork' of the bridge was constructed from Evergreen Styrene shapes. The 'brickwork' was made by glueing brickpaper over thick card. The brickpaper was downloaded from the Paperbrick site:http://paperbrick.co.uk/ A very useful site indeed! I had originally intended to build the model with correct 'English Bond' brickwork and downloaded sample sheets of that bond... however, I also downloaded a sheet of stretcher bond in the same colour... guess which one I printed out when it came time to start construction! I didn't realise I was using the wrong bond till about halfway through construction, so perhaps it isn't that noticeable! Now all I have to do is weather it and instal it on the layout. 

Some may have read my review of  Bragdon Enterprises' weathering powders printed in the August 2014 issue of AMRM. Here are a couple of different photos of some of the models I weathered for the review. Above is a StructOrama ready-to-place HO scale shed modified from standard (bottom building) to look more like a NSWGR building (top building), in order to house the wagon repair staff and equipment at Lambing Flat's 'New Yard'. As befits my period, I resolved to repaint it in NSWGR 'stone' colours. First I carefully painted the window frames Tamiya XF-2 Flat White, then did the walls in Tamiya XF-20 Medium Grey. Once that had dried I painted the roof with Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum the window trim, doors, barge boards on the gable ends of the building and the downpipes Humbrol No.62 Leather, which is the closest colour to NSWGR Medium Stone that I have found. Then the inside of the gutters was painted dirty black and the gutters themselves Tamiya XF-10 Flat Brown to represent the NSWGR Dark Stone colour. The edge of the base was painted Tamiya XF-55 Deck Tan to represent the concrete slab the building rests on.

The photo above shows it before weathering, as a comparison with the standard article. Below is the building after weathering with the Bradgon powders..

Below is my Eureka 620/720 class two-car diesel train (not a bloody railmotor, you ignorant Sassenachs! ;), weathered with a little acrylic paint and some Bragdon Enterprises weathering powders. The silver wheel faces were painted brown with a Floquil paint pen and the grills undercoated with Tamiya Matt Black, then the entire train was weathered with the powders. I'm aiming for a fairly clean look (the 620s were fairly new in my timeframe, as well as reasonably well looked after), so I was after a 'dusty' look, but not 'disgusting'! I'm still not completely satisfied though, particularly with the roof and grills (there was no black in the sample pack), but it is definitely a huge improvement over the unweathered version.

I also reweathered my Trainorama 4429, as the acrylic paint weathering applied back in 2005 had started to fade, particularly on the bogies, so I brushed on a quick coat of Grimy Grey Bradgon powder and this is the result. I'm very pleased and quite intrigued at how quickly and easily one gets realistic results with the weathering powders. 

Here is another 'before and after' comparison showing two Austrains 48' goods brakevans. The LHG at the bottom is straight out of the box, except that I have painted the wheel rims brown. The OHG at the top has had the coupler release levers removed (the prototypes were screw coupled), had the wheel rims painted brown, a little dilute acrylic brown 'washed' over the underframe and a little brown/black 'washed' over the roof to tone it down a bit, while the rest was done with the Bradgon weathering powders.

I'm still weathering the 'old fashioned' way with acrylic paint. Here are a couple I have completed over the last couple of years. Here is an 'as delivered' Trainorama MHG weathered to represent a fairly recently outshopped vehicle, as not everything was decrepit and ready for the knacker's yard! A light dusting of Tamiya XF-52 Flat Earth and some Aqueous Hobby Color H343 Soot, with some Tamiya XF-10 Flat Brown for the rust has bought up the detail, but kept the vehicle looking relatively clean and new.

This other Traino MHG has been more heavily weathered to represent a vehicle that has been 'out on the road' for a much longer period, to the extent that it has suffered a broken window at some stage and had the window frame replaced with an Indian red one from carriage stores, something that was quite common in the 1960s. 

I've also been madly weathering what seems like boxes and boxes of Austrains four-wheel vans, using my standard diluted acrylic paint methods. Here are just a few examples.

I haven't just been 'plonking', I have also completed a pair of IDR NSWGR B wagon kits. As usual, they aren't *quite* as the manufacturer intended... I have added uncoupling levers and substituted some much closer to scale door bangs than were provided in the kit. A very nice model and dead easy (and quick) to put together. This one has been weathered and I've also added a little 'left over' coal to the interior for when it is running empty.

Infrastructure hasn't been neglected either. This is a close up of the signal box at Back Creek Jct seen in an earlier post. The box was constructed from a Stephen Johnson urethane kit I have had salted away for about 20 years, with the platform scratchbuilt from timber. The box nameboard was assembled in Photoshop and then printed out.

The junction signal for Back Creek Junction was kit-bashed from a combination of old Ratio GWR posts and balance weights, modified Casula etched brass signal arms, home cast whitemetal finials (from self constructed masters, no pirating here! ), Uneek etched brass ladder and the rest scratchbuilt. It is based on drawing of a standard Byles era bracket signal.

Every now and then a small detail item gets added to the layout. After twenty years or so of unfettered access to the railway reservation where the private siding to the Co-op cool stores leaves the main line, a gate has been provided. I scratchbuilt the standard NSWGR pipe gate in brass wire about 10 years ago, undercoated it about two years ago and finally painted and weathered a couple of weeks ago! The standard colour scheme for gates at private level crossings and private sidings was a red colour, but I have never seen one in 'pristine' condition, the ones I saw were always dull, dirty and rusty, so the model was finished accordingly. It is hinged and is openable.

There seems to be a bit of a theme developing here... of projects that take decades to complete! I recently rediscovered an old Vacey Ash (Biltezi) card kit for a British 4mm scale church that I purchased back in the late 1970s. The price tag on it was $1.00! I originally purchased it because it resembled the sort of Gothic revival churches erected in Australia in the 19th century. It was built pretty much as the designer intended, as I will use it as a 'background' building, however, the flat, printed 'slate' roof was extremely unconvincing, so I covered it with some corrugated card and then scratchbuilt bargeboards and gutters. The slightly 'wonky' bell tower is down to a certain giant cat... 

And another 'long distance' project, I photographed and measured the prototype of this flammable materials store at Young on 25 August 1983, over 30 years ago! The unknown dimensions of the building were worked out by 'straightening up' the 1983 photos of the building in Photoshop, adjusting the size until the known dimensions matched HO scale, then printing it out as a plan. Waiting 30 years to build it has made it a lot easier to build! Construction is card, with a box constructed from thick card with corrugated card glued on top and details scratchbuilt from timber and styrene. The sign is a Photoshopped and printed image of the original. 

Back Creek Junction and the line to Cowra, developments at Lambing Flat, 2012.

Once Lambing Flat was re-erected in its current home in 2003, other than maintenance and the addition of the occasional minor detail, nothing much changed, other than the addition of DCC and more rolling stock. The track plan was as shown below, very little changed from its Burwood manifestation, other the deletion of the 'south curve' due to its excessively tight (approx. 600mm radius) curve and substitution of a much shorter fiddle yard at that end. 



With this short fiddle yard (no more room in the garage that end) LF could no longer be operated as it was in Burwood, an intermediate through station, plus I wanted to have more happen in the station than just trains crossing and occasionally shunting the yard. I had always liked the operations carried out at Binnaway in NSW's north west where the main traffic on the Dubbo - Werris Creek line came in and exited the yard from the same end, while the branch traffic to and from Gwabegar passed through. I resolved that the main destinations for traffic on the line, 'Cowra' and 'Demondrille' would be the same fiddle yard, meaning that all trains moving between those points would have to reverse in the yard, while the small fiddle yard at the bottom would become the branchline terminus of 'Murringo'. This resulted in most traffic originating the large fiddle yard (at the top), running into the yard, reversing the brakevan and changing engines, then returning to the same fiddle yard (the junction was assumed to be 'beyond the layout'). Occasionally a 'pick-up' would run with traffic for Lambing Flat itself and would spend time shunting the yard and a (usually mixed) train would run 'through' to 'Murringo', connecting with a passenger train running on the 'cross-country' line. This operating pattern worked well for many years, but as more rolling stock was acquired the fiddle yard became very crowded, so I resolved to build a new fiddle yard and move the junction 'on stage', allowing a new scenic section to be constructed, some 20 years after the last extension of the layout (LF is a rural railway, things move slowly!)

 

The basic fiddle yard and baseboard was constructed and made operational in early 2011, but it took till the beginning of 2012 before any progress was made on the scenery. (With playing soccer during the winter and a certain magazine taking up most of my time and energy, progress on the layout can take some time...)

 

By 5 January 2012, this was the scene on the extension.

 

 

The shelf over the extension had been erected, profile boards fitted and a start made on constructing the scenery. The track plan now looked like this:

 

 

This photo shows a 'panoramic' view of the layout, showing how the new section fits in.

 

 

 

Scenery construction is quite conventional with carved styrofoam on a baseboard of particle board.

 

 

 

The concept of the new section is that the line has been cut alongside a creek, crosses the creek and then disappears into a rock cutting, which hides the entrance to the fiddle yard. The bridge is a Hawksmoor 'Large Railway Culvert' kit, obtained from Casula Hobbies (I reviewed it in AMRM Issue 285, December 2010).

 

This is the junction of the new line to the old layout, conveniently situated in the small extension I was able to make between the level crossing and the turnout to the mill when the layout was first re-erected in 2003.

 

 

I'm getting too old and impatient to scratchbuild track these days, so the track is standard Peco code 75 'finescale'. The signal box is a temporary one, while the ash buffer stop is a Uneek whitemetal item.

 

By the next day (6 January) the 'ground' had been added by the conventional method of spreading plaster, tinted with powder colour, and the rock faces cast in plaster using the very traditional method of crumpling up aluminium foil and using it as a mould.

 

The four equally spaced and shaped rock faces along the cutting looked a little 'artificial' (I forgot the 'rule of evens') so after this photo was taken the cutting was altered.

 

By 9 February some progress had been made on painting the scenery, with the rock faces painted using artist's acrylics in an attempt to reproduce the 'look' of the rock outcrops visible just to the south of Cootamundra, a scene that had always fascinated me.

 

 

The rock faces, painted with a combination of artist's acrylic colours and various techniques of application in an attempt to evoke the prototype scene below.

  

 

Two photos of the rock outcrops just south of Cootamundra, 6 November 2011.

 

 

I haven't quite got the colour of the lichen right, but it is getting there! The level crossing detail is starting to appear with a Uneek stock guard and the level crossing signs (SJM kits) installed.

 

P class 3324 rolls towards the junction with a goods train, mainly consisting of RU wheat hoppers, on 9 February 2012.

 

A couple of days later (11 February) and the first layer of ground cover had been added (dyed sawdust), a start made on the vegetation in the creek and the first trees starting to appear.

  

By 16 February the colours of the rocks had been 'adjusted', the fences were in and the detail such as trees, bushes, weeds etc. were starting to appear. The second stock guard (also Uneek) has been added and the beginnings of the home signal temporarily in place.

 

Another view of the scene with an ancient (visiting) Berg's 30 class tank passing on the school train.

  

By 6 March a lot of extra scenery detail had been added, courtesy of Woodland Scenics and miniNatur!

 

The home signal had also been completed and temporarily added to the scene.

 

The grass tufts and other material available from miniNatur allow a lot of fine scenic detail to be added quickly.

 

More scenery, including some nice 'Patterson's Curse' using miniNatur material. The home signal is a slightly modified Uneek casting that has been made to work.

 

Not much was done between March and September (soccer season!), but during October a few more items were completed, some of which are shown below and some of which will be detailed in future posts.

 

More scenic detail, this time a Uneek horse cart that has lost a wheel and been abandoned near the creek.

  

A 'panoramic' view of the junction taken on 9 November 2012. The junction has been named 'Back Creek Junction', a very typical Australian name for a creek and also the name of a real creek in my home town, Young NSW, which is where Lambing Flat is supposedly set. 

 

A closer view of the junction as it is on 9 November 2012. The junction bracket and the new signal box have been installed and final detailling of the scenery is proceeding.

 

However, the focus of new construction has now moved to the other end of the layout...

 

 

More to come...