Of screw link couplings and things.

Well my autocoach now has a screw coupling on one end. The end that will not and indeed cannot be coupled once all the super detailing has been added. It adds to the aesthetic of the model and given what the instructions say, it is good to have it mounted prior to adding the details under the coach. The screw link coupling was purchased at City Models in Perth. I certainly did not expect that on my holidays I would walk into a hobby shop that would have a stock of such an item on the shelf, but there you go. Nice shop though many wives including mine have requested a waiting couch to no avail. Imagine how many more purchases husbands would make if they were not being harassed by tired wives?

While in Perth we also visited Mayland Model Railways which has a new location just down the road but much bigger than previously apparently. While there I purchased what I suspect is a Ratio kit of a GWR toad brake van fully made up, painted and decaled. The only thing that makes it less than perfect is that someone had mounted knuckle couplers rather than any English/European style alternative. This is of course quickly remedied. Indeed as it is a brake van that theoretically is always on the end of the train, it will be a perfect spot to hang the other coupler from the opened pair of screw couplers that the autocoach has the other member of :-)

The other hobby shop we visited while in Perth that deserves a mention is Stanbridges which covers quite a range of hobbies including model trains. I did make a model trains purchase, FLEISCHMANN Locomotive Lubricating Oil I also made some Airfix plastic model purchases: the RAF Emergency set and the Aec Matador and 5.5" gun. Why these? Getting vehicles that fit a specific era can be quite tricky and these certainly satisfy the era I seem to be gravitating towards, even if Devon's Exe valley may not have seen a lot of military traffic. The Matadors were used for all sorts of things, ditto the Austin vehicles in the RAF emergency set.

In real train news, Australia is replete with old stations that have rolling stock parked on a length of track going nowhere. The town of Merredin has made a full museum around such a feature that is well worth a visit. I wonder what the future holds for some of these locations and the heritage stock they possess. Volunteer groups do seem to be trying to maintain them against the elements but it is a bit hard to draw custom to a static exhibit unless it has something extra to offer like at Merredin. Steamtown in Peterborough is also an awesome example of what can be done but it does own some working examples to add interest. The Pichi Richi Railway though is the full deal, an operational railway with working diesel and steam motive power and heritage rolling stock to match. Just make sure you don't go between November and March like we did as the volunteers are taking a well deserved break and the trains are not running and the workshop tours are on hold.

The holiday may go towards explaining the lack of posting in the last months. Another factor is that even had I considered posting, interweb connectivity and mobile phone coverage is hard to find along the drive to Perth from Canberra.

So without further ado, the photos of the things mentioned, or some of them at least:

Turning Tables (part two)

So the turntable adventure continues. The base section it sits on has been reinforced. It now is strong enough to act as a separate module allowing it to be removed and worked on by itself. I have done my first real chiselling to carve out some of the L beam the ply baseboard sits on so that the turntable pit would sit down. I also used the chisels to cut channels for where I thought the maintenance pits would go, but as it turns out, not quite.

Since I wrote Turntables and things and Turning Tables some of you may have worked out what I had not realised and been laughing at me. I have a turntable from Walthers and a roundhouse from Atlas. According to my 2009 N&Z Walhters catalogue, the Union City roundhouse intended for the Walthers 120' Unions City turntable has a stall angle of 7.5 degrees. The stall angle of the Atlas roundhouse is 15 degrees.

So once I had things set up enough to line up pit tracks to the table, I could see I had a problem. The track had a kink betwixt pit and turntable and not one that was within tolerances and visually quite wrong. So what's a bargain hunter to do? Buy the matching roundhouse? (Buying the Atlas turntable was not an option for me given how un-prototypical it looks, as mentioned in previous postings) The matching roundhouse comes with 6 stalls not three and so would need to be kitbashed to suit regardless of whether it fitted into the space I had. Given I would need to kitbash a new kit, I decided to try my hand at kitbashing what I had instead. With my trusty new saws with many teeth and thin kerfs, it should be simple right?

I have yet to match up the roundhouse walls etc. and I foresee that the doors may require some trickery or adjusting but I am very pleased with how the tracks line up now. Compare the stall/pit to table/bridge transition that appears on the left in the pictures (that lines up pretty well after adjusting) to the stall/pit to table/bridge transition that appears on the left in the pictures (which totally does not line up)

Since those photos were taken, the not matching track has also been adjusted by what seems pretty close to the right amount. So far then I am very happy with the results and look forward to finding the right height to raise the turntable bridge track to line up with the pit/stall tracks. But all that will have to wait for the next instalment pertaining to turning tables, thank you Adele!

October School Holidays

Some time ago I wrote up about some benchwork for a layout and you may be wondering how it is going. Something I have learnt that model railroading encompasses many fields and skills. Also that scale is what you make of it. Smaller scales mean omitting details where it is not possible to model the detail realistically. Larger scales demand more detail as the absence of items is able to be picked up by the eye, luckily material strength and so on allow us to add detail as the scales increase in size. And then there is the ultimate scale, 12 inches = 1 foot, or 1:1. One might think that objects are no longer a model at this size, but models are a representation of the real thing, not the real thing, no matter what the size. So it is that recently I made a model of a clap board. It had to look like a clap board and sound like a clap board, but not be a clap board in other particular.

Over these October school holidays I took some leave from work and the time had come to bite the bullet with doing something with the plywood that had been cut for a baseboard for a future layout. We have a nice corner in our front entry way and we have needed another bookshelf for some time now. All these things came together in a perfect storm as I had time to do something about all these things. And so a bookshelf has been born courtesy of the plywood panels. Add some fancy hard wood trimming with and without detail and it is well on the way. This had to be more than a model but used some of the skills I have learnt about wood as part of railway modelling over the years.

Also mentioned less time ago I am detailing a Dapol Autocoach with the Dart casting kit. After painting the interior of the coach, I have started doing the body detail of the coach. As has been noted by others elsewhere the floor mounted cab controls both look higher than they do in the prototype so I have not affixed them inside just yet. Currently there are handrails, lamp irons and steps now replacing the moulded versions on the front of the cab as below.

Bungendore Market Day steam special

Courtesy of my wife who wanted to attend the Bungendore Sunday markets, our family went on the Bungendore Market Day steam special today. It was quite the adventure and we learnt a lot about trains in Canberra, passengers and Bungendore Markets.

Steam trains in Canberra are run by the ARHS, ACT Division and are somewhat at the mercy of Railcorp. Setting aside the rich history of rail in NSWGR, ARHS has to be doing the right thing to maintain access to the rail assets that allow them to run specials out of Canberra station. This means staying behind the yellow line :-) A funny thing though is that no maintenance is carried out by Railcorp on the line to Bungendore, at least in terms of trimming the greenery, making it bad to lean out the windows any at all, not for the usual signs and infrastructure but for foliage. Budding wattles are just the thing to tear at you and your belongings, or would be had I not ducked back in time.

The full feed first class experience leaves you with no need to lunch at the markets and it was a good thing to as we had limited market time after a somewhat late exit from Canberra Station. Giving passengers coach numbers AND putting the numbers in the coaches would help people alighting at departure and ease the burden on the ARHS volunteers I am sure. First class does not quite have the cachet one might desire when Little Johnny in the row of seats behind is "hungry" despite the spread of morning and afternoon tea being more than enough for my teenage son whose legs require some filling. Luck of the draw and the challenges of parenting and passengering in the modern era I guess.

There may be a fine book store in Bungendore that is not a firetrap with enough dust for a family of asthmatics and enough dark corners to satisfy Australia's love of nocturnal mammals but we visited the other bookstore. The one that was all those things and more, having driven past many times before and been curious, our curiosity is now truly satisfied. The markets at the town hall was full of friendly people selling a variety of things such that we came away with a tray of baked pastry things, floor mats made for fair trade by families in third world countries, wooden coasters, a hand towel for the oven, capsicum relish, goat soap, a huge avocado and a potted pansy. Be warned there is a lolly shop on one of the main streets that sells all those odd things you can only get in proper lolly shops. Sadly we did not have as much time as we might have liked but then time is money and in this case not having enough time may have saved us money. That and meeting a bookshop where we did not buy any books and will never visit again.

3016 did a great job of handling things and with a breather to build more steam on the return rise and a beautiful hill start (no slipping the clutch or handbrake here folks!) the trip was made in good time through typically Australian country side and many photos were taken, and many discarded :-) Enough ramblings, here is a selection of photos of our day with much thanks to ARHS, the marketers of Bungendore and my family who put up with smoke and ash for a good day out.

Malkara Scale Model Exhibition 2012

We are just back from Malkara Scale Model Exhibition 2012. Bad photos deleted and then the rest uploaded to the PC and a cup of coffee to sip in the balmy 16 degrees inside versus 12 outside. So this year, for reasons unknown to me, no boats and pool at Malkara :-( Cars n trains but no boats. Also seemingly less vendors but maybe more exhibitors, not that I have compared the programs to be sure, just a gut feeling.

Purchased two razor saws (42 TPI and 52 TPI), some Kadee bogies and some whisker #148s for me. Why the razor saws? Tried to, "remove the moulded vacuum cylinders, 'V' hangars and battery boxes" from my OO scale Dapol Autocoach with my usually trusty FatMax blade. The hardest part, "not to break the truss rods or damage the sole bar" They didn't mention thumbs but managed to damage all three :-( So hopefully, less damage will occur with the razor saws and with some styrene painted black to repair the truss rods, all will be back on track (pun intended) to continue with the detailing kit

Would have loved a camera that had a more customisable flash (able to be angled for bounce for example) and/or a wider aperture for low light while keeping shutter speeds short. Some shots I am happy with can be found below.

Trying to find information about US prototype seems much more of a challenge compared to UK prototype, or at least without resorting to Kalmbach resources, not that there is anything wrong with that but I do wonder if they have somewhat of a monopoly on published material on trains big and small.

The 1200 * 1200 layout for 16.5mm guage continues to progress with a better wood saw to cut the uprights: it seems good tools help make work easier and or better, who would have thought?

Coaching or Carriaging if you live in the U.K. or commonwealth

A fun part of railroads, or railways if you will, is that there tend to be two sets of terms for English speakers: a little similar to Micrsoft's concept of English (United States) versus the Queen's English. Carriages in the U.K. become coaches in the U.S.A, goods trains become freight trains, bogies become trucks, points become switches and so on. Not helped by Australia picking up a mix of both and I in particular model in both prototypes. Add to that the divergent approaches to railroading that result in things like buffers not existing in the U.S.A, vacuum versus air brakes, sizes of respective loading gauges and so on, many of the differences not helped by patriotism and/or parochialism.

Anyway, coaching then refers to the work on lighting the interiors of my N scale Overton coaches. The lighting kit comes with pickup springs that required the import purchase of the very fine Fox Valley wheelsets that do not have both wheels insulated as the smooth running Atlas ones (available at my Local Hobby Shop) do. The Fox Valley wheels have machined shoulders on the axles removing the need for any tricky re-guaging so it was a simple case of removing the insulated wheel and slipping on the pickup springs. The number of coils on the axle meant that it rubbed on both wheels, not delivering the promised smooth running. With some trimming the spring coils were reduced in number and smooth running returned.

The next challenge was to ensure that the bogies still rotated smoothly. Drilling out the middle of the pin to accommodate an electrical wire into the interior of the coach. Soldering joined the pickup spring to the wire of the Flicker Free electronics module which in turn are now soldered to the PCB holding the resistor and LEDs.

The next challenges to come are fitting out the interior with a floor, seats and people. Also transparent covering for the clerestory roof to impede the view of the PCB and its fixing mechanism (Scotch Double-Sided Foam Tape) which is bright white in a place where bright white should not be on the prototype. Not to forget that this is the first of three coaches to light in such a way but so far things have gone well enough in the design that I plan to do the same things next time. Lighting my work and maybe magnification may help, also soldering practice.

To capture the work required some playing with settings on my compact camera. As I read up on DSLRs, I have learnt some about aperture, ISO settings and shutter speed and was able to use some of that to get one really good shot that showed the detail around the bogie, axle and pickup springs.

In other news, work continues on the 1200 * 1200 replacement for the 1200 * 900 OO/HO up and over loop. 23 pairs of uprights, each 1/16" shorter than the previous have now been cut. Only 25 more to go...

Turning tables

So Maitland Steamfest 2012 was a great celebration of locomotives 3265, 3526 & 3642. The race felt more like a parallel run for 3265 & 3526 than an out and out race, add to that the steam locomotive led trains where seemingly blitzed by the two tiger moths. It is good to have tried it though. Maybe it will be better when the two 38s are out of the shop, though 3830 has less to do than 3801 as far as I can tell. The fillum SLR was handy though I was not helped by the film I had being ISO 400. Given I was shooting outdoors, I would have preferred something less grainy but I will have to plan further ahead and shop elsewhere next time.

In other news, I managed to cut a hole in the baseboard for the turntable pit. Step 1 was marking out, step 2 was drill a hole for the jigsaw blade, step 3 was use the jigsaw to cut close to the edge of the marked out circle, step 4 was to then file away the material until the pit fitted. Sadly as a result of not taking the jigsaw up the marked circle a lot of filing was required AND the resultant hole did not end up centred where I wished and the roundhouse now hangs over the edge of the current baseboard :-(

So that great debate of model railroading comes up: do I throw it away and start again or keep it and work around the problem? Starting again means I would learn whether my caution with the jigsaw was misplaced and whether a better result would be achieved if I cut with the jigsaw closer to the marked edge. On the other hand, the overhang is less than 10mm. I could put a piece of pine that I am using as the support for the ply baseboard as a brace along the end where the roundhouse overhangs that would nicely disguise many things, and add strength and bracing. The other advantages of extending/covering/bracing the end are that I would not need to redo any of the above steps, also it means the lead in track on the opposite side to the roundhouse has a little more spare room (~10mm extra track length in N-scale is not to be ignored, ~10 mm of pine is not of so much consequence) Stay tuned for the outcome and further work

As the year reaches its middle, it becomes time to start scheduling some work on the Christmas layout. A few things would be advantageous:

• Better fastening/clamping of the two halves, something similar to the latches used on audio equipment like so to draw the two sides together with some mechanical advantage.


• Light the interiors of the "Overton" coaches. This requires the hooking up of the pickups from the coach axles to the input side of the lighting module, affixing the lights to the clerestory roof of the coaches after soldering the lighting wires to the output side of the lighting module.


• Outfit the interior of the coaches so that the lighting does not show them to be empty. I have many satisfactorily painted passengers and benches, it is now a matter of making a suitable base to glue everything to, painting that and doing the gluing.


• Fit proper electrical connectors between the baseboard wires and the controller. I like bananas, because they have no bones

The catch with the soldering is the weather outside right now so the other things may get done first :-)

And on that note it's picture time.