Wallace Creek

I daren't try!

 

You know when you start with plan A, you buy the relevant points and half way through Plan A you suddenly think "hold on Plan A isn't that good" Plan B is much better. So the slightly more complicated Plan B becomes C and err well we are now onto Plan E. OK, well some of this was driven by the fact most of the track had been down ten years and as i stripped away the layers of old ballast, bits of cork and those flimsy bits of plastic that drop off most modern makes of truck. I stripped the main lines through Mowarra Junction and removed the long siding before applying fresh cork for a level surface. I laid out the replacement tracks and it was then I realised that a shunt move from the wall sidings (I'll try and remember to do a sketch) to the other side of the layout was going to take it most of the way through the gorge section.
But then, as they say, a revelatory moment and a plan for three loop lines capable of holding three longish (Wallace Creek = 5 long vans) with a pair of crossovers enabling a Loco and three medium vans turn back in the centre road within the station limits managed to worm it into the dimmer recesses of my brain (or my brain as the wife calls it). Anyway the idea is there - now to get on with it (if its warm enough)!

Dave

 

Due to popular demand here is a handscrawled update of whats going on.

 

Oh dear just as we ramp up to operating season WC seems to have fallen off the front page. Never mind- there are two projects going on at the moment. As described above work on making Mowarra Junction a better location to operate (and more importantly have two long trains pass each other). Since it turned cold (again) I decided to retreat indoors and start work on the beach. This will sit at the gorge end (to be renamed) and last night I discovered a you-tube video by a charming Swedish modeller about making sea-water from toilet paper (!) and wood glue. Anyway a couple of photos to show whats going on are attached.

 

Currently undergoing negotiations with Mrs Wells. A small prototype (6 sheets) may be as far as I get.
D

 

Well the track work is more or less finished although I am still unhappy with one of the curves and have ordered some new track to relay. Its operational and a few trains were run with new stock purchased since the end of a last season getting an airing. One of the new horseboxes just will not stay on the track yet there is nothing to suggest anything is wrong. I also purchased a second-hand Trainorama 47 class which seems to have an aversion to go around corners adn just to complicate matters previously reliable 4807 is proving troublesome. Members on Facebook have given some advice and it has been given a thorough clean. Just need some lubricating oil to see whether this had solved the problem.
Whilst the outside has seen Wallace Creek creak back to life there has been activity inside with the building of a beach. This is to go at the gorge end of the layout (now I guess called the beach end) and is my first effort to just try and do a bit better on the modelling front. I may submit this for the competition although the dimensions are to fit the gap in my layout rather than the rules.
Anyway attached is an operators sketch of the final layout at Mowarra Junction. The function of Mowarra has changed with the new layout and it feels more like a major junction. So having re-written history once (see page 3 if you have nothing better to do) the Timbillica Railhead line has now morphed into the end of a single line from Junee a railway town in south New South Wales. The other route (to the Fiddle yard) is still the imagined route to Nowra (the present terminus of the Illawarra Line) whilst the line to Wallace Creek and Orbost in Victoria makes up the main line. Although set in NSR Victorian locos can be seen on the line although they rarely work beyond Mowarra Docks. Some Victorian loco services also work Melbourne - Junee- Mowarra Junction which conveniently gives a reason to see locos on the Junee line as well.

 

Got the 47 out again - ran perfectly.

 

I have a Traino 42 which has always been a good runner - I don't over exert the Traino locos because of the nylon thingummy issue. I think the mistake I made here was to use a new to Wallace Creek loco on track that was being tested and confused track issues with loco issues.
Ran a good number of trains yesterday and enjoyed some calming shunting whilst gradually working through the maintenance backlog and the various projects (whihc now may include a roadbridge. Dave

 

Well its been a busy week - fresh supplies arrived at the Alamo thanks to Monkbar Models and this included some new track and points. First job was to relay the new curve at Mowarra Junction (beach end) for the third time as the reverse curve was not liked by a number of the fussier locomotives. Chief of these has to be A71 - a lovely Auscision A class model in Freight Australia livery. A present for my 50th birthday, it came of the track rather spectacularly on one of its early runs and nosedived to the concrete. Monkbar and my friend have rescued it but it still cannot manage a complete circuit of the layout without something going wrong so subsequently sees little use.
So the plan for the season is to get the damn thing around the garage! I had tested on the rest of the new track work at Mowarra Junction and she behaved herself. The new curve went in and gingerly, very gingerly, A71 inched forward ...and promptly keeled over sideways. "Oh dear" I muttered and once again applied myself to the permanent Way with the trusted No 1 Hammer close by. Effort 2 saw a successful low speed in one direction and then the other. Gritting my teeth I nudged the transformer up and once again A79 rumbled successfully there and back. Now was time fo rr the high speed test - surely not! Surely not....well once again over the curve it went and back. As you can imagine sprits were high and A71 went hurtling off towards Wallace Creek on its lap of triumph which lasted as far as the curve approaching Wallace Creek where the @@@@@ing @@@@ derailed again.
I think it was cold naked fury that drive literally to rip the curve up and lay a new one. This fought me all the way but finally it was down and A71 went perfectly over it in both directions. So could it now do a complete circuit? Well Hallelujah as it managed it in both directions and with trailing loads. Goal achieved.
Those of you that read the Facebook page will know I had some problems with reliable Powerline workhorse 4807. it was running round the layout and then dying. Advice was received and i removed the top and gave it a bit of a clean and that seemed to do the trick. Last night one of last year's purchases, an Auscision 80 class 8035) did the same thing - aha! Off came the top which looked bewilderingly clean. Hmm - a swift clean and of it went but then ran out of puff at much the same spot (and thinking about it the same post that 4807 had expired several days earlier).
Well it couldn't be the track could it - that had been re-laid since. A check of the wiring revealed nothing amiss so yours truly was left scratching his head. Perhaps it was a problem with the transformer. A quick swap of the two controllers revealed this was the problem - the Wallace Creek controller was shorting out. I had a very old controller stored away which was dragged out and tested and hallelujah (again) it worked first time and both sides of the layout were up and running.
On the scenery front the beach building is progressing well (pictures below)- I have had a go at making some sea and hope to finish that over the weekend. There is also a picture of new loco 47 class 4712.

All the best

Dave

 

The beach is more or less complete.