Found myself with an hour to myself this afternoon, quite an achievement around here. So I thought I would do some ballasting. Used my usual method, which involves loading the ballast into the old salt shaker, then pouring it out in a very controlled manner along the tracks, taking particular care about the points. A stiff brush is then used to move it all about in bulk. Once I am happy with how it all sits then I apply the isopropyl in spray form then apply diluted mod podge matt with a pipette. Once the glue is done I wipe the rail heads with my finger to remove any errant glue and rock. Finishing off by using an old Tri-ang wagon with massive flanges as a ballast plow to keep the rocks away from the running faces of the rails. Cheers Tony
Thanks Gormo I decided that I needed to protect the open end of the layout from any bumps and spills while moving the layout around, especially now as the little PC1 station building has been added. I also found that I made a slight miscalculation in the position of the main line. The back deck of the PC1 building was now going to be sticking out, no problem, I'll cut it off. But then I found that old enemy of buildings and boundaries, encroachment from the eaves, they just stuck out of the side. So my protection had to go around that. This is what I have come up with, held on by a couple of wingbolts with t-nuts behind to make assembly and disassembly easy. Will paint it black as well in the fullness of time. Cheers Tony
Thanks Pete, It's been a busy time here on the layout, I managed to get the grass done this week Now for some fences and shrubs. There will be a bit of a garden for the station precinct too. The pole is for people to know where the uncouplers are. Cheers Tony
Had some inspiration for the issue of hiding the hinges. I could paint the wooden blocks to look like concrete, then I thought I could put a concrete slab on top to then hide the hinge, something hollow and removable. I decided to make them out of styrene. I could decorate one with what would have been the foundations of a shed with some bits and pieces.
Then, with a coat of primer. A few more colours and weathering and they should hide the hinges quite well Cheers Tony
I think they look like the top of an underground water reservoir. Grass embankment with a flat concrete top, often with a couple of hatches and maybe the top of an access ladder.
Scratchbuilt a short fence for the edge of the platform. It deliberately does not match the other side. I really wanted to make a standard Sydney wooden fence with the angled top piece. Just made it from measurements of the original, sections of styrene, a knife and a file for the angle. Funny how the photo shows up overlooked things, like the grass dropped on the platform, oops. Cheers Tony
This is looking good Tony. The grass has come up very nicely and the little Pc1 station building looks a treat. Cheers, Gary.
Thanks Gary Keeping on the fences now. One of the real features for me of NSW railways is the fence sections that are made out of bits of rail. These consist of two uprights and an upsidedown rail put into cut-outs across the top. On various survey jobs I just happened to measure a couple to make my own. First, get some rail and cut a slit down with the Dremel. Then make a simple jig out of wood to hold the uprights so they are easier to solder to the top rail. Then paint a rust colour. It is easier to make them with equal length legs, but when attaching to the layout only one leg needs to go into the baseboard. Cutting the second leg makes sure the thing goes in at the correct height, and saves the real hassle of drilling 2 holes (and the resultant mess) in perfect alignment to each other for the fence section. Finally, install on layout. Next, some wooden posts, then the wire. Cheers Tony
Dear Dr Tony, having just read this article ( #1 - #32 ) , I think you have done an excellent primer for a "first model railway" style article.I particularly like the "feel" of rural Australia that you have achieved, and although I know the intent of your layout is a shunting game, it would actually be a good starting point for a longer and more extensive model, if that was desired. I also note your comment ( #16 ) about cylindrical rare earth magnets being more reliable tham Kadee strip magnets, they are also easier to camouflage within the track, which is a bonus. Nice work, very impressed, Regards, Echidna
Thanks Echidna for your kind words. I feel it's time to get back to this layout after my sojourn with the u-drive layout for the kids. Did two runs of it on consecutive market days, but it's time to give that a break and have the kids do something else, then Covid rears its ugly head back in Sydney and it may be some time before the u-drive gets another run, so back to this layout and maybe actually finish it! It would also be good to get an Aussie themed layout back in these pages, there have been some rumblings around! While I had been painting little figures for the U-drive I have also been doing some other little jobs, such as assembling some Uneek (Anton's) platform seats. These are a very nice wood and white metal kit based on NSWGR seats of the 1920s or 30s. I read an article that reckoned that the wood looked too thick and the author replaced it with brass strip, soldered to the white metal. I'm not quite up to that yet, so it was as the maker supplied. In painting figures I also came across what I think is a pretty close match for the paint colour of seats used in the 1980s, some of these seat frames were still around then, so i can use them, wrought iron was made to last forever. The only real issue was that I was building the seats in isolation to the layout, and didn't realise they wouldn't really fit under the awning. Too bad I like the look anyway, or maybe I'll put scales under the awning and this seat out in the open further along. I also got round to painting up a signal relay box, this was a Sydney Hobbies casting. Extensive research through all my books and a lot of google image searches and my memory lead to this colour scheme, which i think is what was used around the 1980s, looks close enough for me, these little buildings weren't really the object of much attention for railway photographers. Cheers Tony
Love the ingenuity...I dont wear glassed but I think I would need them to make those rail iron fence stubs. they look great. So many vantage points on the layout for a good pic. Cheers for sharing.
Thanks Chris(s) for your kind words. Found myself with some time over this last week to plant some things, bushes and lights. I also wired the lights up. They are 3V led, for the platform lights and for one in the station building. They are powered by two AA rechargeable batteries in a switched enclosure just under the scenery. This way they run at 2.4V. The bushes are some sort of Woodlands Scenic foliage, which breaks apart quite well and was planted in small bits like this. There are also a lot more home made static grass tufts under the building and around to fill remaining holes. Not much to go now. Just have to watch for shadows in the photos. Cheers Tony
I have been looking at my empty fence posts for a while wondering how to do the wire between them. I first tried copper, but could not get it to behave in the way that I wanted. I tried various gauges from various sources (power wire, speaker wire, those sort of things) but wasn't happy with the results. I tried cotton thread, removing the scraggly bits with a candle flame the way that Luke Towan demonstrates, but this was almost impossible to thread through the holes in the posts. Old style fuse wire seemed to work ok, but not having vast supplies of it on hand it would work out fairly expensive. As it is essentially obsolete, you can only buy the stuff on cards of about 1m. Brass wire seemed overkill. Then I remembered I had some rolls of aluminium 0.3mm wire in various colours. This was from the craft section of those dollar King style shops, under the Porta Craft brand I think. Once the right length was unrolled, I put one end in the vice, and pulled gently and repeatedly on the other end with pliers, pretty sure I got that tip from Gormo!, The wire became straight. This then threaded through the posts with ease, and I could tie the ends off after tensioning. The colour I had was a copper colour, which I hoped would look like rust, but it didn't, way too shiny. I then painted it in Tamiya sky grey, then a wash with Vallejo rust wash. Painted the ends where it wrapped around the rail fences in the same rust colour as the uprights. Star pickets were made to go at a scale gap of about 2.5m, which seems to be the standard on most farms at least around Dubbo. These were made out of 1mm X 0.25mm styrene. The whole strip was painted black, then cut into lengths, dipped gently into gel type superglue and stuck to the wires. Once dry I painted the tops of the posts where the white was showing after the cut. I only used 2 wires for the fence, just too hard to get more. I'm pretty happy with the result, especially the leaning of some of them. Cheers Tony