Australian Model Railway Magazine February 2015

Where are the Modern Era Modellers? Readers of AMRM could be forgiven for thinking that we only cover the ‘historical’ eras of Australian railway equipment and operation in our printed articles. However, this is not deliberate policy on our part, but forced upon us by the fact that the vast majority of our volunteer authors submit articles on historical subjects. This was not always the case, as perusal of our back issues from the early days of the magazine (now conveniently available on CD!) will soon reveal. In the 1960s and 1970s, most modelling articles were about contemporary subjects, because that is what most people modelled at the time. With the huge difficulties in sourcing archival information back then, it was not surprising that most modelled what they could see…

Background Wallerawang is the fourth HO scale exhibition layout constructed by the Guildford Model Railway Group (GMRG). While our first two exhibition layouts were both fictitious locations, the third, Moss Vale (which we exhibited for eight years) was based on the actual location. Moss Vale was described in AMRM Issue 275 (April 2009). When deciding on a new location to model we had some ‘must haves’ – a double track main line for continuous train action and easy running at exhibitions and it had to be somewhere not ‘under the wires’. ‘Nice to haves’ included extra loops or sidings for additional stabling and shunting interest. As the rolling stock to be run on the layout is individually owned by group members, we needed to find somewhere on the NSW system…

Wallerawang Scale: HO Location: Wallerawang, NSW Main Western line Period: Layout modelled on Wallerawang in the mid-1990s, trains represent any era from steam to present day Layout type: Continuous double-track main line with fourteen-track fiddle yard at rear. Layout size: 6.5m (22') by 2.7m (9') Baseboard: 12mm plywood framing with plywood top and aluminium A-frame legs Track: Peco code 100 points and flexible track, minimum radius 750mm Control: Home-made DC controllers based on the CoolerCrawler design Lighting: Fluorescent ‘daylight’ tubes Scenery: Plaster over lightweight foam and topped with coloured scatter material, static grass, trees home made from twigs with filter wool and ground foam, plus pine trees from Woodlands Scenics Structures: Scratchbuilt and kitbashed Locomotives and rolling stock: Scratchbuilt, modified r-t-r and kit-built NSW and other Australian prototypes Builder: Guildford…

Diorama Construction Techniques Reading several books and poring over countless magazine articles, to see how others have managed to build lightweight modules for exhibition layouts and dioramas, has shown that many people have similar desires. From modules made from square aluminium tubing braced with thin MDF or foam-board, to all the way with Woodland Scenics Subterrain Lightweight Layout System and many other techniques in between. They all seemed to accomplish the main aim, albeit with differing techniques requiring different skills and capabilities of the modeller. For the Bell’s Grotto diorama, I decided I would experiment with thin MDF sheet (3mm), styrofoam insulation sheet and foam-board. After a visit to the local hardware store, I purchased several sheets of MDF with dimensions of 1200mm x 900mm x 3mm. I thought that…

Well, there you have it. I have finally taken the first timid steps into the realm of scratchbuilding structures. Now don’t get me wrong; in the past I have taken ‘bits and pieces’ of models and combined them into something completely new, but as for starting from a pile of raw materials and ending up with a finished project… that is an entirely different matter! For the longest time I have ‘daydreamed’ while inspecting other peoples’ wonderfully crafted, scratchbuilt structures. I always thought that scratchbuilding was beyond my modelling ability, but then I had a bit of a revelation… A few weeks ago, my wonderful wife and I were visiting her brother and family for dinner. During dinner, one of the kids simply would not eat an item being served.…

When our family moved to Greensborough in the early 1950s, there was no supermarket and we knew from the types of stores in the area what we could expect to buy there. The grocery store sold groceries (from a kid’s point of view this meant biscuits and lollies), the butcher sold meat, and so on. If you wanted to buy milk you didn’t go to a milk bar, but went to the dairy. Our milk usually got delivered, so mum only went to the dairy to pay the weekly milk bill. This all leads us to the building shown here, the Jersey Dairy in Mont Albert, established in 1901. My recollection is that dairies rarely looked like shops. They were utilitarian buildings with no need for a large front window.…