Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2018 i Australian Model Railway Magazine

My first model railway memory can be traced back to the 1979 edition of Sydney’s Royal Easter Show, back in the days when the apprentices from the NSW railways would build a massive display layout in one of the pavilions of the old Moore Park Showgrounds. I was almost seven years old at the time. What followed has been a life-long art of compromising any grandiose plans for a model railway empire of my own, due to the limited space I’ve had available. After 30 years of modelling (in N scale) from my early adolescent years through to marrying my wife Denise and raising a family of my own, it took a massive change in thinking for me to abandon the notion that every train had to traverse a model…

This long-lived and very useful class of wagons were 38'5¼" long and had three drop doors each side which, when lowered, opened the entire side of the wagon. The doors, sides and floor were all constructed from wood. They carried many different loads over the years and were also used in Way and Works trains carrying sleepers, ballast, spoil etc. A small number were still in service in the late 1980s and possibly into the early 1990s. They were constructed as follows: • 1-201 built 1889-1892, fitted with swing link diamond frame bogies, replaced in later years with arch bar and cast steel bogies. • 202-376 built 1912-1914, fitted with VR plate frame bogies. All of these were constructed with truss rods and buffers (removed in 1956-1957, which increased the…

I recently built a working diorama to display my Brazilian Frateschi models [Photo 1]. This utilised a 2.4m x 600mm MDF board, sliced along the mid-line to produce a 300mm deep diorama and two shorter 1.2m long fiddle yards (one at each end). Although the layout worked well, it presented a problem – where to keep it (I already have a large Australian layout in the loft). The garage was the only option, but the floor space was totally filled with the family vehicle and two classic cars. Upwards was the only option. A trip to Bunnings turned up an adjustable overhead rack with a storage capability of exactly 300mm width and retailing for under $20.00 [Photo 2]. I purchased a pair of these and modified them slightly by splaying…

QR/QRN HWO/HWOS Open Wagons, r-t-r in HO scale by CGL Models, PO Box 5288, Bundaberg West 4670. Website: www.cglmodels.com.au . Price: $225.00 per three-pack (available for HOn3½ [12mm gauge] or standard HO [16.5mm gauge]; gauge must be specified at time of ordering). Prototype In 1976, Queensland Railways placed an order with Commonwealth Engineering at Salisbury, Brisbane, for 125 HWO class open wagons. Running numbers 39480 to 39604 were allocated to the class, with the wagons being delivered between August 1977 and March 1978. When ordered in 1976, they cost $30,139.00 each. As the QR classification suggests, (H) eight-wheeled open wagon, (W) fitted with a hardwood floor insert and (O) when fully loaded the wagon had a gross weight of 63t. Another feature of the wagon was higher…

I am currently building a small layout based on the now closed Camden line, which was situated south-west of Sydney. Most of the Camden section is constructed and some scenery has been started. Another module containing Narellan is currently under negotiation with the local Lands Department (the wife!) Most of the vehicles on the layout have been collected over many years and some basic painting has been done. The Camden line closed on 1 January 1963, so the vehicles represent the era leading up to the line’s closure. It is very difficult to pick up good models cheaply these days, but I keep my eyes open in the Two Dollar shops for bargains. Unfortunately, the young people of today require trucks that transform into some form of robot or a…

Although our HO scale exhibition layout, Broadford, is nominally set in the mid-1990s [Described in AMRM Issues 304 (February 2014) and 306 (June 2014) – Editor], we do run the occasional out of the ordinary (and sometimes anachronistic) stock to give the public something interesting to watch and possibly discuss. As we were already running a freight with a wagon load of Land Rover Safaris, ostensibly being delivered to the Puckapunyal Army base, I was therefore interested when SDS announced their TE and Centurion package, but concerned that the additional airmail and UK import costs would make the models too expensive for my budget. At about the same time as the SDS announcement an item appeared in the Continental Modeller’s Nürnberg Report about the release in Europe of an HO…

Manufacturing in China The principals of Auscision recently visited their factories in China and published some interesting observations regarding the current ‘state of play’ affecting the Australian market. They noted that the factories were short of workers, down by about 20% compared with prior years, a factor in the recent production delays for many of their models. Another observation was that the factory managers had drawn their attention to the problems caused by the huge numbers of variations and colour schemes that Auscision demanded in their production runs and the problems that was causing due to the shortage of trained staff. The factories would much prefer to produce a model with one or two body versions/colour schemes in quantities of 1000 models per version, but Auscision noted that reducing the…

Both real railways and model railways have the same problem when two places are at different heights. On the prototype the best option has always been to make the distance between two places the maximum possible length to accomplish change in height. There are many well-known NSW railway locations of significant changes in height such as Cowan Bank, Tumulla Bank, the climb over the Liverpool Ranges through Ardglen tunnel and the Bethungra spiral. These ‘banks’ are often short distances of vertical gain which require large horsepower, bank engines and great distances to achieve height, or short ascending distances in which super-elevated track crosses over itself. The rise on the Sydney underground network from Wynyard Station to the Harbour Bridge is a notorious grade, particularly in wet weather, for heavily laden…

Over the last several decades the quality of models, both kit and ready-to-run, available to Australian modellers has changed and improved with new materials, manufacturing technologies and suppliers. It is interesting to look at an example, in this case the NSW 46 class electric locomotive. Over a period of about 40 years NSW modellers have had access to four models, of progressively improving quality, of this interesting prototype that was emblematic of the period when electric loco haulage seemed to have a big future in NSW. The 40 members of the 46 class of Co+Co mainline electric locomotives, working on 1500V DC current supplied from overhead catenary, were introduced to the NSWGR railway system from 1956. They were purchased to provide locomotive power for the Blue Mountains electrification scheme, designed…

Southern Rail SMR 10 Class I was greatly interested to read the review of the new Southern Rail Models SMR 10 class in AMRM Issue 329 (April 2018). Please find some information below on the 10 class locomotives that may be of use to your readers. As delivered, the 10 class were not fitted with a chime whistle as modelled on the locomotive (and depicted in the sound scheme of the DCC chip). Locomotives 30 and 31 were delivered with chime whistles, as per NSWGR practice, while the rest were fitted with British-style ‘peanut’ whistles from new. As time went on, the class were gradually all fitted with a variation of the Nathan five-chime whistle used by the NSWGR. The 10 class also received many modifications throughout their lifetime, as…