Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i Australian Model Railway Magazine

Sometime, somewhere, I heard about modellers using tea bags for tarpaulins on GYs, Victoria’s ubiquitous wheat truck (they had about 6000 of them). It might have been while watching a long train of tarped GYs on the Woodend layout in the late 1970s, hauled by a scratchbuilt X class (steam) locomotive. It might have been at that time I heard about the use of model aeroplane dope. Or it might have been a little later discussion with Trevor Doran who used dope in his youth (the model aeroplane type!) Dope is used to tighten and seal the fabric on the light-weight flying models and works well in tightening tea bag material to represent the appearance of a full sized tarp. Photos of prototype tarps can be seen at: •www.victorianrailways.net/freight/freight%20pages/gy/gy2.html •…

No-one in the Ramblers can pinpoint exactly which Friday night, but it is generally agreed that it was in the early 1990s that a group of the Friday-night Ramblers journeyed to the Sydney suburb of Burwood to visit the home model railway of one James McInerney. The reason for the descent of this group of Ramblers on James’s home that evening was the news that had begun to circulate that James’s then exhibition layout, known as Lambing Flat, had been retired from the exhibition circuit and had now been set up as a home layout. This was well before James took up his current position of editor of this august publication but, even then, James was well known for his promoting of the modelling of New South Wales prototype. During…

In 1912, the Commonwealth Railways (CR) commenced the construction of the Trans Australian Railway (TAR), initially using old, small locomotives purchased from the NSWGR [the six D (ex-Q class 4-4-0) and one F (ex-K class 2-6-0)]. The CR recognised early that they would need a larger locomotive and had decided to purchase locomotives based on the NSWGR P class (later C32) 4-6-0. These locos would also be used during the construction phase of the TAR. The CR released a Request for Quotation (RFQ) and obtained ten quotes based on the P class, but with minor modifications including automatic couplers, cowcatchers and a maximum axle load of 18 tons. The best RFQ was from Baldwin Locomotive Works, New York, for a total cost of £20,456 (£5114 per loco) and four months…

In this series of articles, I’ll briefly give an overview of how I converted various Eureka Models r-t-r HO scale D50 class locomotives into members of the D53 and D55 class, as well as a 50 and a 53 class with Laird crossheads. Firstly, I’ll start with the D53 class. When Eureka announced that they will be producing the r-t-r NSWGR 50 class, the old grey matter went into overdrive, as this was a model that could be easily converted to a 53, my favourite class of NSWGR steam power. Basically, it needed a new footplate made from styrene, a slight shortening of the height of the cab, new air tanks on the footplate (again made from styrene), and a turret tender (kit from AndIan Models). I like the 5000…

Wuiske Models have released a rerun of their r-t-r, HO scale, QR curtain-sided QSC van, produced in conjunction with Haskell Co of Taiwan. Now available are three new packs in the original yellow Easiliner colour scheme and two new packs in the Q-Link scheme, all with new running numbers. As usual, all types are available with either 16.5mm gauge or (correct for QR 1067mm gauge) 12mm (HOn3½) gauge bogies. Wuiske Models have released a traditional-style, high-pressure injection moulded plastic kit for the QR HJS open wagon in HO scale. Designed to be constructed by even an inexperienced modeller in under 15 minutes, the kit contains all parts, including brake rigging and multiple-era decals, needed to build an example of this once common item of QR rolling…

This layout last featured in AMRM Issue 302 (October 2013), describing that layout as it was at the time of publication. Reference was made at the end of that article to a proposed addition in the form of a dedicated locomotive depot to better service the 20 diesel locomotives in the fleet. At the time this task had been shared between the facilities at Dry Creek and Fairfield. Mile End Depot Approval was subsequently obtained to build the new depot and it was named Mile End Diesel Locomotive Depot, though it has become known simply as ‘Mile End Loco’. A suitable location for the depot was easily identified, basically on the other side of the passage way which gave access to both Hillside and Dry Creek yards, which were the…

Over thirty-five years ago I bought two Weico N scale VR S car kits—they had aluminium body shells and white metal ends, floors and bogies. They looked pretty good, but I decided they would look even better with vestibule connections that were in contact with their neighbours all the time. After giving it a bit of thought I came up with a method which involved cutting a hole in the end wall, making a solid box to represent the connecting passageway, and attaching it to springs that would permit it to move in and out with the pressure from the adjoining carriage. The diaphragms obviously do not replicate the actions of the real thing, since a flexible concertina-type arrangement was way beyond anything I was prepared to attempt, but a…

Building the Model Ixion make two versions of the C32. The version required for this project is the angled footplate version. As a consequence, my comments relate only to this version. The Ixion C32 is a very nicely detailed model. It has very fine detail in the form of moulded rivets, wire handrails and wire representing pipe work and the backhead provides an excellent representation of the interior of a steam engine cab. The loco has directional lighting with Light Emitting Diode (LED) headlight and back-up lights. The headlight (first batch) has an ‘odd’ opaque lens. However, when the light is on, it looks fine and consequently is not of concern to me. The loco has NMRA RP25-88 profile wheels, which are also nicely ‘blackened’. The rods are also nicely…

A number of years ago, my father purchased an Austrains NSWGR 36 class 4-6-0 steam locomotive out of the ‘specials’ box at an exhibition. It was one of the later run models with a ‘DCC Ready’ plug in the tender. During a recent visit, he brought over his entire model fleet to my layout for conversion to DCC so he could run it on my layout (and other friends’ DCC layouts). The conversion process went fairly smoothly; his Auscision 46 and 86 class went over to DCC without any problems, his Bergs parcel van didn’t present too many issues either, but, when the time came to install DCC into the 36, nothing I did seemed to get this loco to work. The problem was that the loco would start off,…

Generic Stock Race, ready-to-place in HO scale by Southern Rail Models, PO Box 427, Salamander Bay 2317. Ph: 0418 282 564. Website: www.southernrailmodels.com.au .Price: $109.00. A recent addition to Southern Rail s Trackside range of ready-to-place HO scale lineside accessories is this generic stock race. Stock races (and their associated stock yards) were once a common feature of all but the smallest wayside goods siding all across Australia, right up to (and past) the demise of stock transport by rail (the late 1980s in NSW). While this version appears to be based on the standard NSWGR T6 (1948) design (the Southern Rail website states that it is based on the stock race still [barely] standing at Harden in southern NSW), it is sufficiently generic to satisfy the…

The Guard’s Doors We are almost ready to take our four side sections and join them to form two completed sides. Before we can do this, however, we need to prepare the centre guard’s doors. Measure the width of these two doors and file them down until you get a measurement of 10mm in width both top and bottom. If you are using recycled doors from a donor Lima carriage, or from a set of commercially available sides, these doors may still have a tiny ‘dot’ on each side, leftover as part of the residual ‘belt rail’. Gently use your scalpel to remove these and lightly sand back these surfaces. While the moulded-on handrails are quite adequate as they are, you will also need to remove them if you wish…

Visible to passengers (and crews) traversing the NSW Main South on a lineside property at Jerrawa, a small village located north of Yass, is a small, four-wheel brake van, CHG17341. Now a long way from its original area of use, the Hunter Valley, where these brake vans were designed to trail non-air braked coal trains that for generations carried coal from the mines around Newcastle to the wharves (latterly Port Waratah). Although they had very effective hand brakes operated from inside the small guard’s cabin, the CHG vans were also equipped with sand boxes, mounted on the end platforms, to assist with the braking effort, particularly during inclement weather conditions. On some of the more steeply graded runs south of Newcastle, on both the ‘Short North’ and the now-closed branch…

Scores of redundant railway vehicles have, over the years, found new lives around the nation as on-farm storage and accommodation. Because many larger model railway layouts have rural aspects worked into their scenery, here is perhaps another prototypical use for that retired model languishing in a lower drawer. Tallong (NSW) couple, Russell and Sue Montgomery, were in need of another room on their small homestead, to cater for family sleepovers. Some 15 years ago they were attracted by an advertisement placed by popular ‘train mover’, Mario Mencigar (now the principal of Australian Train and Railway Services). He had acquired the SBH from a group camp located at Yallah Bay Road, (next to Tallawarra Power Station, south of Albion Park). Mario remembered the camp had two carriages (acquired at the August…