Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Australian Model Railway Magazine

Many of the buildings on Billabong Marina have already been discussed in previous articles in the series and there are still buildings, such as the station, cattle dock and the Tower Ales Tavern yet to be mentioned. However, all of these buildings needed something to sit around, so it is time to discuss the basics of adding scenery, especially the ‘wet’ bits! “They” reckon that when the Earth was formed it was covered in water. Then the land started to appear. The natural scenery on Billabong Marina was planned from the water up. It didn’t quite happen in this order, as you will notice from the images, but water is a good place to start! One of the biggest questions, which can raise a healthy discussion among modellers and artists,…

A number of years ago a kit for a steam locomotive was released in O scale that was purchased by many modellers working in 7mm (1:43.5) scale. While I’d seen a number of completed locomotives built from this kit painted and running, you could count such examples on one hand and, after talking to a few people who had made a start building the kit, the general consensus seemed to be that it was “a bit of a challenge” to build. It wasn’t so poorly designed that it couldn’t be built, but it was most definitely not a ‘beginner’s’ kit, being more fairly described as suitable for an experienced builder. Just because a kit has all the parts required to produce a particular class of locomotive doesn’t guarantee it’s easy…

Gavin Thrum has provided us with photos and details of just some of the models that were on display at the 2018 Modelling the Railways of South Australia convention. These models definitely highlight the considerable skills of the modellers active in South Australia, which doesn’t enjoy anywhere near the commercial support enjoyed by the eastern states. We expect that the 2019 convention, due to take place on Saturday 7 September, will feature an equally impressive display, along with some fascinating presentations that provide much information to the modellers of South Australia’s railways. This AR DA/T class diesel locomotive is a 3D printed Strath Hobbies kit, designed by Alan Beaumont, and painted in the Australian Railroad Group colour scheme by Maddie Collins. This locomotive, T02, was one of seven locomotives converted…

Signals Branch have released HO scale 3D printed parts to enable construction of the pre-cast concrete signal box that once stood at Gilmore on the Tumut branch in southern NSW. The walls and roof are available in either White Versatile Plastic or Fine Detail Plastic, while the detail parts; door, windows, gutters, downpipes and barge boards are available in Fine Detail Plastic only. The box at Gilmore was a standard design that was once widespread throughout the state. Signals Branch have added to the signalling parts available from their shop on the Shapeways 3D printing website with the release of an 18' three-arm shunting signal post with detail parts and a signal ladder with cast base and safety cage at the top for the 18' post, both in Fine Detail…

Wellingong is a fictional junction station of two single main line routes, somewhere in NSW, in what I call the ‘grungy’ era of the late 1970s/early 1980s. The layout itself features Wellingong Junction at the western end of Wellingong station, a single line that circumnavigates the layout twice, and two off-layout semi-hidden sidings. The project was started in early 2013 and finished earlier this year, minus the odd bit of micro detailing and the ongoing addition of new rolling stock and locomotives. Background It has always been on my bucket list to build a model railway layout in retirement and, though retirement is still a few years away, I thought that I would make a start well before then. I had run out of projects and a move to the…

The seventy years from 1894 to 1964 saw the existence of the longest privately-owned common carrier railway in Australia, the Midland Railway Company of Western Australia (MRWA), which had its head office (London) and source of finance in the United Kingdom. Built to tap the rich farmlands of the Midlands district of WA, this 3'6" gauge line ran 227 miles (446km) north from Midland, an outer, eastern suburb of Perth, to Walkaway, some 18 miles (30km) south east of Geraldton. Its principal traffic was wheat and other agricultural products, destined to be shipped out from the ports of Fremantle and Geraldton. Curiously, and due, no doubt, to now unexplainable government policy, MRWA locomotives were not permitted to run on Western Australia Government Railways (WAGR) tracks. As a result, all goods…

About a year ago I was driving along Heathcote Road, in the Sutherland Shire (NSW), and noted how striking these plants were in flower with their numerous, large, spear-shaped leaves, singular flower stalk that can reach to 4m and the large, red, bowl-like flower. I thought they would make an ideal addition to my layout. Some months later I was in an IKEA store and found an artificial plant that would be ideal for making scale models of the lily leaves. The artificial plant consisted of spear-shaped upright leaves in a shade of green that was ideal to represent the real thing. Later, in the same store, I found another artificial plant that would provide the bowl-like flower for the lily. This was called, if I remember correctly, a Christmas…

Scratchbuilding a VHO Unfortunately, we have had to hold the last instalment of Kevin Tiernan’s Scratchbuilding a NSWGR VHO Passenger Brake Van over for a future issue. It just would not fit in this one! Models and Miniatures at Thirlmere This year’s annual Models and Miniatures event at the NSW Rail Museum at Thirlmere, NSW, to be held on the weekend of 13/14 July, will feature a selection of exceptional NSWGR prototype layouts, including Peter Lewis’s acclaimed HO scale Wyee and the N Scale Group’s impressive South Creek. The special museum display on the theme ‘Journeys’ will feature a selection of models from the State and private collections, with a focus on NSW railway coaching stock. The event will also feature live steam models from Rails in the Garden, the…

It is with a heavy heart we record the death of Far North Hobbies’ Peter Ford, who passed away on 19 February 2019 after a sudden heart attack. Peter Ford cast a large shadow over the Australian model railway scene in the pre-Chinese manufacturing days and his enthusiastic personality made him a friend of all he met. Peter was a country boy from Parkes (NSW) who excelled at sport, but struggled with academia. He won a mechanical apprenticeship with the NSWGR and trained mostly in country depots. Unfortunately, his beloved steam had almost disappeared from the railways, but this did not curtail his interest or his ability to learn. Before leaving the railways he had been working as Relief District Manager, at times working out of Werris Creek. Newly married,…

For almost 40 years, two vintage ex-NSWGR timber-bodied MBC insulated vans have served the Tully Park Early Birds Golf Club at North Goulburn. In the late 1970s, a meeting of members learned of the need for improved shedding and security to store a growing number of tractors, commercial mowers, fuels, sundry expensive machinery and equipment. Since many members were railwaymen who knew redundant rail freight vehicles were about to be scrapped in Goulburn, a plan was hatched. Firstly, permission from the Tully Park Reserve Honorary Trust had to be secured. In turn, authority had to be received from the reserve’s administrator (NSW Department of Lands). The then golf club captain, who was a senior man in the railway’s diesel locomotive servicing section at Goulburn locomotive depot, sourced two timber-bodied MBC…