Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2019 i Australian Model Railway Magazine

One of my recreations away from model railways is a visit to the local cinema, where the offerings are from both the mainstream and off-beat producers. Movie producers have the task of creating a scene in which to present their story. In many cases it has been large scale model building, with only sections of a house or shed being shown – no point in building what does not appear on screen, is there? It is more than fair to say that most movies have done a good job in creating the scenes, especially these days with the use of digital imaging. Some time back, our local theatre used a new clip to highlight that the theatre was fitted for special sound (Dolby Sound) with the image of a steam…

I’ve read many model railway magazines over the years and I’ve never read much in them about how to actually clean the rails. The only mentions I can recall are about someone using a track rubber by ‘running it over the rails’. I’ve never actually seen a ‘track rubber’ and the rail cleaning wagons that are available seem expensive and all seem to work only on the tops of the rails. I also saw one bloke who recommended using a chunk of Masonite. Anyway, my track needed cleaning and I came up with this idea as I sipped on a frosty one at my local club. I picked up one of those standard, fibreboard drink coasters for a closer examination. They’re made from an absorbent, recycled paper with two folds…

Hudson Brothers A History of Hudson Brothers Carpenters, Engineers & Manufacturers 1866-1898 by David Jehan. Published by SCR Publications, PO Box 345, Matraville 2036. Ph: 02 9311 2036. Website: www. australianmodelrailways.com.Price: $75.00. Sydney author and engineer, David Jehan, has written a number of books with railway themes, including the 2015 publication addressing the history of Tulloch Engineering. Now he has turned his attention to the seminal Sydney manufacturing firm, Hudson Brothers, a hallowed name for those with an interest in the rolling stock of NSW railways. This firm had many more irons in the fire than railway manufacturing though and this volume lucidly chronicles the firm’s complete history, railways and all. With a fluid writing style, a plethora of mouth-watering photographs, plus numerous drawings and diagrams, the author describes one…

De-bugging your Layout I always enjoy reading the short articles, such as the one in the current [AMRM Issue 338 October 2019 – Editor] issue, De-bugging your Layout by Jonathan Majer, which rang true for me! I have a small N scale layout at one end of an unlined shed, which was regularly visited by a resident gecko. Unfortunately, I didn’t see her egg in time to avoid breaking it. Other visitors to the layout are the tiny spiders, which I call N scale ‘rabbits’. No.1 driver, Archer, aka my four-year-old grandson, isn’t fond of spiders, so I’m afraid a couple of ‘rabbits’ became roadkill before he got the joke… Thanks for a great magazine. Clinton Horley Bayswater 6053 Era Information Please! Is it just me, or are we heading…

How it began It all started a couple of years ago when, by chance, I came across a couple of photos of Darwin in 1942. One showed the waterfront during the initial bombing and the second showed troops lined up on the jetty railway with wagons behind. At the time, I had no idea that a railway existed in the Northern Territory prior to the current standard gauge. Research started. A couple of books on the North Australia Railway (NAR) were located and purchased. These revealed an intriguing story of an eclectic mix of rolling stock and some decidedly quirky operations, that just had to be modelled. The fact that I had never seen a NAR layout provided further motivation. At the time I had a large, British-based OO scale…

There is no doubt that the addition of DCC, especially a sound-equipped decoder, adds to the realism of a working model locomotive. However, even with the cleanest of track and wheels, DCC-equipped locomotives can be more prone to stopping, especially on dead frog points and dirty sections of track, than DC locomotives (often because the ‘cues’ offered by sound and the better motor control encourages one to drive locomotives at scale speeds, rather than treating them as slot cars). The way to solve this problem is to add a ‘stay alive’ module, which are available under various names from most of the major DCC decoder suppliers. These function by storing a small amount of ‘backup’ power in capacitors for when the electrical supply from the rails is interrupted by dirt,…

There are various ways to clean powered pickup wheels, such as driving the tethered vehicle over an alcohol-soaked paper towel stretched across the track or by using a plastic block with two parallel strips of wire brush connected to two metal strips that rest on the track. Both methods are effective as long as the wheels are powered and turn during the cleaning process. A problem arises when the pickup wheels are not powered and do not turn during cleaning. One way is to turn the wheel with your thumb while cleaning the opposing wheel by your favourite cleaning method. I find this to be tedious and not particularly effective. One such vehicle type that I find frustrating to clean is the Berg’s Sydney suburban electrics, which only have one…

Have you ever wondered what to do with model road vehicles which are no longer up to the standard of the rest of your layout? How about the way the prototype vehicles shown here have been ‘kit-bashed’ by their owners? Among some photos taken in August 1971 are these shots taken at Alexandra, Vic, (Photos 1 and 2), which show a storage shed on the far side of the yard. Briquettes and fertiliser were among the products that had to be transferred from open wagons at this location. The truck parked alongside the shed seems to be a long wheelbase Commer, with the tray area covered in and now being used to store bags of briquettes. A belt conveyor leads from beside the track up to a hopper which allows…

The products covered in the Review pages have been supplied or made available by the manufacturer, producer, importer or retailer listed in each product heading. AMRM welcomes access to new product lines for inclusion in the Review pages and requests items be addressed to the Editor at Australian Model Railway Magazine, PO Box 345, Matraville 2036. Readers are reminded that the prices quoted in the reviews are those applicable at the time of going to press. Those using the prices as a guide to purchasing products by mail order should always add extra for postage, or contact the supplier for the additional cost for mail order.…

It may not surprise you to hear that I like a yarn. My use of yarn is meant to be understood in the way it was used around me when I was a growing up in the company of people who’d lived through WWI, the Great Depression and WWII: not so much a story being told, but a chat or a gossip with stories woven into the talk. The sort of talking you do leaning on a farm gate or over a back fence. Perhaps it’s a rather out of date term in these days of ‘FaceTime’ and social media, but I like a yarn and I would hazard a guess that a lot of the readers of this magazine do too. I especially like a yarn with modelling friends…

SCMRA ACTIVITIES For all activities contact Eastern Division representative Graham Windmill on (02) 9626 0351. 8 December Family Christmas BBQ and visit to railway attraction. Tramway Museum Loftus. Contact Graham Windmill 9626 0351 with numbers by 3 December. 2020 11 January Open Day by SCMRA and EMRCI at Epping Creative Centre, 26 Stanley Rd, Epping. 10am to 4.00pm. Layout operation. Getting Started clinic at 11.00am. Free sausage sizzle lunch. Details from Trevor Moore 9876 3522. 8 February Meeting at the home of Marcus Ammann, Pymble. EXHIBITIONS & EXPOS MILANG – SA. November 23-24, 2019. Model Railway Show, Milang Institute and Railway Museum, an hour south of Adelaide. Free train rides. Entry adults $10, accompanied children free. 10am-4pm (Sat & Sun). 0414 232 060 or www.milangrailway.org.au PORT ELLIOT – SA. January…