Happy Birthday 4 Aces

Happy Birthday O 1111, who turns 100 years old tomorrow! Went down to the Tram Museum at Loftus late in the afternoon today with the kids and had some rides on SPER's classic Edwardian trams from the long lost Sydney Tramways. You may have guessed that I have a soft spot for the Trams of Sydney especially the iconic toast racks. I just can't imagine Sydney with 100's of these beautiful trams whisking their commuters off to work in the morning peak. I get to put up with Tangaras and air-conditioned CDC Bus diesel contraptions which is about as appealing as gouging out your eyes with a rusty spoon. But today, I got to feel what it was like to travel in style on a Sydney toast rack. Out and about were O 1111, O 805, N 728 and some other classics, C 29, C 290 and F 393. J 675 was on standby and 42s was lurking near Railway Square as well. C 29 had some trouble late in the day and was failed when it dropped its lifeguard but otherwise all was good. Said hello to David C and Mark N and learnt a few things about what's going on. Unfortunately, Elscotto couldn't make it as his XL Falcon's gearbox gave up the ghost. Anyway, it seems that OP 1089 is making lots of progress and looks set for a re-entry into service next year and P 1729 is having lots of attention as well. Good to see that P 1501, which was recovered from the Tam-O-Tel in Lightning Ridge and is in Bendigo, will continue to be restored. All we need now is the coupled E's to get the love and we could all be toasted to our hearts content.


I took some pic's of course.....check them out





I do wish Gladys Berijiklian, who was there earlier in the day, sees the value of what SPER does and helps out with some financial assistance but most importantly, sees the value of Light Rail trams in the modern world and gets the trams back running where they used to be. I hope it happens in my lifetime.

Another One for the Paint Shop

I've finally finished the Redfern FN car and I can safely say that I've got the soldering bug out of my system! While I certainly enjoyed putting the kit together over the last month or so, I think the next one will go together a lot quicker now that I've worked out all the shortcomings in the instructions. The hardest part of the kit was the bogies as they are near scale in width which made it difficult to get the wheels to not rub parts of the side frames and short out the layout. Having said that they do look good once assembled. I added some extra detail to the car including brake cylinder and associated rodding, brake detail on the bogies and inlet pipes for the gas cylinder. The other thing I did was replace all of the supplied  supports for the double roof with ones I bent up from some flat bar as the originals were way too thick. All I have left to do is add lamp irons and brake hoses and it will be into the bath for a good scrub and then off to the paint shop.


Here's how it looks,

I'll add the buffers after painting

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. It's the most complex etched kit I've done so with this behind me, I'm more confident in tackling the LCB Ashbury car I bought a while back....just not now.

There's a package wending it's way from the US so it might be time to unleash the navvies again.