We Came, We Saw, We Took Photo's, We Drank Beer

Elscotto, my son Tom and I went for a drive down to Picton for a look around and to take some photo's for later reference. We took about 170 photo's of Picton, Hill Top and Thirlmere which will be the 3 stations on the layout and of course Stonequarry Viaduct. Here they are if you want a look




We also measured a few structures including the Viaduct and what's left of the platform at Hill Top. During its mainline days, Hill Top was a busy little station with passing loop, refuges and siding

Track and Signal Diagram dated 17/5/1897

There's some photos at NSW State Government Records dated circa 1900, 1910 and 1955 which clearly show how Hill Top was in both mainline and loopline service. I really love the photo dated circa 1910 with the hedges, topiary, bullhead rail in the loop and wooden platform extensions to the original stone platform. This is what I'll be modelling. The only thing left of Hill top now is the stone platform which measures 75' long by 22' wide at the Station / Signal box and 52'6" to the top of the platform before it starts sloping down to the ground. That, and the pine trees which border what would have been the up platform. If there's anyone who knows of any other photo's of Hill Top from the early 20th Century I'd love to hear from you.
We also did some measurements of the Viaduct with the arches being 27'6" long and the stone blocks being 5'6" long and 1'2" high. While typing this I just realised I didn't measure the width of the arch base or the width of the stone blocks (smacks forehead). Oh well, I'll just have to go back for another beer, I mean research trip. I'll have to measure Thirlmere Station and Goods Shed as I've read that these were both bespoke designs built by local contractors and that there's no plans in the archives.
We had lunch at The Imperial which was built in the 1860's and was originally named "The Terminus" no doubt due to it being close the railway station. If you look at photo's of Picton station in the 19th century, you'll see a 2 storey building on the hill behind the station....that's The Imperial. The food was good and the beer was Reschs so Elscotto and I were happy. And also, there's a nice photo in the dining room of......you'd never expect it, Picton Railway Station! And what a beauty it is. Never seen it before and it appears to be turn of the Century and was before the signal box was moved to the Melbourne end of the up platform. In the up dock are 2 LV's and opposite on the down is a horsebox. So for Linton, who's also building Picton, the use of the up dock still remains unclear as I've now seen a Redfern car, 2 x LV's and a HFL in the dock as well as the coal filled D / S trucks you mentioned. There's also another photo of a P climbing the hill outside Picton on a train of 3 dogboxes, a Cleminson and 4 wheel van / horsebox. Beautiful.
And I got to do some modelling while Frannie took the kids to see Shrek 4. I'm working on some old carriages that I'm going to put on EBay as they're no longer needed and I chopped up some sleepers ready for staining this week.
All in all, a fun weekend.

All Work and No Trains Makes Rob Boring

Not much to report on at the moment, too much time being spent at the Salt Mine. Also, I've also had a few family engagements as well as good weather on the weekend which means kids sport, kicking the footy around and catching up on the repair tasks around the house. All this means no trains for me!
Elscotto dropped round during the week for a chat and to drop over some early issues of Model Railway Journal so at least I got to talk about trains. We're planning to go down to Picton (the real one one) Thirlmere and Hilltop to do a bit of research and photography next Saturday. We might pop into the RTM to see how things are progressing as well. And a beer or two at the George IV or the Imperial might be on the cards as well but we'll leave that till last otherwise we won't do any research. The idea is to get some ideas for the topology and scenic layout for Thirlmere so I can get started on the track work and scenery. I know I keep babbling on about starting the track work but once I make this trip and take some photo's, I'll be starting....really trooly.

Feelthy, Feelthy Wagons

The last few weeks since the Early Days Convention have been a little on the slow side. I've started a new job at the salt mine and the overlords have determined that I now have to manage production of sea salt rather than the traditional mining for salt. So what this means is that I've been spending a lot more time learning about new technologies and team dynamics which of course means less time at Picton. Of course, if I didn't work at the salt mine, I wouldn't be able to afford all the goodies for Picton. This thought at least keeps me going back everyday,
I started weathering all of the wagons and I'm not happy. A number of decals have fallen off or have disintegrated and some have not adhered properly which has given that decal sheen patina to some of them. Not happy Jan! The ones that disintegrated were affected by the Tamiya flat finish I applied to seal them so I swapped to Floquil and all was good. I'll have to re-decal about 10 wagons so that means reprinting the decals and applying them again.
As I said I've weathered most of the wagons that the decals survived and I did this mainly with dry brushing and acrylic washes. Here's how they turned out

Feelthy S and not so feelthy K

BCW

 I still have to give all of the wagons a mist of earth to tone things down a bit and then I'll add some weathering powders to see how that looks. All of the photos I've seen of trains in the '30's show the wagons generally well maintained with the odd exception so that's how I've tried to weather my wagons. Pity there's no colour photos around to really see how they looked so it's up to us to interprate what we can.
Oh, and I've also done a little more on the MLV's and they all now how have brake roding installed with truss rods to come.
I've also ordered some some Floquil Paint Pens from Stanbridges in Perth as they were the only ones I could find who could send the pens via Australia Post. So I'll be finally laying some track soon....I need a diversion from the wagons.

Early Days Love In

Yesterday was the 20th Anniversary of the "Modelling the Early Days of the NSWR" Convention and what a great day it was. About 70 people attended, most of whom were familiar faces, and as usual, the subject matter was informative and thought provoking. It's interesting to reflect on the impact this particular forum has had on the hobby. We've seen kits produced by some very talented modellers over the years (thank you Peter F), most of which would never have seen the light of day otherwise. The amount of research that the presenters do and pass on, really makes this a not to be missed event. Even if the period of focus, 1855 - 1930, is not your era, there is much subject matter that transcends the period of discussion.

This year, I was asked to talk about Picton and how I'd come to the decision to model this location. In the back of my mind, I was thinking that nobody would be interested but afterwards a couple of guys, John and Gary, both made mention of what a good choice Picton was. John was one of the presenters and gave a very informative presentation on building Manning Wardell F and H class in 7mm scale. And Gary is a wealth of information and has actual paint samples that he has been analysing from pastoral green, C35's and C36's.

This is why I return year after year!

I also got talking to Ian and Andrew from Coffs Harbour and these boys are serious. Aside from some exquisite etches of a LLW well wagon, they showed me an example of a BLV and a SL heavy load vehicle that had been produced using 3D CAD and resin / thermal printing. I am continually amazed at the innovation in the hobby....and people say it's stagnating? I don't think so. It reminds me of people who say that the music of the '80's was crap. Well, yes the mainstream was, but if you looked deeper, there was there was a subterranean movement that pushed the boundaries and was continually looking for innovation, Sound familiar?

Anyway, Elscotto and I emptied the wallets to procure the goodies on offer. Elscotto spent some bucks on some turn of the century (19th-20th that is) figures....he reckons it was money that should have been spent on other items. I guess Elscotto is not a people person........

I had an 1885 and an 1891 louvre van on pre order that was available for pickup and you don't get this stuff unless you attend the conventions.

I also took some of my models along and James M took some photo's and took down some details of each model, so I'm hoping they might appear in an AMRM some day.

Bob G and Ian D have done so much to progress this niche of the hobby and I'm grateful to them and everyone else who has contributed to the organisation and content of the "Early Days"

 I am a better modeller because of this forum

D is for Decals

The white printer ribbons arrived so I finished doing the artwork for the decals. This took quite a while longer than I thought as it was difficult to get the relative font sizes correct between the codes and numbers, capacity / tare and the solebar numbers. So after a bit of experimentation, I finally got it right and set about trying to do the printing. Well the memory ain't what it used to be, age and alcohol abuse might be catching me up, so for the life of me I couldn't remember how to print using the white ribbon. I tried everything but nothing seemed right and I didn't want to waste decal sheet and ribbon experimenting. Then, when all else fails RTFM, which doesn't work when you can't find the bloody thing! I searched for hours where it should have been and then of course, I looked where it shouldn't have been and there it was. As it turned out, I was on the right track and if I'd gone one more step, I would of been printing. Still, the manual really helped especially after the first print showed that the white was too opaque and needed a second coat. I tried that and the two print runs didn't register correctly so it came out blurred. The way around it was that the printer driver has an overlay function which basically re-feeds the decal sheet back through the printer for a second ink run. After that, it looked great. So, I now have enough decals for 130 wagons as this was what I could fit on an A4 sheet which isn't too bad. The only thing I couldn't reproduce was the handbrake, on and arrow symbol. I just couldn't get it small enough so I'm leaving it off.

So, aside from the already completed refrigerator cars, I've gloss coated all of the goods wagons and applied the decals on the K's, S's, ICV's, PV, BD and BDS leaving only 39 wagons to go....oh dear. I am never going to build up a stack of semi completed wagons again. Anyway, here's a pic to give you some idea.

 

The explosive decal came from a commercial source...can't you tell?

So this week, it will be decals, decals, decals.....I'm mad for it!!!

Learn to Love your Louvres

While waiting for the printer ribbons to arrive, I realised there wasn't much happening in the carriage works. Sure, there's about 14 or so 12 wheelers that need buffers, drawgear and bogie detail to be added but I have to buy the wheels and couplings. Then there's the EAM underframes, again waiting for wheels and couplings as well as the Trainorama S's and K's also waiting for new wheels.  And hanging over my head is the order for some LFX's from Mike McCormac so I'm being particularly frugal at the moment as the Capital Review Board won't release any extra funds.
With the that all in mind, I thought I'd start on the wagons for my No179 fruit express. I've got all the bits and pieces on hand including 10 x AR Kit MLV's and 2 Redfern Models MLV's (ex BCV). If you look at photo's of 179 Fruit Express in the '30's, there's a wonderful hotchpotch of bogie louvre vans making up the train including Thow BLV's, and cantilever underframe MLV's as well as the standard MLV's and ex BCV, MLV's. So, there will be some scratchbuilding required to make the louvre vans that aren't available commercially. Anyone got any ideas on how to scratchbuild louvres?
Anyway, I made a start on detailing the underframes of the AR MLV's

All original detail removed and new queen posts and brake cylinder supports added

10 MLV's ready for more detail

 Each queen post has 13 parts so there's a lot of fabrication to happen here which I'm about 2/3rds the way through. Maybe I should have made 1 and made some moulds and learnt how to do casting. I made 1 MLV about 10 years ago and I fabricated the queen posts for it so I'm following the same procedure.

And here it is, warts and all

The Redfern MLV will be a challenge but I think the bones of the model are OK. Well at least that's what I'm telling myself. Mind you the model is advertised as being caveat emptor so I shouldn't be too critical. You be the judge.

This is going to be fun?

Next week, I'll continue with the MLV's and I might even have a shot at some track work. Elscotto also said he will pop around this week to pick up his D's and a brake lever jig I made for him so we can have a night talking about trains....as long as he doesn't point out any deficiencies in my handywork ;-)

Decal Time and the Need for a Tardis

It's been a quiet week this week in Picton, well, not necessarily quiet but not particularly productive in terms of output. You see, it's been decal time for the refrigerator wagons and I've decided that decaling is the least satisfying out of all the various aspects of model railways. Don't get me wrong, its not that I hate doing it but the fact that it takes so long is what I don't like about it. I reckon Time is the killer for all modellers. You only have so much time you can spend on your favourite hobby so when you spend most of your weeks available time on decaling you start looking at how you can do it smarter and quicker. A Tardis might be the answer but I don't think that's going to happen soon. The main problem is the cutting up of the various codes and numbers to suit the stock and then the application, letter by letter and numeral by numeral. And getting them straight and spaced correctly. So anyway, I've decalled all the refrigerator cars with the appropriate codes and numbers from commercial decals I'd bought years ago. I now have 54 goods wagons to decal.......
A few years back, I purchased an ALPS printer for the purpose of printing my own decals. Unfortunately, these printers are no longer available and the consumables for these printers are getting harder to get. Aust-N-Rail stock the ribbon cassettes and I also found this site in New Zealand who stock consumables, http://www.alps-supplies.com/ and I'll be placing an order for some white ink cassettes this week. The exchange rate helps making the choice of supplier.
The other task this week was creating the artwork for the goods wagons which I completed using MS Word. Had to trawl the internet for some stencil fonts but eventually got one that looked OK. Its not quite right but will look the part. The beauty of doing this is you can code and number anything you like and it will be all one decal, no cutting, no aligning. I've also done the capacity as well as the tare which was handwritten rather than stenciled. The only decal I've had a problem with is creating the "On" decal with the arrow which was placed above the handbrake. I just can't get the artwork small enough so I might try some other programme to duplicate it.
I'll need to get a wriggle on if I'm going to get the wagons completed as I want to take some along to "The Early Days" at the end of May.
Anyway, that's it for this week. Next batch of photo's will be when I've got something worth showing.