The Tracks of my Tears

Well, the track laying is going sloooowly as I'm now spiking the rails down after gluing with Pliobond. It's driving me crayzee I must admit so it better be worth the effort. The bullhead rail and chairs arrived so I've put all the chairs on the rails ready for gluing. The rail is code 75 and the chairs are 4mm but the ballast will come up to about half way up the rail so the scale and rail size shouldn't be noticeable. This will be installed as Hill Top's loop. I also purchased some Uneek point rodding, adjusters and balancers which unfortunately, were not what I expected. The rodding and rodding chairs are OK but the adjusters and balancers are cast in relief so they won't be making it onto the layout. Instead, I ordered some etched 4mm parts from the guys at Wizard so we'll see how they look. Hopefully, the scale won't be too noticeable. There's a lesson here.....never, ever procrastinate when buying stuff. I was about to buy the rodding and ancillaries from IR Models when Ian shut down the business. Damn!! Hence the search now for suitable replacements. With a bit of luck, Ian will find a new owner for his etches and I'll be able to get what I need. God knows what I'm going to do for signals if this doesn't happen.
In the meantime, to keep myself from going mental, I built some backdrops for the layout out of 3mm ply. Here's how it looks

Near the roller Doors

The Other end

I've also ordered some Kadee uncoupler magnets for when I finally get to install the track and points. That is if I don't lose my mind in the meantime.

Rob The Builder

It's been a busy week this week with quite few things started and finished in the train room. I mentioned in the last post about making a module for the upper and lower decks near the roller doors. It's mostly completed with just the top deck to go and the backdrops to be added. I also built 3 book cases to store my kits, tools and magazines. Here's a photo of the module

And here's one of the bookcases

I've still got to sand them and then they can be painted and then all of my stuff can be brought in. I'll probably have to build some more to hold everything but at approximately $25 each, it's not going to break the bank
The track work continues and I've started on the points needed for Hill Top and Thirlmere. I had started by gluing the sleepers to templates but the glue didn't hold the sleepers so I had to do it again.  Modelling is sooo much fun when you do everything twice. I've done 8 points and have glued down all the track plates and have glued the straight rail down with the rest to follow this week with luck. Here's 2 of the points.

Still a fair bit to go but I've set myself a target to have trains running by the end of the year.....we'll see how that goes.

Jetstar = Craptacular

Got back from Darwin on Friday after a 4 and a half hour flight with Jetstar. What a mistake that was. Now, I don't care about in-flight entertainment or crap airline food but I do want to have my seat recline!!!
No-one told me that Jetstar are so goddamned cheap that they've installed seats that don't recline. I'm 6'4" so economy class seating is not the most comfortable at the best of times let alone not having a reclining seat. Caveat Emptor I suppose.
I could bore you all about all the other things that got up my nose but that would just show you what a whining old sook I am, so we won't go there. The salt is the same in Darwin but it was still good to get out of the office and catch up on some reading....trains of course with a touch of Second World War carnage.
I was given time off on Sunday to do train stuff so it was into the garage to lay the cork underlay for the track. I've done Hilltop's cork underlay and some of the mainline but still have a fair bit to go. Also, I glued sleepers to the #6 point templates from Greg Edwards ready for soldering / gluing the rail next week.
And lastly, I built a module for the bottom and top deck that will sit where the garage roller doors are. So far all of the previous bench work had been attached to the garage wall and was self supporting. I couldn't do that on the roller doors so I had to build more conventional bench work to support the bottom and lower deck.
So that's it for this week.

Release the Navvies

Mr Postman brought me Greg Edwards NSWGR Track book during the week and how good is it?!?! Everything you would want to know about NSWGR track standards but were too afraid to ask. And it has cleared up all my questions about track sleeper spacing so the Navvies were released from their shackles and were told to get cracking.
I made up a jig equal to 4 x 24ft rail lengths and then spaced the sleepers at 2'9' centres except where the fish plates will be. The sleepers here are spaced at 1'10" with these standards adhering to the 1890 measurements. I then cut some PCB sleepers to the correct length of 8' and laid them together with the stained wooden sleepers into the jig. I then applied Scotch blue masking tape to the sleepers which removed them from the jig and kept them in place while the soldering iron was applied to the PCB sleepers to keep everything in alignment. Now, all I have to do is glue the wooden sleepers to the Code 55 rail, add the fishplates, spike the rail, paint it and then fix it to the cork roadbed....simple hey?

Comparison between track from Robbyco Enterprises and Micro Engineering

There's quite a difference in the sleeper spacing

I also managed to solder up a frog for the #6 points from Proto87 that the Navvies will be constructing soon. Well, not this week as the Evil Overlords at the Salt mine have said I must try the salt in Darwin. And before anyone says, "Oh but it's warm up there" I'll draw your attention to the fact that I hate weather over 25 degrees. I may have to taunt the locals to relieve the heat stress. Anyway, here's the frog

Reebit, Reebit

I also ordered some bullhead rail and chairs from Wizard Models in the UK for Hill Top's loop which has arrived ready for installation. These guys are excellent with really quick delivery times so I can thoroughly recommend them. I've also bought all of my sprung buffers from them and may have to end up getting some screw couplings from them as well depending how the ARkits couplings turn out.
During the week Elscotto and I went round to Ian T's house to check out some magnetic uncoupler action on his Darling Harbour Layout. Needless to say, we now know the pitfalls of operation using these couplers including unprompted DCC commands. Thanks Bob G, Ian T and Es D for an entertaining evening talking Elscotto's and my favourite subject, Ferro Equinology.

Track Pedant

This week, I started to get everything ready to begin laying track. I began by staining all of the sleepers using diluted tyre black and I reckon they've come out pretty good. They've got that silvery-grey look about them so I'm pleased with that.  Next, I went back and looked at various articles in ARHS Australian Railway History to look at the track dimensions. The March 2008 issue has a great article on sleepers and their dimensions which has left me more confused than anything. Aside from the varying sleeper lengths and widths the bit I'm confused about is the sleeper spacing. According to the article, sleepers were spaced at 2'6" centres which is a pretty big gap except at joints which were spaced at 1'8". Joints were also parallel initially and later went to the staggered joints that I'm familiar with but the big problem is I don't know when. The State Library photo of Hilltop circa 1910 shows the track definitely with parallel joints.
But back to the sleeper spacing, the 2'6" spacing, or 18 sleepers per 40ft rail length, was standard until the 1930's after which the number of sleepers per 40ft rail length was increased to 20. This appears to be the standard up until the 1960's at least. The problem is that I have a number 6 point template from AJRM that has the sleeper spacing much closer so does that mean that sleepers were closer under points? Also, commercial track is much closer like the point template so now any track laying is on hold while I work out what the story is with the sleeper spacing. I've place an order with Greg Edwards for his Track Work Datasheets so hopefully, that will shed some light on my dilemma.

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.