Happy 50th, DL531!

Under the southern stars at Werris Creek, April, 2009. . .

Put on your party hats and stick a noise-maker in your mouth--today's the 50th anniversary of the delivery of the first DL531 Goodwin-Alco in Australia!

The design has proven more than durable, and even the newest such units are celebrating 40 years of service in New South Wales, and don't seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. NSWGR purchased 165 of the 6-cylinder, 251-powered roadswitchers; SAR 45; and Silverton another three. To celebrate, here's a few of my shots of 48 Class taken in April:
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Four Mk IV 48 class roll a grain train into Narrabri just after sunrise. . .
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. . and depart a few minutes later under a plume of smoke after safeworking at the Narrabri station.
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Classic face at Werris Creek. Can anyone enlighten me as to the meaning of the yellow star, found on the nose of several units?
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48144 and 48135 inside the Downer-EDI shop at Werris Creek before heading out the door to move still more grain from the North-West. . .

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The Living and the Dead: Stored and active 48 class around the turntable at Werris Creek loco.
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Side view of the new Powerline Mk. I 48 class (test shot, from the Model Railways In Australia Yahoo group). . .

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I really wished I could do my share of celebrating operating a finely-detailed HO scale model, but it looks like I'll have to hold off until next year some time for my Trainorama Mk I and IIs to show up (now looking like mid-2010 at the earliest). Powerline has released some photos of test shots of their (new) version of the 48 Class, and posted them to their Model Railways In Australia Yahoo group. It doesn't look too bad--certainly the under-frame piping gives the Train-O a run for the money. I'm a bit concerned about the molded handrails (I'd prefer wire) and the couplers seem to be taking aim skyward. The model features a cab interior as well as etched brass steps, but curiously, the radiator grill is molded. Hopefully,these issues will be addressed before they're released sometime in 2010.

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For the life of me, however, I can't understand that while Trainorama is making their first run strictly a Mustard Pot and Indian Red affair, Powerline isn't looking to sieze a bigger market share by offering any Freight Corp or Pacific National livery in their first run. Talk about missing the market!

First installed: The Blue Point controller

Finished installation (click on image for full-sized photo) with the hot-glued Blue Point controller, nylon clevis, threaded .072" rod through the fascia, and cheap, painted wooden knob on the front of the layout.

The Bull Frog turnout mechanisms I'd ordered from Fast Tracks hadn't arrived from Canada yet, but I did pick up a dozen or so Blue Point controllers from my local hobby shop. I've installed ten of them, and am generally pleased with the installation process and how they function.

List price on the New Rail Models website is $12.95 each, with five-packs and ten-packs available with quantity pricing (a 10-pack MSRP is $99.95). New Rail also offers a host of accessories, from drilling templates ($4.95) to the "flex-link" line of items to connect your Blue Point with the facia of the layout. But you can get all that stuff for much cheaper from your local RC Aircraft shop.

What's Inside?
The cheapsake in me mused: I don't plan to power up my frogs, so why do I need a Blue Frog with a power routing function? Why don't they offer a cheaper version without it? Remove a couple of screws and look inside, though, and you'll find that the Blue Frog is just a couple of pieces of plastic surrounding an off-the-shelf DPDT electrical switch. It's really just a fancier way of executing the bare-bones use of a cheap Radio Shack switch to hold point tension that others have done for years.
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Simplicity itself: An electrical switch surrounded by plastic. . .

Installation
I made a boo-boo when I installed the points on the Narrabri section of the layout, in only drilling a 1/4" hole under the throw bar for the tension wire to travel. So, first order of business was to drill out the hole to 3/8" diameter to provide adequate throw range. This wasn't as tricky with the 1/2" overlay of ceiling tile between the baseboard and track as it would've been with plywood alone; I was able to carve out the needed clearance through the ceiling tile with a hobby knife, rather than risk driving the drill through the track (something I've done before, damn it, and didn't want to repeat).
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New Rail Models suggests using the drilling/mounting template and securing the controllers with wood screws in the slots provided. However, being a lazy sort, i used hot glue for a couple of reasons. First, it's easier, and easier is better. Most importantly, compared to a Tortoise electric motor, the Blue Point controller has no "center" position you can set the tension wire at to line up the device's installation--the throw bar is either left or right. After threading the tension wire up through the small hole in the throw bar of the points (no easy task in itself), I wrapped a small piece of tape around the excess wire protruding up through the hole to hold the assembly in place so I didn't have to reposition the tension wire through the hole each time. Then, reaching under the layout, I moved the Blue Point into a position where it would throw the points fully in each direction. Finally, I drew a pencil outline of two sides of the controller so I could re-position it after I applied the hot glue.



Close-up of the installed blue-point. Lazy me: I don't power up my frogs, but if I did, the handy DPDT switch installed in the unit would make power routing a snap.

I let the glue cool and harden, and made sure the Blue Point was doing its job. There is a fulcrum that slides up and down the Blue Point controller just like one on the Tortoise to shorten or lengthen the throwing range of the device; this must be adjusted, too. If you're not satisfied with the positioning of the controller, simply knock the Blue Point off the baseboard with a couple light taps of a mallet, clean off the old hot glue, and repeat until satisfied with the results. I then snipped off the excess length of tension wire above the point throw bar.

The Blue Point can be connected to the fascia of the layout using either a solid push rod (for installations nearly-parallel to the front of the layout), or a tube-in-tube or rod-in-tube method (for more acute angles). All the hardware for this step should be available at a good RC aircraft shop, for prices far less than that charged by New Rail Models as part of their "kwik-link" line of products. I used products produced by Du-Bro and Great Planes, and bought 'em at Roys Hobby Shop, a local RC dealer near my house that offers discount pricing. Roy's sells a 12"push rod with nylon clevis for under a buck, Du-Bro No. 184. Additional nylon kwik-link clevis were 2/$0.95, Du-Bro No. 228. You can make your own push rods by using lengths of .072 diameter metal rod and soldering on a threaded coupler to the ends, mating this with the nylon clevises, saving yourself even more money.

I bought some tube-in-tube to use, but have yet to encounter an installation where these are necessary. . I'm sure I will, though, when I install point controls in the Narrabri West section of the layout.


A chrome yellow switch control knob. . .

Red knobs control main-track points. . .
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Knob Job
The knobs on the layout fascia are cheap ($1.47 for 8) wooden drawer knobs sold at a local craft store, painted cinnamon red (for mainline switches) or chrome yellow (for points not connecting to a main track) with spray Krylon enamel. They're secured to the push rods using 5-minute epoxy (Araldite).
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One Stop Train Shop (link includes installation tips) offers a 10-pack of Blue Points for $74.69, with shipping, around $8.20 each delivered to me. The linkages and knob will add another $1.50 or so, tops, so the Blue Points come in at around $10.00 each, installed. Still cheaper than a Tortoise, and ordering in bulk and buying the linkage parts from RC dealers only lowers the price that much more. . The Bull Frogs, Fast Tracks has informed me, are on their way across the border, so maybe by next week i'll be able to have a few of those installed and offer a head-to-head comparison.

Mid-Summer Update

Points are finally in place at the down end of Narrabri West! Grain empty, on left, waits on the loop as the motor set from Moree arrives; a 49 class shunts the grain terminal with a rake of RU's. . .

Yep, it's been 2 1/2 months since I've last posted to this blog. Most of my hobby efforts since returning from Australia in late April have been devoted to writing about the trip, and more than a dozen such posts are up for your enjoyment on my non-modeling blog, Under The Weather.

You may have to dig back a couple of months for some of them, but they're there. I returned from Oz with a load a great photographs, wonderful memories, valued friendships and, oh, yeah, about 70 lbs. of books and model railroad stuff jammed into my suitcase.

What of? Tons of white-metal detail parts of the Uneek variety, courtesy of Joe Callapari at Casula. A few freight car kits. Another Train-O 47 class. A handful of passenger carriages. An epoxy Stephen Johnson Models kit of a 400 class motor car (Thanks a TON, Old John!). Smuggled out a couple bottles of NSWGR Indian Red paint (sweated that out going through customs!). And a very slick 620/720 diesel m.u. train imported from Eureka (not exactly "exact" for the North West out of Narrabri, but I hope no one calls me on that. . .and it'll fill in nicely until the DEB sets eventually show up!). And books. . .a few of which I'll highlight in coming weeks.

And so far, my wife hasn't found the credit card receipts. I may just be home free. . .

The view the other way. The fertilizer cars are on the oil siding; RU car barely visible in foreground is on the sub-terminal siding. The 620/720 set is on the mainline. The 49 class working as the yard shunter waits on the lead into the yard. In right background is location of the loco depot, for now served with just a single road. On the far right will be the eventual home of a turntable. Water tank, chargeman's office, showers, etc., will be along the background behind the loco depot.

Otherwise, having put all that stuff away, it's actually been good to get back working on the railroad. I had nearly a dozen points to construct in order to build the "down" end of Narrabri West's terminal, and those are now thankfully in place and, even more thankfully, fully wired.
With the exception of a few points that need custom-building in place for the loco depot, and the "Wee Waa" end of the branch, the whole upper level is at least functional enough to run trains over. Not functional enough to operate upon, though, and that's the final part of the puzzle.

You may recall my agonizing about what method to use to best throw my points. The options were the electronic (Tortoise motors), the above-board manual throw (Caboose Industries ground throws, or equivalent), or below-board manual throw (a variety of options). I've decided to go with the below-board manual throws, for a variety of reasons: I don't really relish adding yet another electrical circuit to the layout by installing nearly 50 Tortoises at $13/each; and the Caboose Industries throws, while cheap and easy to use, are unsightly. Nothing spoils the illusion faster than a big black plastic blob next to the tracks.

I've got options, too with the below-board manual throws, to wit:

• Blue Point mechanism, pictured above, from Newrail Models. This is essentially a Tortoise without a motor. Integrated switch for powering up frogs. Plastic construction. Mechanism connected to knobs on the layout fascia with R/C aircraft control cables.
  

• Bull Frog mechanism, from Fast Tracks. The latest on the market, the same idea as the Blue Point, but made of laser-cut wood components that glue together--you can buy them assembled, or you build them yourself. $9 each assembled; $6 unassembled.


• Do-It-Yourself mechanism, assembled with cheap Radio Shack electrical switches, hot glue, wire, wooden dowels, aluminum angle iron. Here's an on-line tutorial on how David Head made his.

I haven't priced out all the options, but since i've got a ton of these things to install, I don't know if I'll go the "cheap but time-consuming" do-it-yourself method. And depending upon which components you use of the two commercial offerings for rodding, clamps, etc., they can damn well end up costing you as much as a Tortoise. I'm going away for a week of vacation in early August; when I get back, I'll have a few of the Bull Frog and Blue Point mechanisms on hand to install and make a decision on which way to go.

I'm sure I'm making this decision far harder than I need to. I'm usually the last person in the world to suffer from "analysis paralysis."

One Sweet Machine. . .

Just a quickie here. . .digging through the three-thousand or so photos made during the Aussie Adventure, I offer up this shot of one of Ray Pilgrim's Eureka AD60-class Garratt's doing its' think in service on the Bylong railway. What a magnificent model! This diesel-lover igets weak-in-the-knees just looking at it. This is a pan shot made during running night at Ray's layout. I forgot to change the white balance settings on the camera, so my best option was to convert to black and white. . .gives it that "you were there" feeling.

Enjoy!

To Oz and Return. . .

Lance Lassen and I are back from our two-week Aussie odyssey--16,000 miles by air and around 5000 km in a hire car-and have got a bunch of great piccies and stories to tell. Ideally, I would have tried to keep up with this while on the road, but late nights, lots of traveling, and lack of virtually any wireless network I could access worked against that idead.

Sorting between the railfanning experiences, the modeling experiences, and the observations and stories from a first-time-abroad Yankee into neat and tidy places for each will prove problematic. . . so for continuity's sake--and to make it easier on me as well--all my Aussie vacation coverage will be posted on my Under The Weather blogspot.

It'll probably be a couple of weeks until I get around to uploading the entire trip; so, check back every few days and there should be something new to look at. The trains were interesting, the scenery great, the people outstanding, and we've made a bunch of great friends in the process.
In the meantime, here's a shot to whet the interest: Late night at Narrabri, New South Wales. The home signal is illuminated and the most amazing display of stars--including the Milky Way--light up the sky overhead.


Narrabri at night. . .

Thanks, Mary. . .

As I pack cameras and clothes for this week’s flight to Australia, I have to say that none of this would have been possible without the support of my wife, Mary. She never questions (at least out loud, or at least to me!) my sanity in wanting to travel halfway around the world—without her, without the rest of the family--to look at trains, of all things! She never complains about the time I spend corresponding with new friends down under and learning about Australian railways. And she doesn’t give me guff for all the hours I’ve spent so far building a little bit of the NSWGR in an upstairs room, often at the expense of time that I should’ve devoted to playing with our two boys.

I guess that means that, on the whole,  I’ve been a good, (somewhat) attentive and always loyal husband to her, and a loving daddy to the kids.

There’s never enough money to take care of everything around the house that needs attention, of course, nor to give the boys everything they deserve, let alone need. But Mary has always been supportive of my crazy pursuits, and I in turn have tried not to take advantage of her good will. Lord knows going to Australia for two weeks isn’t a cheap proposition, but Mary hasn’t complained about the few hours a week I spent earning money for the trip through my “second job,” so it wouldn’t add to family debts and take away from my providing for the family.

I certainly won’t forget that while I’m in Australia, having a great time, exploring a wonderful land, meeting new friends, seeing a whole new continent and being introduced to Touhey’s and mushy peas, Mary will be back in the states, working as tirelessly as she usually does, getting the kids to and from school and baseball practices,  feeding them (and picking up after their messes), doing the laundry, the shopping, and the cleaning. Hopefully she’ll find time in there to take my Skype calls!

Why am I saying all this on a model railway blog? Partly so she can know what I sometimes don’t express in words to her; partly so I can just get these thoughts down on how lucky I am to have her in my life; and partly so perhaps some of the other guys reading this—if they’re half as fortunate as I am-- can nod their head and agree that many of us couldn’t get by without the love and attention of our wives.

Thanks again,chickie! I love ya!

Counting the days. . .

Why go to Australia? For the Bulldogs! Lance Lassen photographed this quad set in 2007 on the north coast working a QR National Melbourne-Brisbane train.

. . .now until Lance Lassen and I climb aboard a Qantas 747 and head off for two weeks of railroad fun in New South Wales. The trip has been discussed for well over a year; got down to starting planning it last November.

Bloody Oath! we're looking forward to it!

We leave Texas on Thursday 9 April and return two weeks later, on the 23rd. It'll be a pretty intense two-weeks. . . no bludging on the beach sipping drinks with little paper umbrellas stuck in them for these boys.

We've been extremely fortunate to been assisted every step of the way by our on-line friends from Australia, all of whom have been a great boon in helping us decide where to go and what to see. Each time we discover something we "must" see, invariably something else comes up. Two weeks? Crikey. . .we'd need more like two months!

We'll be confining ourselves to New South Wales, and just a portion of it. To see it "all" would be impossible. We're juggling our time between visiting hobby shops and loading up on those bits and pieces for the model railways that are impossible to discover on-line, doing a little data gathering on the prototype locations our model railways are based upon, and driving all over hell to watch trains.

We're hoping to chase an RTM special back from Parkes behind vintage NSWGR diesels. . .watch 48 Class hauling wheat wagons on a rural branch line. . .observe the spectacle of triple 80 Class blasting away in banker service on the Ardglen grade. . .absorb the wide-open spaces west of the Great Dividing Range watching a variety of freight schedules and locomotive classes. . . photograph (fingers crossed) the final days of the beautiful CLF/CLP bulldogs in service on the QRNational MB7/BM7 before they're replaced by new EMD's out of EDI shops. Above all, though, we want to experience Australia for ourselves.

Lance has been before; this will be my first trip. We're looking forward to actually meeting all these guys we've traded e-mails with for over a year and to call 'em "mates" face-to-face and return the shout. I'm sure we'll walk around the Circular Quay and take some nice tourist photos of the Opera House, but it'll be just as cool to join the crowd at Leichhardt stadium and watch the West Tigers scrum it up against Melbourne.

We'll be on our best behaviour. We promise to reign in our bignoting as much as possible. We'd like to be invited back. But only after we find a way to jam all the books and model parts and memories into our suitcases for the trip back home.

So, if this blog has seemed a big sparse on new posts lately, now you know. Believe me, come next month this thing will seemingly be updated daily!