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!

The Layout Design Element

Nice and clean: 44, 47, 49 and 442 class rarin' to go. . .

US modeling Guru J. Anthony Koester created the term "Layout Design Element" as a way to more readily incorporate prototype track plans into our model railways. Essentially, an LDE is a chunk of prototype track arrangement inserted almost "building block" style onto a railroad--the thought being that it is, afterall, the prototype railway that best knows how to design trackage for specific needs. These LDEs can then be rotated, compressed, expanded and edited somewhat to fit in available space while retaining the "flavor" of the prototype and, most importantly, their operational functions.

I'd guess most modelers who base their layouts on a specific prototype do this without giving it a second though--for me, being lazy, I figure why should I do all the hard work of designing trackage for a depot, station or terminal, when the prototype as already done it for me? Compromise must still be made, of course, and while my North-West layout is based on the prototype, I've taken several liberties in order to shrink it to fit in available space.

Here's a look at three stations on my layout: Wee-Waa, on the Narrabri West to Walgett branch; and Edgeroi and Gurley, between Narrabri and Moree. All are based on their prototype, but each have compromises, compressions and omissions in order to get them to fit--hopefully without affecting their operational interest much. Grain siding are long enough to hold five FWH-type hoppers (or six RU's, in the case of Wee Waa). Please excuse the extreme free-hand nature of the drawings.

While the prototype Edgeroi is on a long straight, the model version had to fit into a corner. A strict adoptation of the prototype plan would put the big grain silo complex along the front of the layout, effectively blocking everything behind it. I flipped the track plan 180 degrees to put the silo in the back, where it would form a natural backdrop. Space was at a premium, so I consolidated the stock and goods track, and, again, due to space, eliminated one crossover serving this track and the silo siding. The goods/stock track access is contained entirely between either end of the platform road (crossing loop).

Gurley is a more faithful representation, the main exception being the silo switches are entirely on the downside of the crossing loop--this provides a bit more flexibility for a train switching the silo siding to then either clear up on the crossing loop or depart on the main after their shunting work. To save a bit of space, however, I moved the silo siding inward so the up end of the silo siding is between main track switches.

On the layout, Wee Waa is the end of the branch, rather than just a station in the middle of one. Still, most of the trackage is faithfully presented, with the exception of the Namoi Cotton siding and one set of crossovers. I left the Perway siding in place; I plan to use this as a place to stable the 400 class motor car/DEB set during its layover in town. I suspect this is what this track was used for on the prototype as well after the loco depot and turntable were removed.

Thanks to Gavin Potter's great website for the basis for much of the prototype track plans.

Hitting the "March Deadline". . .

Man, that static grass looks great! Actually, a Photoshop effort combining a photo of the 442 on a grain train photographed on the new lower level with a landscape photo from the North-West gleaned from on-line. Not quite up to the Ray Pilgrim level, but getting closer. . .

I'd set the beginning of March as sort of a deadline to have the lower level benchwork and backdrop up, and last night, I finished painting the backdrop. It's been a month since I'd updated this blog; it's been a busy month on the railroad as I pushed to get as much done on it before my son's baseball season starts up.

I wanted to get the "unsexy" stuff out of the way: benchwork, backdrop, some of the roadbed. I was able to even put much of the lower-level mainline in place--albeit held down with track nails rather than anything permanent--as I explored track plan options.

There's no wiring on the tracks--I've run trains back and forth using a power pack and alligator clips. There's only the points at each end of the Edgeroi and Gurley loops, and I've got what seems like a kazillion #5 points to make to finish the yard at Narrabri West as well as the lower level points to access elevators and goods sidings. I did get the lower level lighting purchased and in place, and the benchwork, lighting valance, and roadbed for the branchline terminal at Wee Waa is in place and, in fact, connected with a section of track to the "rest" of the layout. the CVP Easy DCC is still in the box, awaiting installation.

But, now I don't feel so bad slacking off for the next couple of months while the kids play baseball, I get the taxes done, get a jump on yardwork (Spring has sprung: 85 degrees here yesterday!) and, oh, yeah, take a trip to Australia for a couple of weeks in April.

Now I've just got to dust the layout--cutting ceiling tiles creates a God-awful mess, even after wetting it down with a spray bottle--and put tools and other items away.

In the meantime, here's a couple of photos of the lower-level and a grain train: Jumbo 44203 moves along between Edgeroi and Gurley. I'll present both an "as photographed" view of the layout as it is now, with undulating, bobbing, wobbly temporary trackage, and after running through the Photoshop ringer (top of the entry). Oh yeah--that Jumbo is new to the railroad, too, as I took the feeding frenzy plunge and won one on e-bay; it'll be fun to detail and weather.

Next post will look at Edgeroi and Gurley, the prototype track arrangements and the compromises I made to fit them onto the layout while still retaining recognizable elements.

A bit more true to what the lower-level looks like at this point: 44203 pulls a train of grain empties out of the siding at Edgeroi. The cut-in chunk of fillwork under the locomotive will at some point become a small pile trestle.

Upper Deck Benchwork completed. . .

Here's a rather crude panorama view of the layout room (click on the photo for the "big picture") with the upper level and lighting valence in place. I'm still waiting for a couple of the T4 ultra-slim lights to be delivered from LightingXP (they've got a new website; same great service and prices, and free shipping in the US for orders over $75). I haven't painted the backdrop on the just-built helix "blob" blue yet. Lance was over and we sorted through the remnants of lumber and decided what to keep and what to consign to the dump.

We should be ready to start with the lower level benchwork next week. I'm still hoping to get the lower level benchwork in place by the end of February; at this pace, we shouldn't have any problem meeting that self-imposed deadline (I want to get that done before the boys start their spring baseball leagues in March--time will be at a premium then).