A site for my Model Railway Layouts:
Barcoola. This is take on Tarcoola SA the junction between the Trans Australian Railway and the Central Australian Railway.
A Town like Alice, my take on Alice Springs.
Murray River Bridge, my model of the bridge over the Murray river.
For those that need to be obsessive about things, I am looking at a small layout on a ultra modern version of Rudall (pronounced) Rud -dal.
This location is on the soon to be closed Eyre Peninsula "lower" region.
Rudall is great for watching the train reverse and accomplishing a double shunt. The train is longer than the single double ended siding, thus requires the double shunt.
It seems that the bunker at the south end of town is the main reason for these trains, I would guess that the town silos are only for any overflow.
I have been slowly collecting rolling stock for such a layout.
When Rapido produced their BCR C40-8Ms in HO I knew I was in trouble.
I had said to Dave and Roger if they (anyone) makes a model of the BCR C40-8M then I will build a BCR layout, so I was stuck! Four Rapido Dash 8s arrived in the mail and I was sunk!
After a bit of discussion and pouring over the JF Garden book, we came up with the location of Cheakamus Canyon on the BCR mainline.
Here are some videos of the current build process.
Day one.
Day 2
Day 3
Day 3.5
Should be a great model once Dave does his rock magic!!
I built
another layout for Dave and Roger, called “Cheakamus Canyon” this is based on a
location on the BCR mainline.It will be
a very impressive layout.Lots of depth in
it.It took me a while to figure out but
it will all fit in the current trailer.Cheakamus
Canyon, will use the fiddle yard for MRB, the display boards are in total 16’6”
long and 500mm wide and 1200mm high.It is
an exhibition layout, and expect it to be finished scenery wise in about April of
2019.
The hardest
part will be getting the boards to Dave, and set them up, as Dave has very
limited space.
Silverton
Tramway’s Broken Hill South Mine.I know
Doug really likes this concept and I have the locos and rollingstock to do it!,
I am just struggling with how the place operated on a normal day.
Huddleston,
is an Iconic location on the Port Pirie Broken Hill Line.Wide boards are the only way to give this
location justice, as Doug commented, it’s an operating Diorama!(no points)
Koolyanobbing,
Koolyanobbing East, and Southern Cross WA.
I made a
trip to WA to get the last of the Aurizon Iron Ore trains, and as usual each
time I go to WA I get the modelling bug.
Koolyanobbing
Koolyanobbing East
Southern Cross
I really
like the industrial brutality of the WAGR standard gauge mainline
stations.Everything was built on a very
clean slate, these included:
A complete
redesign
Brand new
lines built to easier grades.
Towns by
passed, all most all the yards, and locations had previsions made for
expansion.
Track
diagrams were generic, usually three tracks, mainline, Crossing loop, arrival
track.Then there were the yard - service
tracks, and these were separated from the three by at least another two tracks
width (26ft) again probably for expansion.
Lighting
installed in the yard for 24hour operation.
Large CBH
bunkers with flood loaders.
The Goods
sheds and station buildings are of a flat roof 1960’s design.
From the
need to build Cheakamus Canyon, I thought I could use this new design concept
on other layout designs.
There are a
number of advantages, integrated lighting and backdrops, larger curves in the
fiddle yard.
Moving to rural Australia has occurred, the space and quite is amazing.
For 2019, I would like to complete another layout and have another in reserve.
To make any of these layouts with ntegerated lighting etc, It will need to make another fiddle yard. However if I just build the display section first I can get it in a flat area of the house sooner. I figure I can build three boards at 7' 6" which will give me a 22' 6' display area and a 30' overall width with the curves for the fiddle yard boards.
Insomnia is a double edged sword, however it does yield results.
I was searching for concepts for an exhibition layout that would fit into the proposed new layout room. 30ft by 16ft.
The northern grain region has some great little yards.
Crystal Brook is the most obvious, however the junction is just a little too big for the room.
There are other standard gauge locations which would fit the bill, Jamestown and Yongala.
Caltowie has the advantage, for a couple of reasons.
1: The yard has a curve at either end, this makes it easier to model.
2: Caltowie is squeezed in between the town and the highway level crossing.
3: The grain loop is clear of the main line and crossing, thus in an exhibition format the mainline and crossing loop can be clear while loading grain.
4: S curve at the Jamestown end of the yard.
Down end of the Yard, looking towards Jamestown. Note the low level station in the background.
and the NG mainline in behind the signal and the 500 class. http://www.lionelnoble.com/caltowie/
I have been investigating or looking at concepts, for a small layout, roughly 16ft in length.
A number of things have been lining up lately.
I have a couple of mechanisms for the NJs class and a GWA 1200 class.
The AHGXs were transferred to the Lincoln Division, thus I had some of the modern versions of them.
This means that I could build a ultra modern small layout on the Lincoln division,
The real change in operations is a train to a single location. Which meant that most of the sidings were designed to have a couple of wagons loaded at each location, not an entire train.
This introduces much more complicated shunting movements.
They are more complicated when there are main roads at the yard throats.
Rudall is on the Buckleboo line, is such a location.
The Birdseye highway intersects the town of Rudall. The yard has a single loop, and a single siding.
The yard throat is bracketed by the highway.
The yard has two silos and a bunker, the station building is still there and is the barracks.
