SDS ATLANTIC Tulloch 10,000 gallon Rail Tank Car

@$44 whats wrong ??? a great model at a great price

Out of the box

Weathered with Floquil paint straight out of the bottle grimy black and then mixed with rail brown

Southern Highlander Steam tour

Now for something different.As a kid growing up I lived in Ashfield our Town house complex backed onto the Railway line next to the Telecom complex so i didnt have very far to watch trains go past. We moved there from Fairy Meadow and our house also backed onto the railway line there so a slight interest started there.Our next door neighbour at Ashfield, was a keen Steam enthusist and he introducd me to the Rail Transport Museam at Enfield in 1971 .Steam was well and truly being withdrawn enmass ,and being delivered to the Bullring at Enfield.I had a job as a paperboy around Ashfield as spent most of my wages on RTM tours and developing pictures taken on tours and at Enfield.Whats this got to do with the "Southern Highlander" then,well 39 years after my last steam tour which was proberly the 6042 goodbye trip to Bargo and Glenlee coaliery my wife bought me/us a ticket on that tour,and what a day it turned out to be. When she bought the tickets the tour was to leave Central and go via Campbelltown and onto Robertson we would get on at Campbelltown as we live on the Narellan side of the M5 ,do the tour return to Central and then cityrail train back to the car at Campbelltown. A couple of weeks later Heritage Express sent us a letter stating that their was a change in direction of the tour,going via Sutherland and up the Illawarra escarpment, that little piece of info just save us 3 hours at the end of the day!!yes. I rang the RTM and requested seats facing forward we booked very early and the response was "how do I know which direction the carriages will be facing once at Central" Ok thanks. We arrived at Central 40mins before the tour was due to depart and one thing I could not believe was both ARHS and RTM bookshops were closed and with 400 odd passengers??? (so I heard on the train) and no bookshop open. Ok grab a cappicino and on to our carriage "D" .I saw that there were 2 diesels on the rear and then 2 old HUB set cars ,generator terminal car and the Diner car that was decked out for a function as it seemed, why they were on their i dont know. Found our seats and guess what we are sitting in reverse in a "CN car" oh #hit we said to each other. By the time the train departed Central no one had emerged to fill the seat,yes!, next pickup stop was Hurstville and the Sutherland . As the carriage attendant informed us they were a no show so we could not only sit forward but also able to strech out. Passed the old primary school Towradgi Public and also the old house at Fairy Meadow its now 2 story.

Enter the climb up the Illawarra escarpment ,ive never been on this line before and here is a 5 minute video of the climb.Hope you enjoy ,sorry about the wind noise . The tour was great my wife enjoyed it and we had lunch at Burrawang at our stop at Robertson. Then to top the day off we got off at Campbelltown picked up something for dinner arrived home and the tour train was still 10mins out from Central via the timetable, and to top the day off my Rugby League team had a good win.

WYEE at Thornleigh

This is the 3rd private exibition layout the owner  has Displayed his first was  Time and Patience  2nd. A Tractiv Effort and now 3.Wyee

Motorised Home signal HO

Bought some of these signals at the Epping model railway show to put on my layout now just have to source the motor (with bounce) from the UK apparently.If anyone knows where they are available???

NORTH137and142 photos

Numbered pictures correspond with arrows on previous post

1.The run up to Hawkemount /down to Tickhill tunnel with
single track the Wangi branch turn back .



2.North Awaba near the Cessnock rd bridge ,
refuge loop on right and
backplatform road onto Wangi



3.Newstan Colliery sidings and loading bins.
Single track joins mainline at Nth Fassifern



4.View looking towards Fassifern from where Wakefield rd bridge will be.
Newstan branch joins Mainline near lattice signal post.Coal trains can
 leave and return to here/Newstan without stopping via Wangi turnback.

5.Hawkemount






6.Fassifern crossover from Toronto Branch.

7.Wangi turnback below with 4201 running light into Fassifern

8.Toronto Station,yard with parachute water tank and goods shed

9.The run uphill between Awaba and south Fassifern with passing loop
 on the down and cement siding (program track)
Area unnamed




 


 

NORTH137and142 line drawing

All the track has been layed scenery and buildings and structures in
 progress size 5.5m x 5.5m

Rebirthing of 4720

From Dummy to DCC motor control.I wanted to have a 47class for my layout and I bought a Dummy 47, of a fellow modeller.Luckly I had bought a couple of sets of spare 44class bogies for a 43class project. I wanted a powered 47 so I removed the body off the 47 removed one bogie and inspected what had been removed from the bogie by Toms. On closer inspection the transverse gear was missing ,easy remove the pin and gear ease the side screws and flick the gear out of the 44 bogie and place them in the 47class bogie. Hunted up a motor and two drive shafts, reassemble ,got a decoder from my decoder box and soldered pickup wires from where they were unsoldered by Toms and soldered the decoder in, place loco on my program track and tested..All good,glued in the motor with silastic.Put the loco together and run on my layout.It was abit noisey so I let it run for an hour on a set of rollers.Works OK, now to remove body again and install lighting and weather heavily.

Its Been a long time between posts for me

A brief description of what been happening to the layout

1.After christmas day passed I decided to get stuck into the layout .It have built modules around the walls of the garage as well as a peninsula (well its a fish tank stand) out and back in that allows a drop of 75 mm without a helix. I will post the completed track plan in another post.

2.Spent a weekend away in the Hunter Valley to see Rod Stewart, I asked my wife if she would mind calling into Awaba ,Fassifern and Toronto so I could take some pictures of the infrastructure that was still left. I had to compromise and buy her lunch at Toronto,no worries.Things have changed quite a bit since the 60s.

3.I finally received my windows from Grandtline in the US.

4.The layout has gone radio I use NCE with a Sb3a.

5.Had a layout run afternoon with a club im in with some very positive feedback.

6.Added more storage yards and loops which it lacks considerbly

7.And finally added a run around loop so I can now start a train from Newstan coliery run through Fassifern wrong road crossover and down hill into the back platform road of Awaba around the new loop into Wangi and then runs around and joins the main line south of Awaba for the long climb back up to Fassifern and back into Newstan Branch and loading bins. Just need to finish automating the points .

Im very happy with the outcome sofar.I will post some pics soon

PHM and Destination Board

Hi All Happy New year to all , went to the Powerhouse Museum today to see the Harry Potter Exibition (as a family outing)and I can honestly say I have not seen any of the HP movies. The PH ran a trainspotting photo competition and some of the pictures were very interesting indeed. Loco No 1 is where you first enter the Museum . There is an exhibt of 3265 showing the rebuilding of it, also the HUNTER nameplate and an N scale model of a 32class and a small verse stating that a model of 3265 is due out in 2008, it has an empty space beside it. It didnt say what scale it was going to be. >the picture to the left is the original Destination board that was on the main concourse at Central Station (country) and moved to the PHM and put on display, also Loco 1243 is there and an elevated signal box you can enter.

57 chassis live

I was asked how I liven the dead side of a DJH chassis this is my 5 year 57 project.

I solder some double sided pcb (I use sleeper) across the frame at the top between the 3rd and 4th drivers with the overhanging sleeper on the dead side. Then on the top side of the overhang solder some pickup wire that you can bend down to touch the top of the drivers. Do the same to the other one. Now solder an insulated wire (red in pic)to the PCB and run it to one of the motor terminals. That's it done now the chassis will move without the tender attached . I liven the dead side of the tender bogies also (which will be the opposite side to the chassis you just did) and connect both pickups together and then run a single wire to the frame of the chassis. Now you have all wheel pick up on both loco and tender