Mapping Old Railways near Margaret River

Apologies in advance as this is not strictly a modelling topic as such.  During a recent trip to Margaret River we did a short bushwalk on part of the abandoned railway south of the town near Sebbes Road.  The authors of the bushwalking guidebook commented that there were 2 parallel railway alignments through this area but they were unaware of the reasons for the apparent duplication.

A cutting on the original timber line
south of Sebbes Road.

As a result of the comment in the bushwalking guidebook, I delved into Adrian G's "Rails Through the Bush" book which explained that the original railway was built by the M. C. Davies timber company based at Karridale.  I was unaware that the timber lines from Karridale extended all the way to Margaret River. Later, the W.A. Govt purchased the timber line and upgraded it to form the WAGR line between Margaret River and Augusta.  In the section near Sebbes Road, the original grades were too steep so a new route was found with easier grades, hence the two alignments which are visible today.

Lately, as a totally unrelated project, I have been tinkering with Open Street Map which is like the Wikipedia of online maps, as users can enter roads, tracks, paths, etc. to produce a community-generated map free of any commercial restrictions.  Combining the two interests, I ended up tracing the routes of the old railways near Margaret River from a variety of sources and entering them on the Open Street Map so they are available for viewing and can easily be located with respect to present day roads and other features.

Here is a screenshot of Open Street Map from an iPhone* showing the two, almost parallel, railway alignments south of Forrest Grove Rd, (at the top of the map).  Sebbes Rd is the next, east-west, road to the south.

The old railways are indicated by grey, dotted lines, and are easily discernible by their gently curving alignment compared to most roads and tracks. The railway alignment closer to Bussell Hwy (blue) is the original timber line.  The newer WAGR alignment is about midway between Bussell Hwy and Caves Road (pink) in this area.

The brown dashed lines lines on the map are other tracks, such as walking tracks or rough dirt roads.

The full Open Street Map for the area can be viewed on a computer at http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-34.106&lon=115.1008&zoom=14&layers=M

If you follow the railway further south on the map, I have drawn the route in all the way to Augusta.  It seems the jetty at Augusta which was used for loading timber onto ships was located just south of the town beyond the mouth of the Blackwood River.  Interestingly, the Augusta airstrip is built along the former railway alignment, just west of the town. This was probably the site of Augusta station and yard.

North of Witchcliffe, there are also two railway alignments.  The eastern one, which crosses Bussell Hwy and becomes Darch Road, was the original timber line.  The later WAGR line stayed to the west of Bussell Hwy.  Parts of both routes are now cycling/walking trails nearer to Margaret River, as is the former WAGR line north to Cowaramup.

Part of Darch Road - originally a
timber line, now a walk/cycle trail.

Part of the former WAGR line about 5 km south of
Margaret River, also a walk/cycle trail.

A more open stretch of the former
WAGR line in the same area.

My next step is to map the remainder of the WAGR railway north to Busselton and, if the route can be traced, the original tramway used by one of the earliest timber operations at Quindalup, near Dunsborough.  This tramway included a sawmill at Yelverton, which is coincidentally the name of the sawmill on my model railway.  When I chose that name (in honour of C. Y. O'connor), I knew there had been a siding named Yelverton near Dunsborough but I only recently discovered it was named after a different person and that there was actually a sawmill there. This tramway is also mentioned in Rails Through the Bush.

Obligatory model photo!

A G class hauling a rake of log trucks on the

timber line to Yelverton sawmill.

* On an iPhone, the Open Street Map can be viewed "live" using a variety of "apps" - useful when out in the bush provided you have phone coverage.  One of the best free apps is "OpenMaps".  Some apps also allow the maps for an area to be saved into the iPhone memory so they work even where you don't have phone coverage.  It is also possible, with a modest degree of computer skills, to download the Open Street Maps into a GPS, such as most Garmin models.

Tortoise Wiring for 3-Position Semaphore Signals

If anyone wants to make working models of the 3-position, upper-quadrant semaphore signals used on the Eastern line through the hills, here are some circuit diagrams to obtain 3 positions from a Tortoise point motor.

Please note that I have shown 3 separate switches in the diagram, but a single switch can be used e.g. 3-position rotary or slide switch.  Relay contacts could also be used but 2 relays would be required - 1 for Stop (Red) or Proceed, and the other to select Green or Yellow for the Proceed aspect.

Please contact me if you would like a PDF of the above circuit.

No, I don't plan to install semaphores on my layout - I just experimented with the wiring for fun.  I am sure similar wiring diagrams have been published before but I couldn't find one on the web.

Ready made S scale are available from the US (NJ International) but the are made "mirror image" compared to WAGR signals as they drive on the other side of the tracks.

Another alternative to a Tortoise is a servo motor as used for radio controlled models.  There are commercial units using servo motors which can be configured to operate 3-position signals (as well as points, boom gates, etc.).  An advantage of a servo motor is that the operating speed can be adjusted, e.g. to make it slower, and the positioning is more precise than a Tortoise.  However, the electronics to control a servo motor are more complex.

The Australind Railcars

The Australind in original Livery. Photo Simon Barber

The Australind prepares to leave Perth Station for Bunbury in 2001.

Photo David Johnson 

The Australind is one of Western Australia’s named trains, the other two being the Prospector (Perth-Kalgoorlie) and the Avon-link (Northam-Perth-Northam and Merredin). In 1987 a brand new set of railcars was introduced to the Bunbury- Perth,  route replacing the older locomotive hauled Australind coach set which had its inaugural run in 1947.

The Australind arrives at Bunbury after having serviced at Picton. Photo David Johnson

Transwa four car Australind Mundijong. Aug 2008.

The Australind comprises a set of five railcars, three driving trailers and two non-driving centre cars. All cars are powered by under-floor diesel engines and the train usually runs as a four car set with the fifth driving trailer stored at Picton as a spare.  The set of five cars have given fast, comfortable and reliable service between Perth and Bunbury for 24 years. They have been generally well maintained and have had several liveries in that time. They were refurbished in 2008.  The journey is 185kms each way and usually takes about 2½ hours depending on the number of stoppages en-route.

In 1996, following a school holiday trip to Bunbury on the Australind, I decided to build a model of the train in Sn3½. The task was rather ambitious but I managed to complete the project in 12 weeks. I managed to obtain the outline drawings from a friend who worked on the internal fit-out of the cars at Comeng in Bayswater.  I took a number of photographs, several being of the roof from the Queens Park footbridge as the train passed underneath at about 70-80km/hour!

 

The bodies were built in styrene using Evergreen board and batten siding (1mm thick and 1.9mm spacing). The roofs were urethane castings produced from a pattern made from styrene. All the roofs were identical except the driving trailers which had slightly shorter roofs due to the sloping driver’s compartment. I was able to simply cut them to length at the un-detailed end. The driving ends of the driving trailers were vacuum formed in styrene over patterns I carved and shaped from wood.  I would have liked to make patterns for the sides of the cars but they were all a bit different and had tumble homes which made urethane casting somewhat problematic.

The running gear came from a Lima HST 125 set which I had and was willing to sacrifice. In a three car set there is 12 wheel electrical pick-up (6 and 6). I have all the bits for the second non-driving trailer but never quite got round to it….as yet. The coaches were painted in silver using my air-brush and the blue/red decal strips are hand-made using painted decal paper. The West-rail decals are from MnJ decals. The windows are flush-glazed using stickers to mask the windows. The Australind name board lettering is from a photo of the front of the railcar sets which I took on my old SLR camera from about 50’ with a 50mm lens. It was before the days of digital cameras and scanners after all.

The couplers between the cars are made from brass strip which allow for electrical connectivity. The Motor bogies are both under the centre, non driving trailer. The end couplers, front and rear are Kadees but are really only for cosmetic purposes. The model of the Australind set is now fitted with a DCC decoder but it ran well on DC in earlier days.    

Stuart Mackay

South West Main progress report

Rob asked me to report on progress on my home layout, so I decided to oblige. I had previously called the layout Bunbury, but Rob's suggestion of South West Main is probably more accurate as the layout starts off in Bunbury and runs to Picton Junction, where the south-west branches to Flinders Bay, Bridgetown and Boyup Brook diverge via a 3 1/2 turn helix to a 5-track staging yard.

The main line continues to Wokalup, interchange point for Millars timber line to Mornington Mills, then Harvey, then via a 2-turn helix to a separate 5-track staging yard. The staging yards are 300mm below Picton.

It is still very much a work in progress but here are some photos.

This view shows Bunbury yard. Mockup of the station building to the left. Entry to loco on the top right. All points are scratch-built with Railcraft code 70 rail, including one double compound and two three-way tandem points !! Track is Peco code 75, which will be ballasted above sleeper height so they won't show.


This view is looking across the yard from loco. G,P & X class locos in foreground, ASG and Wildflower in background.


Next we move out of Bunbury towards Picton Junction.






This view is of my Wildflower set (much-modified Railwest kit) crossing the Preston River bridge, constructed of side girders made in NZ, bought from Railwest Models. Cross-bracing is Plastruct sections top and bottom. Backscenes are my own photos along the SW Main, printed on my photo printer. Bridge piers carved from pine, water from Barnes clear resin.

Next to Picton Junction. I've just laid out the Up and Down platform roads and the turnouts into the yard. Track on the main is Micro-Engineering On30 track with the sleepers trimmed a bit in length so it becomes Sn3 1/2. I decided to use Peco medium radius points here, as the sleepers will be covered in ballast and the thought of scratch-building 25 turnouts was a bit daunting. The Peco medium radius are 36inches, which matches my miminum radius.

In the foreground, the curved turnouts are Shinohara, kindly donated by a friend as surplus to his requirements. They save a considerable amount of space. SW Main to the right, SW branches to the left. Crossing is a Shinohara 30 degree crossing also kindly donated !!


The south-west branches descend to South Staging yard via a 3-turn helix
























and enter the South Staging yard. The photo shows the South staging on the left and the North staging on the right. The control panel for the South staging yard can also be seen.


The control panel face was built according to a recent article in Model Railroader. It was drawn in Corel Draw, printed onto adhesive label paper and stuck onto the aluminium front panel, clear laminating pouch plastic then spray glued on with dull side facing out, then holes drilled and swithed mounted.


The view on the left shows the inside of the panel. All connections are labelled. After the panel layout is drawn, it is copied and all electrical connections to panel swicthes and point motors are added. Connection points are labelled, then solder terminals added and labelled. It is then a matter of running jumpers from the panel to the various connections following the diagram.

Green LED's on the panel indicate which road is selected at each end and red LED's connected to NCE BD20 block detectors indicate which tracks are occupied. These are superior to any others I have seen advertised as they detect current drawn in that section by induction through a ferrite coil, and do not depend on a detector being covered or uncovered, like opto devices.

Trains entering the South staging yard run right through a vacant track, then around a return loop and back in ready to run out when required. The polarity of the return loop is automatically reversed by a Tony's Trains PSX-AR unit, which also automatically operates the entry/exit point !!


From Picton trains will run round the outside of the peninsular to Wokalup and Harvey, then round this two-turn helix to the North Staging.

The main line connecting the bridge to Picton can be seen at the top of this photo. Harvey is now taking shape in the foreground but I'll leave that to next time.


Benchwork is standard Linn Westcott L-Girder, with some minor variations. Control is NCE wireless DCC, with the layout divided into power sections using Tony's Train Exchange Powershields.
So, still much to do, but the basic infrastructure is progressing at a decent, now that I've got a couple of book projects out of the way !! What about all this time you are meant to have in retirement ??
Anyway, watch this space !!

Improved Kadee Couplers

I recently became aware of the relatively new Kadee "Whisker" couplers, which have a very fine phosphor bronze wire spring either side of the coupler pivot. These are much softer then the older sheet spring in the No.5 box and require much less force to couple. Kadee provide bulk packs of 25 pairs if you want to replace existing couplers.

However of greater interest to me was the new 156 "scale" head coupler "Whisker" coupler with long shank (25/64"), to replace the old No.16 coupler that I use on locos to reach over the front cowcatcher. The old No.16 only had a coil spring acting longitudinally, which did very little to keep the coupler centred. The "Whisker" coupler overcomes this problem nicely.

In conjunction, Kadee have produced a new short coupler box, No.252, to mount the whisker couplers in, which replaces the old No.16 box. The new box has a snap-on lid, which goes together in a split second. I always had trouble assembling the old No.16 box as the contact areas available for gluing were very small and they would often come apart. Some modellers melted them together with a quick touch of the soldering iron, but the new snap-together box is just brilliantly simple !!

The "scale" head couplers are a bit smaller then the standard heads, but couple satisfactorily with them.

D6

Rob asked if I would put the occasional post on here so I will start with one of my first WAGR models - in this case it is Hunslet 0-4-0ST D6 known in its early days as "Little Tom" and used at first as the Fremantle Jetty shunter.

The model has a scratchbuilt body of brass and nickel silver built on a much modified "Branchlines" pug replacement chassis.  Wheels are Sharman (I think) and the motor is a Mashima. There are a couple of errors which I have noticed over the years and I still haven't got around to getting some cabside numberplates done for it.  The crew are an Alan Gibson S Scale crew.

Experiments with Static Grass

For a long, long time, the scenery on my Marbelup Valley Railway has been very barren, partly because I was unsure as to how to represent a WA "summer" look.

Like many, I guess, I have been tempted by the static grass applicators such as the Noch Grassmaster but deterred by the high price. After some research, I found a UK company which makes a product similar to the Grassmaster and also a more basic "economy" version called Grasstech.  I did an online order for the Grasstech "Original" which turns out to be based on an electronic fly swat with a tea strainer in place of the fly swat.  There are lots of DIY articles on the Internet based on the same concept but this one was ready to go and not too expensive.

I already had a bag of Heki static grass which was a yellow-green and about 6 mm long, so I also ordered some other colours in a shorter length from Modellers Warehouse in Qld while waiting for the applicator to arrive.  They have quite a range made by Polak in the Czech Republic.

Here is a photo of my first attempt at creating a fenced paddock using the 6 mm Heki grass and Polak 2 mm grass for the more "wild" areas.

The grass tufts, e.g. near the tree in the foreground, were glued on after the static grass and are by Silflor - see previous blog. Since I took these photos, I have added more tufts to give a "3D" looked to the grassed areas outside the passock. I also added some more grass to the hillside below the bogie timber wagon as the bare "earth" patches looked unnatural.

As well as the Heki grass for the "paddock", I generally used Polak 8209 2 mm "ochre straw" grass on the higher parts of the embankments, and a mixture of 8209 and 8208 2 mm "green-yellow" on the lower parts near the track.  I will have to get some more S scale sheep to populate the paddock now.

Here are a couple of newer photos showing further progress:

The basic technique, which I am still refining, starts with applying diluted PVA glue to the ground surface.  I applied the glue from a small plastic squeeze bottle and spread it with my finger for the initial tests.  Then I progressed to using a 12 mm flat paintbrush to spread the glue. I just have to remember to wash the brush out after each session.

Once an area has been glued, I have been doing a max. of about 150 x 150 mm at a time, the earth wire from the static applicator should be clipped onto a pin or small nail which is inserted into the glued area.  Then it is simply a matter of putting a pinch or two of the desired colours into the applicator and shaking it over the area while holding the press-button on the side to generate the static voltage. If an area of glue is not connected to the main glue zone, then the isolated patch should be done separately with the earth wire inserted into it.

Initially, I was a little disappointed that the the grass strands were not fully vertical, but I quite like the overall effect.  Maybe the more expensive applicators are better in this regard, but I have never seen one in action.

It has proven to fairly easy to blend different shades of grass and it is also easy to rework an area to vary the colour slightly or to add more grass if needed.  Over a few days, I have done an area 400 mm wide by about 2 metre long.  I am certainly getting quicker as I get more practice.  So far, I have used one 25g pack of the Polak 8209 grass ($7.95), and smaller quantities of other colours.  

I plan to add more trees and bushes, etc. later but I will concentrate on getting some basic colour into the layout initially.

Because of the various electronic devices on my layout, including DCC and signalling systems, I took some precautions to minimise the risk of damage from the static applicator.  I moved trains some distance away from the area I was working on, and fitted alligator clip leads across the rails either side of the work zone to prevent any damage to the train detector circuits which connected to each track section.