Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Another South West Layout

  Hi all, following on from Cris' recent post, I thought I'd put up a first post about what I'm working on.. 

A bit of background, alot of time in my earlier years was spent riding around on HVR tours either on the train, or in the support vehicle which used to carry the steps for the passengers to have easier access to the train. As such, a great chunk of this time was on Dwellingup trips, as well as various other locations, mostly on the South West Mainline. 

My first introduction to S scale was the sight of the combined S scale layout of Serpentine and Swanview at the claremont showgrounds as a kid. I resolved even then that at some stage down the track (parden the pun) I would build my own layout with the intention of exhibiting it, if only once. Fast forward 30 odd years and after a few false starts, I'm finally making some slow progress. 

So, onto the layout then.. overall size is 5 x 1.8m with intent of expansion to 8x1.8 at exhibition (more on that later). Track plan is unashamedly "based on" Dwellingup, but I have taken a few liberties. The aim is to create something that captures the feel and the memories of my trips "up the hill", but with some modellers license invoked to give some freedom as to train ops. Like Cris, bluemetal ballast will be used, rather than gravel, under the premice that the line was retained for both heritage use & access to Boddington mine site and the GSR wheat growing areas. Flight of fancy yes, but always remember rule #1, it's my model railway hahaha. This also means therefore my chosen modelling era is basically anything post 1985, ie the things i have seen, experienced and have memories of.

Track is all Micro Engineering Code 83 with shortened sleepers, and Peco code 83 points. 

Minimum mainline Radius is 700mm on the return loops at each end.  

So far track laying is essentially complete on 3 modules, with another three to go. Module frames are all aluminum tube framed, with plywood tops and mdf girder panels for added stiffness. Currently they rest on Ikea Bookcases, but will all be lifted to approx 1200mm rail height in due course. 

View of the Station Modules

So, there it is.. Progress is slow as free time is thin on the ground but I'd like to see trains run early next year if possible, we shall see. 

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

A new layout - Lower South West: Part 1

 Hi everyone,

As many of you know I have been living on the East Coast for many years, however I have harbored the desire to build a Western Australian layout one day. Many plans have been draw up, many ideas thrown around. The layout went from a recreation of the Wagin - Lake Grace - Newdegate branch to something much more manageable - the Lower South West. 

Any layout I build has to have a junction. Junctions add so much to a layout, both in design and operation. It give you the opportunity to have a main line and branch line, have different classes of locomotive for heavy and light lines, shunting, a loco depot, etc etc. WA had many junctions, from major (Midland, Northam, Narrogin) to minor (Amery, Goomalling, Yillimining). After much though I picked Wonnerup in the states South West. This gave me the opportunity to model Busselton (an interesting place) and the timber branch to Nannup. After many attempts the final plan came together as below. 

This layout fits nicely into my 6m x 6m garage (the cars now live outside) with enough room for a table tennis table. Wonnerup is basically as it was in the early 80s, without the compound / double slip point. I only had room for the Busselton town yard unfortunately, and one track had to go, however the general feel of the place stays the same. With Nannup the yard is right, but the line to the timber mill runs off to the side of the yard rather than the end, again due to space. 

I've decided to set the layout in the mid 1980's - with a little modellers license. The mainline has been upgraded to take 16t locos in the assumption of more mineral sands traffic and the Australind beginning to run through to Busselton. So the main will be metal ballast, but the branch will remain 11t axle load, gravel ballast. This gives me great scope to run my DA and AB locos on the main, and the X and Y class locos on the branch. So lots of loco swaps, shunting and mixed running - everything I like in a layout.

I plan to update this blog as I go, although construction is a bit stop start depending on work, uni studies and volunteer commitments. However I will post next month on the disastrous start to the construction and the new methods I used to build the baseboards. I hope to also cover the building of the points - all have been handmade using the FastTracks jigs (which are fantastic and cannot be rated highly enough). 

Cheers, Cris