G Class Kit Finished

Well its been three weeks and finally I put the finishing touches to my 4-6-0 Version of the WAGR G class. I chose G 123 and modelled it on the 1965 era, before it ventured into preservation/vintage train working at Bunbury. For at least 30 years of its life it was based at Busselton as the shunter there.

It is DCC and has operating headlights, with pickups on the tender as well. The tender is permanently coupled to the locomotive and has a complete cab floor. I have added additional weight to it where possible and weighs about 160g. It can pull on a flat level track approx 32 GE type wagons and a ZJ (non prototypical load).

Flettner Ventilators - AV426 Retrofit

Flettner Spinning Ventilators were one of the more modern fittings used by the WAGR for attempting to create an airflow through the roofs of coaching stock to assist with cooling during the summer period. The Picture below shows two vents on top of the real AV426From a modelling point of view these ventilators are a very important part of producing a model which "looks the part" - in real life we only see these items from ground level, but with a model they are the first thing we see as we look down on our models from above.

Initially when I built a couple of coaches with these vents on the roof I opted for the easy and basic use of a slice of leftover Kadee coupler sprue which gave a good representation (as can be seen in the next picture) but that was all - I was happy with the result but I knew it could be better. After the show this year I started to produce the AZ kit (see elsewhere in blog) and decided it would be nice to be able to not only do the early version but also the later modernised versions which would need to have the Flettner Ventilators and lots of them - far too time consuming to make individually, and so I started down the path of producing a pattern for casting.

In S scale these vents are 3.75mm diameter and 2mm deep making them a very tiny and fiddly item to produce. After much cussing & time fiddling around, a pattern and mould was made enabling casting to begin.

And so I hereby present the WESTOZ MODELS - Flettner Ventilators.
The Picture above shows the vents on the roof of the AV dining car at the museum with the available 12pk of WESTOZ MODELS vents, and a much magnified view of the cast vent.

The view shows the bottom of the vent. Modellers need to gently sand the 'Top" of the casting to remove excess casting flash. This is best done using a fine sandpaper such as 400 wet and dry. "Care must be taken" to ensure an even sanding and not to heat up the vents with heat from fingers - as with any urethane casting they will bend with heat.

To show off these vents I figured I should retro fit one of my existing coaches and so AV426 was chosen - the pliers gotten out and the old vents twisted off the roof. Dont worry I cringed just as much as you probably did reading this, but it had to be done, even at the expense of potentially wrecking a perfectly good model. This next picture shows the old sprue vents removed from my AV dining car& the new Flettners in place and ready for paintingCast onto the bottom of the vent is a flat raising tab which will lift the vent just off the roof surface to give the impression of it not sitting flat on the roof - Place a small dob of glue on this tab an locate on coach roof - allow to dry and then paint. The above picture and the one below show the finished refit of AV426 with the Flettner Ventilators - Now to do the rest of my coaches!

As these vents were widely used on many different classes of coaches, hopefully they will make a very useful item for WAGR S scale modellers, enabling more coaches to be completed and "Look the Part" from above.

G Class Kit Progress

Recently I have been working on my G class locomotive 4-6-0 version. Being a combined brass/urethane kit I have had to brush up on my soldering skills. So far so good, the detailing on the tender is excellent, it took me about an hour to press the rivets out and only about half a day to put the tender together. SInce then the kit has slowly come together it has began to take shape. I have put the chasis together and so far it rolls freely when pushed along the track. I am in the process of wiring it up and then its onto the detail work of the boiler and cab fittings. Those of you who look carefully have seen my obvious mistake that I have encountered once fitting the cross head straps with the slide valves and the body of the smoke box door area, and will need to be rectified on the kit before I go any futher...

AZ First Class Sleeping Car

In 1928, the WAGR built four new 1st class sleeping cars to a design which the Midland Workshops used to build 3 JV class cars for the Midland Railway Co. in 1927.

The 1928 WAGR cars were numbered AZ 434 – 437. In 1929 a further 6 cars were built numbered 438 –443.

These cars were used on the Perth to Kalgoorlie "Westland" overnight sleeper services until being displaced to other less important services by the more modern AH cars which were introduced in 1948. In the early 1960's some of the cars had their matchwood sides repanelled with plywood sheeting as part of the general refurbishment programme. With the demise of the "Albany Progress" in 1978 the AZ's became redundant.

The above picture shows a model of an AZ sleeping car - this is the prototype model for the kit which is now available from WestOz Models. The Kit is formed from patterns produced by Brian Norris. WestOz Models has produced this AZ "Body" kit in polyurethane with a aluminum roof. Some underfloor detail parts (Steps, water tanks and transformer box) are included in the kit. All other parts are available from Railwest Models

my first model

just a quick entry heres a pic of the V class i made over 20 years ago

made from brass sheet from original drawings

after sorting out a few bugs it has been a a good performer

some old pics of layouts

i retreived thesefrom another site however i originaly took them

Westrail Livery

Orange and Yellow Night

As announced earlier in this Blog, an Orange and Yellow night was held on Monday 8 August 2011 by the Sn3½ Special Interest Group at the AMRA clubrooms in Bayswater.

Featured below are some photos of the large array of models in Westrail’s orange and yellow livery on display at the Sn3½ Orange and yellow night. It’s just a taste of the over 50 wagons and 4 locos on display.

The Sn3½ Special Interest Group meets on the second Monday evening of every month at the AMRA clubrooms. Visitors and new members are always welcome. It’s probably the best way to get involved in this aspect of the hobby in WA.