Fitzroy Street takes shape

And just like that, it has warmed up in these here parts of Australia.  

It is now balmy in the shed, and that is not just my considered opinion.  It is the opinion of a family of swallows who have decided to nest in one of the rafters.  These charming little rats with wings used the same spot last year, so it has been a bit of a running battle to evict them.  I seem to have found their current access point, which is no larger than a HO loading gauge tool (I checked).  It is now plugged and I think I am alone now up there.

A number of projects have advanced since the last post which covered the construction of Dubbo B Signal Box.  I was pretty happy with how that effort turned out, until I discovered a photo of its eastern wall a few days after declaring the project complete.  Here's a photo of what I should have modelled on, bearing in mind this is supposed to be a skillion roof.  Just look at the kink!

So, it really was a standard skillion roof signal box, but with a kinky eastern profile, chimney and pole growing out of the roof. Makes the textbook version I modelled seem rather bland.

But progress continues! B Box needs its shunters' cabin for company, and so I built a version based on the original plans, plus a bit of license to build the chook shed extension at the western end of the cabin. 

And these are thirsty signalmen and shunters, so there was an immediate need to build the Railway Junction Hotel, which has sated the thirst of many a traveler through Dubbo. It also had a great vantage point over the railway crossing, which I can personally testify to from the front bar.

The Railway Junction Hotel is welcoming, but it would never win a beauty pageant. So, unsurprisingly, there is no similar hotel model on the market currently.  So I rummaged through the unmade-kits box to discover these from Woodland Scenics. Yes, they don't look much like a pub either. 

Anyway, I started jamming this with that and soon enough something that looked a bit like a pub started to emerge.  The following shot shows the signal box, shunters cabin and the pub.  All need a few details, like chimneys, a door for the signal box and steps. An order from Uncle Joe to arrive this week should resolve a few of these missing elements. Ignore the colours of the models in the next few photos - once lockdown is over I am off to buy paint. But I am somewhat satisfied with how things are going.

One of the photos of Dubbo that has been emailed to me over the years really stuck in my mind.  Sorry, the photographer's name didn't.  It may have been Weston Langford.  It is this one of 3122T shunting in front of the Railway Junction Hotel.

Long way to go, but I can see something similar emerging.

The other thing missing from the western side of any Fitzroy St scene is something that fulfills the function of Furney's Stockfeeds - a corrugated iron clad industry which gives you something to shunt other than wheat and fuel wagons.  It has a sentimental attachment - my three chickens regularly eat Furney's products well into 21st century. And so it was back to the unmade-kits box. This time I found a couple of items which were built in the early 1990s as a low relief background, but never progressed (until last night).

I have no recollection of what Furneys looked like in the 1960s, but I can assure you that it has never been a double-story brick building, but it is now.  The one thing I do remember was the word 'Furneys' painted across the roof.  This will happen once I am again able to wander unchecked in the model shops of this land.  In the meantime, (a Bergs white metal with Classic chassis) 4913 has shunted its first empty into Furneys. Patrons of the Railway Junction Hotel can experience GM goodness in stereo.

And so to my final indulgence for this post. Again, there is a lot to finish and nail down but I really want to have a few 'peek holes' around the layout.  One will be looking out through the doors of the Railway Refreshment Rooms (RRR). I can recall sitting at a plain table with a milky pot of coffee, waiting for my baked beans on toast to be warmed and served. In my mind I can still see the mail train that had deposited me there earlier that morning.  

The shed can't yet serve milky coffee and baked beans, but I have built a shell of the RRR building façade.  Again, I have used the 'essence' license and gone totally rogue with the doors which were never that grand in real life but give me enough width to see into the yard.  There is a lot wrong with the following photo, including the asphalt on the platform not sitting down properly, but it gives an idea that the smell of baked beans in the morning is not too far away. 

That's enough from me this week. Keep away from the Spicy Cough comrades!

Cheers

Don