My last few posts have concentrated on stuff which is scaled 12 inches to the foot, but this one will head into the realm of HO scale modelling. I am still a few weeks away from getting the final go ahead to use my new shed for its intended purpose, but this has given me time to get in a complete frizz about what to build. And to work myself partway out.
When I got the keys in May, two things struck me - how big it was, and how small it was. It was bigger than I had in my mind, which made me think I should probably do more with it than fill it up with model trains. Then I realised how small it was when I started thinking about clearances and how things would go with cars and trailers and the rubbish a family accumulates.
As I have crawled around on my knees, blocking up little spider/snake holes and the like, I came to one of two basic types of plans. The first is more 'authentic' to the layout of Dubbo, Eumungerie and the like, but limits scope for operating the layout other than out to the Coonamble branch.
The alternative plan eats up a fair bit more car space, so it will just have to go outside (as if it wasn't anyway). This alternative involves a mirror reverse of Troy Junction, so the locals will be scratching their heads. But it also means I can run more prototypical trains west of Dubbo to Bourke and Parkes (via Narromine), as well as east to Werris Creek. In fact, trains will head off to Werris Creek and return via Narromine to Dubbo (how magical is that?).
Plan B also gives me the option of a long loop which, if I can power it adequately, will end up being the thing I use more than ever as descend into being a lazy old coot.
So, Plan B it is. I dug out a copy of the 1962 Western Division Working Timetable. I was a bit gobsmacked by how much traffic went through Dubbo in those days. Six days a week it was between 32 and 37 mandatory trains. Then of course there was all the grain, stock extras, shunting trips to Troy Junction and banking east of town. That sealed it for me - Plan B it has to be. How else am I going to justify owning all this stuff if all I do is run the Sunday timetable (8 trains)?
So, the surveyors are in. First board is up and I am competing with constructors on the east coast who are very much better baseboard builders than this little old broken down public servant. here is the first board for posterity!
There has been some off-site progress too. It remains unpainted and unweathered and yet to sink into the Talbragar River, but my rendition/interpretation of the infamous Talbragar Bridge is ready for all of these things, plus rails. Next time it is photographed hopefully it will look a bit more like its inspiration.
And finally, I bit the bullet on Dubbo's coal tower. I have bought and built the kit version (of Orange - don't look too close). Dubbo's version was a bit taller, with a timber collar around the top of the bin. I have also cheated with the stairs. They are ring-in plastic stairs which probably don't look as authentic as the stairs in the kit, but I don't have the skill, time or patience to construct according to the maker's instructions. It too still requires a final coat of paint, dull-coating, some lights and a few other things, but I am happy with the result. So happy, this afternoon I evicted the little spiders who had taken up residence in the tower between coats of paint.
So that is about where things stand. Now the mornings aren't averaging minus four and the torrents have subsided, I might even get out the shed!
Cheers,
Don
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