I had been intending to update this blog last Christmas, then in the New Year, and now we are on our way to Easter. Anyway, happy new year!!!!
For once I can explain that lack of blogging progress has been largely due to real progress in track laying, relaying and general model railway work. And about time, say readers and critics.
I think I left this blog last October after the first train had rolled from Coalbaggie Creek (Eumungerie) down the hill into a nascent Macquarie (Dubbo). Coalbaggie Creek is only aan interim station on the branch -- there needs to be an end! So the fettlers have worked hard over the Christmas break, such that the terminus of the branch line has now been reached and laid out.
The scene in the following photograph is a testament to this Yuletide industry... the right of the photo as viewed shows Macquarie rising from the swamp that the real Dubbo was built upon, the far wall carries a slimmed down mirror-image of Troy Junction, the long run on the left (where the silo is located) is Coalbaggie Creek which then leads to a 180 degree curve to bring the branch line into the centre of the photo, where the terminus lies. And the terminus is the subject of this post.
It is great modelling something like Eumungerie, a place of many firm and infirm railway memories for me. My problem with my childhood railway memories is that I don't ever remember visiting anywhere further along the branch line. In fact, I don't think I got to Coonamble until the mid-1990s and the State Rail wrecking ball had beaten me there, well and truly. The wrecking ball makes things easier to model, but less atmospheric than what they probably were in 1968. And 1968 is where my modelling head is.
It gets even worse. There aren't many photos around of Gilgandra, Gular and Coonamble in the heady mid-1960s and those that are, from my opinion, aren't deeply inspiring. Coonamble looks thin, washed out, stretched-out, laid on dirt and near barbaric. It was, or at least the facilities were. Gilgandra is more interesting, with a triangle to turn locos, but it isn't a terminus. Neither Coonamble or Gilgandra have atmosphere suggesting a quirky, interesting, healthy rail system. Apologies to those with a better view of these locations - my mind is not closed to revising my bleak assessment upwards.
Until late last year this lack of atmosphere was a bit depressing, but I hadn't thought too much about it. I had even dreamed up a compromise - a little bit of Gilgandra (with McLeods Flour Mill, mainly) and a little more Coonamble (a primitive loco depot, barracks, a fuel siding). It was to be call Gilgamble. Yeh, nah.
And then came the announcement that Coolah's railway was to celebrate its century in 2021. I ignored the obvious - how can you celebrate a century of railway when at least 25 of those years involved nothing running on the line? And my usual generous source forwarded the sorts of papers one needs to start thinking about just how interesting Coolah was/is.
Coolah has some emotional attachment - my great grandfather was the station master there for a few years after leaving Eumungerie. And Coolah, like Coonamble and Warren and a few other places, was never meant to be the final 'end of the line', although that was the way things turned out. Coolah was worth another look. And in taking that look I could only see cute stuff - it is compressed, there is a skyline, it is four tracks wide, has a compact loco depot and is close to town (so a public house would not look out of place), noice concrete pre-fab buildings.
So out of all of this, Pilliga has been (re)born. I say reborn as I have previously modelled a very small, fictional branch line terminus by that name, and I have a perfectly good station sign board kicking around in one box or another.
This Pilliga owes more to Coolah for its creation than Coonamble. But it will have something similar to Gilgandra's flour mill and pub, Coonamble's loco depot, fuel siding and pub, and Coolah's four-track yard with a low timber platform opposing the station platform (and pub). And the freedom of a fictional terminus removes the need for a difficult rebuilding of a Rail Central station building into an Ac4 version. Then I can have a Railway Institute building, a local sawmill, a street to include all of those little shops I seemed to collect from West Ryde, and it goes on. Even a park with a shay plinthed on it (maybe). And another pub.
And of course near to none of this exists at the moment - it is all plywood central. So lets not look too closely at this photo, which shows how little exists. But at least it exists.
Over the course of 2021 I hope to add to Pilliga, blog-post-by-blog post. There may be breaking news about my soldering skills, given my new fangled fangler. And news about the Country Killing Works at Troy Junction, and pubs being built in Macquarie/Dubbo. In fact, I may even entertain you readers with how I have laid and relaid about 75% of Macquarie's yard, up to four times already. It is an amazing, iterative process, tracklaying, my style.
Onto Easter!
