This post is 50% about the prototype and 50% about a model. The prototype is Dubbo station and the model is not Elle McPherson. There goes 50% of the readership.
The prototype is this:
I had always planned to scratch-build this station, but its size, lack of plans, whacky round windows, stonework and Willy Wonka roof-line had been too much to contemplate. In an earlier iteration of my model of the Coonamble line, a paper cut-out sat forlornly on the station platform for about 10 years.
The station is somewhat more complex than necessary as it possesses a breezeway and signal box at its eastern end, and a full length awning to its west. In days past, an out-of shed was half tucked in under the platform awning, just to the west of the main buildings.
But it is one of those things that marks Dubbo as Dubbo, so I knew it had to be attempted one day. Thanks to Covid-19, that day arrived. A few weeks ago I thought I could spend the next 6 months upgrading BWH wheat hoppers, or I could really do something with my life.
Instead of scratch building, I took a punt with the laser kit produced by Walker Models. Perhaps my best decision this year. I rate myself as an average and very slow modeller, and have had some choice things to say about backyard timber kits in the past. But my faith in model making is restored! After 45 minutes with a sharp knife and cutting mat, for once I was not using the knife on my wrists. I had the internal skeleton of the building. The following photo is everything just pressed together, without a drip of glue.
I am not on a retainer here but this kit is fun building! Not just the progress but the way it cobbles together into a sturdy and 'square' model. It is almost impossible to make a mistake - though I certainly tried.
Another couple of hours today has got the building 90% there.
Apologies for the quality of this second photo. It was being finished as last light hit.
Such rapid progress has been made that I decided mid-afternoon to detour into making the (18' x 12') signal box, which still sits at the eastern end of the station (though now with metric measurements). Here is a 2005 shot of the box.
Armed with my usual source's plans and volume 3 of Bob Taafe's highly recommended Signal Boxes book, and a pile of scrap styrene, a semi-passable resemblance has been achieved.
A coat of paint on the box and a corrugated iron roof will improve its appearance. And this brings us to painting. The manufacturer recommends painting the stonework to achieve a grey-ish hue not unlike that shown in this photo from 2011.
But that is not the Dubbo I remember - and I spent a fair bit of time on that platform in the late 1960s, dumped by Dad when he was off down the yard chasing 30Ts. I remember the dirty dark yellow, made filthy with black soot and grime. I don't have a photo of the grime from 1969 but I did find some of the unaltered sandstone in 2011. I never thought I would have a use for this photo, but here it is - adultered sandstone in the late afternoon winter sun:
And here is another part of the same building, taken about six months later. It shows a cleaner wall, and a clean bottom quarter of the wall.
So all of this says to me - pick the colour you would like it to be. And I pick - au naturalle, out of the box. Yep, just saved myself another hour or so. Yep, there is a need to paint the doors and windows, the roof when complete, facias, awning posts and this gate, but its close. Probably another hour and I will be ready to plonk it down.
So, thank you Mr Walker Models, its been a very good weekend. And a weekend I will remember when, on another weekend, I spend 17 hours building the tiniest of gatekeeper's cabins.
Cheers,
Don
I have just been playing with some basic, free photo enhancement software. I am not always sure that using these products is for the best, especially in the hands of someone like myself. I am relatively comfortable with the idea that photos, just like memories and all of us, just fade away. That said, having seen some stellar enhancement efforts in recent times, I resolved to have a go at 'improving' some of the family's photo collection.
Around 1977-78 His Nibs invested in one of those cameras which spat out the result as soon as you pressed the shutter. It was a great way to have your still-developing photos make an early entrance into the dusty atmosphere and even the dirt of whatever railway yard you were standing in.
You don't need to see the 'before' shot, but here is the 'after'. I could never work out what we were trying to photograph in this shot - the gantry crane or the station building. The original was taken about 80 yards from the former, which really helps with the composition.
Even in the 1970s I can guarantee you that the sky was never that colour. Still, it is an improvement on the original.
Next are a couple of shots of 4911 in May 1979 on a down wheatie. I have cropped the photo and lightened the side of the loco/train. Am now happier with the shot of the train, though it looks like the silo is about to ascend to heaven with Charlton Heston.
And now, back to work!
Cheers
Don
Phew, that was a fast year!
363 days ago I announced on this blog that 2019 would be the year that this blog would head in a slightly new direction, with the erection of a 1/87th scale model of (most of) Eumungerie's railway yard, just as it was in the Spring of 1968.
Well, it has been a year of planning and frustration, culminating in Council approval arriving on the eve of Christmas for the necessary shed to house said model railway. So my 2020 resolution is the same as my 2019 resolution!
Thanks for reading the occasional meanderings this year. I learned a bit from researching these blog posts. Hope you found them mildly amusing and somewhat useful. This time next year I am going to look like this bloke in his Dodge, straddling Eumungerie's weigh-bridge.
Actually, I would also like 2020 to give some person living in the centre of the universe (ie Eumungerie) an opportunity to recreate this photo of members of my family living it up in the railway yard.
Happy New Year reader(s)!
Don
In response to a couple of readers' comments, I have cut up and blown up a few drawings of Dubbo station from plans generously provided to me. They are just lovely, classical drawings.
I will start with a version of the elevation posted in the last blog - but this time including the brick building on the western end of the station.
Here is the road-side elevation...
And now for an end elevation...
And a cross-section...
And, finally, two plans. The first from Contract Drawing No.2 and the other from a 1985 drawing...
So, to Marcus and the other modeller who left comments, I hope these help in your efforts to create a decent model of this station. As one who will be following in your footsteps, I would be mighty interested in seeing your results and hearing any tips you have.
For everyone else, I hope you enjoy the intrinsic beauty of these renderings as much as I do.
Cheers,
Don
I just love research, because anything I can imagine can usually be bettered by real life. And so it is with Dubbo station.
Dubbo station is a fine stone building, capped with a slate roof. Its Victorian-era 'Great Western Railway' character oozes from this plan of the station building, and was equally apparent 124 years later when I photographed it.
I have written previously about just how cramped things got during busy times at Dubbo with its single mainline configuration and I could never understand why the Railways didn't have a plan to get things sorted. Turns out they did. Once again, thank to my 'sauce' I have been able to peruse a September 1922 plan of proposed changes to Dubbo's yard layout. There is a lot to absorb - like the complete disappearance of the loco depot, which I suspect was planned to head east (or west) away from town in a manner that depots in Lithgow, Bathurst, Goulburn and Junee headed out of town. But that is for another blog post.
In this short post I would like to focus on what was planned for the station precinct, which can be best summed up as a radical rethink. The basic plan was to reconfigure the station to something more typical of a dual mainline station, complete with a large island platform facing the existing platform, a large building on the platform and a pedestrian overhead bridge for access. Here is what was planned... to make it easier to read I have outlined the existing platform in blue, the planned additional platform in red and the pedestrian bridge in yellow.
In other words, a completely new modelling proposition!
Although it is indistinct unless you enlarge it, but the plan proposed an A9 station building. These are the large brick dual-sided buildings, with parcels office, booking office, waiting room and lavatories. Something quite out of character for Dubbo but it would have revolutionised the handling of mail, small freight and passengers at the location had it gone ahead. And made it much easier for station staff for the next 50 years!
OK, writing history and modelling history is usually about what happened rather than what could have happened, but if this plan had proceeded the city of Dubbo would have developed quite differently to what it did, in so many ways).
Back to studying plans!
Don
As Easter is always a good time to start a significant job I have started the planning for construction of a house. Well, actually a model house. And its not as easy as you may think, as I get sidetracked very easily. The construction task should be straightforward - and has recently become easier as a much appreciated 'sauce' has come good with the plans for Eumungerie's station officer's houses.
Houses? How many houses did the Railways think Eumungerie needed? Well, more than I expected (that is, more than one).
I don't know what was provided at Eumungerie for the first decade of operation, as the station officer's house I was aware of was built as part of the 1911 remodelling of the entire railway yard. Railway documents indicate that ₤686 was expended to construct the house.
If you are a nerd like I am you will be aware that the Reserve Bank of Australia has a nifty calculator which can tell you that ₤686 in 1911 converts to $93,272.20 today. That is a pretty tidy price for three bedroom home! Anyway, finding this out sidetracked me for at least an hour.
So, what did this bargain bungalow look like? Here's the family's solitary photograph of the Eumungerie station officer's house.
Yes, even though the building was inhabited by our family for nearly a decade, apparently no-one thought to photograph it until after it was torched.
The only photograph I know to exist showing the house comes courtesy of the National Library of Australia. Look hard or you will miss it. Hint, it is partially obscured by the gantry crane.
So, with this amount of photographic evidence I had put this project into the too-hard basket a decade ago. Actually, I solved the problem by not modelling this part of the railway yard and by claiming to model 1968 - two years after the house burned to the ground. With the new layout being in a much larger area, the luxury of just excluding the house is no longer available.
So, once I received a copy of the official plans, out of the too-hard basket came the project. And isn't it just the cutest little bungalow?
So this is when I thought I would look at the full set of plans... and then I saw this...
I think you can click on that plan to make it larger, but here is an excerpt...
Yep, the location of the station officer's house is where I thought it would be, so no surprises there. But to the south there is a plan for a caretaker's cottage and to the north, a fettler's cottage. That's nearly more houses than there were in the entire village in 1911.
I have my doubts whether the caretaker and the fettler ever got their cottages. Maybe they burned down too? So, I am sticking with one house.
Then I looked at the next plan, mainly out of academic interest. This plan was for the replacement station officer's house. I approvingly noted that it was to be largely built out of fire-resistant fibrous cement sheeting. I muttered at the utilitarian nature of the design, no architectural flourishes, just something to get a problem sorted. Here is the front elevation, which I guess was its prettiest aspect.
It sure looks more like a demountable school building than an abode for a tired station officer and family. And its been moved! This time the plan was to build towards the south eastern corner of the railway yard (to reduce the tired station officer's walk home from the hotel).
I consoled myself with the knowledge it was all academic. No doubt the bean counters quashed funding for this project, as job security for staff in Eumungerie wasn't real certain. And then I saw it, these plans were signed off on 19 December 1966... two years prior to the date I am supposed to be modelling. What is more authentic, or less inauthentic? Building a house to model something which had been removed from existence prior to my 'modelling era'? Or do I model what should have been built except for that shortsighted bean counter? Or stuff it, build both?
Its taken until late Easter Monday but I am going for the 1911 prototype. It is cuter and if I start now it should be finished by Easter 2021 or 2031 on present form. I better shuffle off to find the necessary building materials. Enough talk.
Don
For my 100th post on this blog I thought I would do something a bit different - thank people. I seem to be forever the lucky recipient of information, things and advice. And it is no different with this blog and my endeavours to record a few things about the Coonamble line (and to model it).
Not sure where I'll start with the thank yous, but an early one probably should be the bloke who has hosted my/our HO version of Eumungerie for the better part of 5 years in his garage (with once mentioning the rent) - thanks Dad.
Then there are the family and friends who send stuff my way, or who don't mind being pestered by my questions.
There are a special breed of people, known as readers of this blog. Looking back at the comments and advice I have received over 99 blog posts, I think you can see a pattern of people very patiently explaining to me what I had failed to observe or adding to the story. These comments are like gold.
And then sometimes it goes to a whole different level. A mate of Dad's who is no longer with us handed over his Roundhouse version of 2103. It is always good to see a 21 in action at Eumungerie, about a century after the prototypes plied those rails.
And then we get to the most recent piece of generosity. Here is a shot of the nerve centre of Eumungerie, around 1985.
Overlooking all the fancy levers was a diagram, sadly somewhat damaged by the local hoons.
A second sign was affixed to the wall inside what became the safeworking hut at Eumungerie. I never photographed it because it never occurred to me it wouldn't be there. But then it was gone.
But now it is back, thanks to a loyal reader. A call came out of the blue. Would I be interested? Oh, yes, indeed. Bob, thank you once more, you are a gentleman and a scholar!
Soon the sign will be back doing what it does best - assisting safeworking through the perils of the (HO scale) yard at Eumungerie.
So, thanks for sticking with me on 100 posts and thank you all once again for participating in my great folly.
Cheers,
Don
