Soon Cement

 There was one  section of real estate on the layout that was not allocated any structures, field, roads or tracks when the layout was designed. It was now time to change that aspect.

A relocation of the layout from bedroom to back shed has resulted in a rethink of what can be included on the layout, sort of an extra bonus. The layout is basically a double track oval with loco facilities on one side and storage roads on the other. And now that there is extra room, more sidings can be squeezed in. It is fine to be operating many laps around a circular layout but eventually more operation i.e. shunting is desired.

Somehow there has been six cement wagons obtained and a dedicated industry must be the cement siding. They were obtained at a bring and buy sale day operated by the Epping Model Railway club a few years ago.

I think they were produced by AR models and were already weathered. So a nice rake. The siding will take four wagons leaving two others to be dealt with in a later shunt. This also applies whether you are shunting the empties or loaded ones. 

The photo shows the cement plant (actually I am not sure what it is supposed to actually be, but for now a cement plant). This was a cheap model nothing fancy or detailed on it. It certainly isn't a finer model such as a Walthers kit, but then the Walthers kit wouldn't fit in this spot.

Now in a dose of reality this cement may have looked like this on opening day but within a few days it would have been covered in cement dust and virtually would be only cement colour a nice tone of grey.

The only can of spray paint unfortunately had a blue tinge to it certainly not the grey I was looking for. So for now I will call it an undercoat and get a more suitable grey can of spray soon. The loading tower sits close to the track, not prototypical but in a test it cleared the rolling stock okay.

My luck was that I found an old but usable curved right hand Peco point and the geometery worked well for this spot. I cut out the section of track and inserted the point. As it is for the siding I decided to leave the point manual and just a hand throw to shunt. The point had previously been modified electrically to isolate the frog and a microswitch has been installed next to the throwbar of the point. I find this gives full power to the frog area and doesn't require power via the switch blades which sometimes fail. I don't understand modellers using 'Frog Juicers' when a cheap micro switch does the same thing.

A very recent acquisition was the yellow coloured building (thanks Phil). It seems to fit in okay next to the plant and will be heavily bombarded with the 'new' can of grey when I get it and help to blend in.

After connecting the power up to the power bus I hooked up a DC controller to test it. The only DC loco I could readily find was a Rio Grande 44 tonner which worked out okay. As can be seen in the photo no ballasting or scenery has been done as yet. May the cement siding may be the first to receive treatment? Time will tell.

Slow Going

 Progress has been painfully slow but all the baseboards have been assembled and the circuit has been tested. The only issue is that I have to devise a way of securing the lift out section to the floor to provide a stable section.

So basically it is all back to how it was when set up in the bedroom. I have seen a lot of layouts that only get to the baseboard stage and no scenery added, I hope we advance past that stage.

The initial testing of the tracks was done utilising two Auscision locos, namely an 80 class and the super series 42220. These are superb models and the Alco vs GM diesel sounds are a good mix for testing. How far have models come since the introduction of DCC and sound. The number of locos has slowly grown and soon it will be necessary to find more loco storage sidings on the layout. One possibility I have been looking at is the corner section that had to squeeze in behind some computer monitors in the bedroom. Now that this section is opened up into the room it may be suitable.

One train added for testing

Another addition since the move is going to be the new cement siding which will need to move from the other end of the layout due to the new exterior track being added.

The cement loader as shown in the above photo is  a cheap model that was available from Toms Hobbies a long time ago and was reasonably priced. It will only have enough room to shunt two or three cement wagons at a time, which should make shunting this siding more interesting. It only just made it in sizing to fit between the edge and the main line. Close enough will do.

The building as purchased was the typical colours you might find in a brand new building but certainly not what would be expected from a place dealing with cement dust. I only had a spray can of grey that had a blueish tinge to it but it has removed the various colours. When time permits I will get a more suitable colour grey and work some cement dust onto the model to get a more industrial look. Then add the track and test out.

So we are still active but slow, and only a few weeks to wait for the 2025 Rosehill Model Rail exhibition, hopefully to come back home all inspired.

Down the Left Hand side

 The three pieces of the jigsaw puzzle have been moved into the shed to allow assembly. The layout when first assembled in the bedroom was all done in separate baseboards to allow future moving and that is what is now happening.

The previous setup had grades built into it as firstly the boards had to pass around the back of three monitors and then raise up over a server in another corner. It was decided to remove the grades and make it a perfectly flat layout as grades will be provided in the outer shed extension. Also when a Trainorama 32 class was tried it seemed to have trouble hauling a load up a grade in one direction.  So now it should be able to haul a better load.

To achieve a modified track plan and make full use of the room but still retaining the basic plan an additional board was secured to the outside of the existing layout up against the wall. Just one track wide. This will add extra flexibility and eventually be able to run three trains independently. This all had to be done prior to assembling along the wall.

Some new legs had to be made as previously portions of the corner baseboard had shorter legs that were supported on the top of the desk. The initial baseboard had four legs for support and then as other sections were made they were cantilevered off the previous board. This has worked out okay.

The boards were joined together with 1/4" bolts and wingnuts. They have worked out well so far.

The top board that runs across the roller door also has an additional piece of timber added so it can hold to outside track. Also there will be an additional crossover added to give access to the container terminal from the outside track and vice versa.

Fun and games started when I had to start connecting up the baseboards together. The corner section had to be the first section added and the left hand side was to connect around to the station area. The right hand side will eventually connect up with the server baseboard when it is brought down from the house. As can be seen from the photo it was a flimsy setup with one permanent leg in the corner and the two other corners temporarily help up with the use of clamps.

After a bit of a struggle I managed to get the three sections back together. The bolt holes still lined up and once secured the whole structure felt more safe.

The above photo shows the three baseboards finally connected. There is trackage that shows where the extra track will join up to new baseboards to finally go around the rest of the shed. It also shows how the additional track will be joined into the current set up. Today I am happy that this much has been achieved.

The next board to go in will be the 'server board' Next time.

First Steps

 Well finally things are on the move. The first part of the layout has been transferred from the house to the shed to take up its new home. Designed initially as a modular layout, it was easy enough to dismantle and then carried down to the shed.

The layout has inherited the space previously occupied by South Coast Rail, which some of you may have followed over the years. SCR was both a HO and then a Victorian Narrow gauge layout. Both layouts now dismantled and now allowing the space to be occupied by East Coast Rail.

The walls have been freshened up with a new coat of paint when luckily a 3/4 tin was found under the layout. There was a pickle jar saved of leftover paint which will now hopefully be enough to cover the areas that are a bit bare of paint. The floor has been covered with second hand floor tiles that make the floor look more respectable. Many years ago it was just the bare concrete so this is  a vast improvement. The dark grey is a good colour for hiding the dirt.

There are still many 'objects' in the room that need to go somewhere. Hand me down drawers are now filled with such things as scenery items, and other bits and pieces that we all seem to collect over the years. My hope is to eventually get rid of most of the things and then get rid of the drawers. But for the moment we will work around them.

The initial layout was purpose designed to fit in a bedroom and had the usual passenger station, loco depot, turntable and freight yard, enough to make it interesting, but by the decision to move to a larger area, the design will have to modified to make use of the larger space, and why not?

Section 1 arrives

There were three baseboard sections that will join and go down the side of the shed towards the roller door. The second section that contains the turntable has now been joined onto the first section out from the wall to allow easy access to the back so the additional timber and track can be laid. Also additional timber needs to be sourced for more legs. In its previous position the corner section was held up with short legs that rested on top of the desk.

Baseboards 1 & 2 assembled.

The above photo highlights the narrowness of the platform, this was the maximum width I could fit in within the space. It is intended to provide a larger style platform elsewhere on the layout. So for now it will have to do.

More updates later.

Moving along

It has been a while but work has been going on in the background to get the shed ready for the movement of the East Coast Rail layout out of the bedroom. Some readers may had identified that East Coast Rail will be taking over the space previously allocated to the narrow gauge South Coast Rail. Then SCR narrow gauge has been discontinued and in its place South Coast Traction will replace it and occupy a small area of the shed and be surrounded by East Coast Rail. If you can't follow that then I will do some diagrams later on on how the two systems will co-habitate. 

It has been a big job to remove a layout and replace with another one. But there are side benefits in that areas that were previously untouched by a vacuum cleaner have now been done. How often do you pull out all your junk under the layout for spring cleaning? And another great side benefit is that there is so much junk that won't be staying, sometimes garbage night doesn't come around soon enough.

Throughout the shed there are now various piles of similar material that I hope to be able to recycle. The fascia boards, nicely painted in a satin grey were nearly all recovered and are now awaiting to take up their new positions when ready. Then there are other piles of various size timbers also waiting to see where they will end up. It seems like a chess game moving things around down there to their final positions. We kept old bedroom suite and kitchen sets of draws, too good to chuck out and ones no one would want and they are doing a good job sitting under the layout baseboards full of sorted items.

Another task I did was to repaint one end of the shed, with a luckily found leftover tin of blue paint. The big worry was that it wasn't a full tin so I had to select the top sections of the wall (as the baseboards would hide the bottom sections) and then go around again and finish painting the bottom section. I thought I was clever and finished painting with a small amount of paint left over that I put into a small glass jar. Only trouble was the next day when it had all dried the spots I missed were clearly visible. A good suggestion from my son was to declare these spots as clouds. So that's what will happen if I don't get back to it.

I have had a pile of used carpet tiles I purchased a few years ago. It is now time to get them down on the floor and I will start up one end and gradually fill the room with them. I also purchased a long brush with soft bristles. It fits up against the roller door and is supposed to prevent dust from entering. This is yet to be proven. Also I replaced the rubber across the bottom of the door to prevent the dust entering there. Only trouble is either the door is not level or the floor as there is still a gap below, another issue to check out.

During clean up today I came across four Athearn Budd cars that I was going to convert into the 'South Coast Daylight Express'. This never happened but may in the future. So what I have done is to place the cars on the Thomson River bridge for a few pictures. Although the bridge was built in O scale some of the photos are believable even though the HO models will cross it. The bridge has been retained and will be incorporated into the new HO layout.

Here are a few bridge photos and meanwhile I will get on with the cleaning up and sorting out of the shed.

Works for HO???

Times are a changing

 This post will soon re-awake from hibernation and spring back to life, watch this space.

Go the mighty C's

Waiting for their next assignment.

 The long awaited C class have finally been delivered from Auscision and now form part of the backbone of the East Coast Rail fleet. In the above photo they are arranged around the turntable, something like was created by the Streamliners that surrounded the Goulburn turntable some time ago.

The C class are a very popular with the rail fraternity and have a big following. A few years ago they regularly hauled a freight No. 4190 that ran from Sandgate to Botany daily. We were able to view it locally at Cowan where up to four C class would head into the Up Relief to await a passenger service to pass. The C's dropped down into low idle and this sound was what made them likeable. Luckily they headed towards Sydney around midday and after following them towards Sydney for a while then we headed home for lunch.

A few other things have been happening around the layout, a passenger platform has been built, so I will cover that in the next update.