Modelling the Railways of NSW convention 31

So I have returned from the MRNSW 31 after giving my talk on this years subject from me Branxton railway station history.
Whilst it most certainly was not every ones cup of tea in regards to a lecture that people wanted to attend, I felt that the people that did attend my session felt that they got something out of it. I especially like being challenged to some of my information by the likes of Peter Neve. Lucky I mentioned his allotment lists book then wasn't it.
As I said in my sessions this was going to be part 1 of a 5 year plan on researching, planning, building and hopefully in 5 years time exhibiting Branxton as an exhibition layout, with maybe an invite to display at the convention in the future. I hope that this will be the case and it will be health and interest willing.

I have been building Gulgong for the past 10 years and I realise that I enjoy building the layout more than I enjoy running the trains. I guess driving the real things at work beats driving the model form. So Gulgong's time as my home layout may soon be coming to an end and this is the reason I have begun researching my next layout.
I have shown Gulgong twice now at the Annual Newcastle regional show and this year I have an invite to display it at the Newcastle Model railway exhibition in August. It may be its first and last time at an exhibition. Who knows?

So my emphasis, even though I have been struggling all year with getting some inspiration for model railways, is to complete Gulgong as much as I can. Little remains to be done anyway. And then move onto Branxton.

Thanks to those people that attended my sessions this year at the convention. Thanks to those blog owners that came and introduced themselves as well. I can now put faces to blogs. Cheers

We will see. Here's me at the convention this year.

Gulgong stockyards completion.

Well after a few weeks of work and fitting in bouts of building in between working away, I have finally installed the stockyards in there location on Gulgong.
Following are some photos I have taken after they where installed and after I grassed the areas around them. Just need a light pole and a few bushes around the perimeter and oh yeh a couple of gates and they will be completely complete.

Cheers

Chris

 Testing the location before fixing into place

 

 Taken just after putting the yards into place and putting down some static grass around the yards

 

 The glue is still wet where I placed the static grass.

 

Add a couple of wagons!

Gulgong stockyards take shape.

I have had to come away for a few weeks for my job but before I left home I had been busy building components for Gulgong's stockyards. It has been one of those jobs that I had been putting off building for the layout because I was unsure how I was going to go about building them.

Then I was lucky enough to attend modeler John Browns home layout and see how he built the stockyards for his layout. He also gave me a tip on building the fences for the stockyard which I hadn't thought of before. So armed with Johns scratch building tips and with a bit of free time available and Greg Edwards Stockyard plans I finally started the process.

Following are some pictures of the ramp under construction and also all of the fence compnents ready to be installed when I get home. One tip I didn't take on board fully was to weather my timber before I built it and I noticed after paiting the ramp that some of the timber swelled and moved. Oh well first attempt and I am sure once installed it will look the part.

Anybody wanting to give me any further tips I would be happy for the feedback.

One of the door for the race with some wood rot showing at bottom of door.

Some of the timber had been weathered before building, some hadn't.

Note that one of the fence panels has a broken rail in it. Part of the small scenes that I try to model.

 

I will have to wait until I get home in another week or so before I get to install everything on the layout. Also I still have to build the high ramp to get to the top of the sheep vans.

Cheers from sunny (so far) Wollongong.

Chris.

Ready for the Convention

Not much to post except to say that I think I am ready for the Modeling the railways of NSW convention on Saturday. Seems like such a long time ago since I said yes and now it is here.
When I said I would rerun my previous talk on the history of the SH MV line and update I thought that would not take too long to put together and update but I was wrong there.
The changes on the line in the past 10 years have been enormous and it took a bit more work than I thought. Anyway hope its worth it and I get someone to listen to me for a few minutes.
All will be revealed.

Speaking of being revealed. Last year I applied to do an ad campaign with my son for myplates.com and this year the ad started. Newspaper ads, ads on carsales.com, on the side of a bus, FB etc. and now two billboards in Sydney, one of which I am hoping to see on Saturday on my trip down there. Anyway here is the ad they are running

 

cheers

wangas

A bit of fun post

Years ago I bought some SV sides and ends off Casula and the plan was to build some bogie sheep vans on top of TRC floors, basically the kit bash that Joe sold years ago and it became one of those projects that "I will get around to one day".
That day never came because firstly there was the bogie sheep van kits available form MiniModels and then nowadays from Eureka so the packets of sides and ends would end up going to waste.

Now I am the kind of modeller that likes to model little scenes on my layout and so far the ones that I have on the layout get good comments when I show it to the public. At one end of the layout for example I have a small sign that asks children to find the two wombats? They seem to delight in the fact when they do locate them so that brings me to this post.

How could I use these sides and ends as a small scene? I could have modified a few wagons so they appeared to be empty and the doors have been left open for example. I have all of my older wagons that I have built up over the years that I could turn them into an empty train and then have all of the newer wagons as a loaded train. Then I thought why not another small scene?

I came up with the following as per the photos and came up with another small scene.

So firstly I cut up the sides for the new doors and made new doors out of the sides I had. Prepare all of the components to rebuild the wagon. Give it a bit of weathering. Whilst I have not completed my stock yard yet for Gulgong I put the wagon in position against a ramp so I could see what the scene would look like.
Add sheep and presto..... a small scene.

The sheep will get pushed up the ramp to the wagon and the farmer will be left wondering why the van does not fill up. The door on the other side was left open......oops!

As I said a bit of fun.
Cheers

Newcastle Regional Show for another year.

 

Well we have just had our display again at the Newcastle Regional Show and this year was a little disappointing as far as people through the model train pavilion was concerned. The weather was actually not very kind to the whole show. Rain Rain Rain.

 

 One day these guys will finish painting the SM's house. They have only been going for 6 years.

 

The road to old man Browns house.

 

I have been putting a bit more effort into getting the layout finished in recent times. I have been using a few different methods for scenery including static grass  here and there and will post some more efforts soon. I also have been trying out a lot of methods for tarping wagons and painting and weathering vehicles and I hope to show some of them next time too.

 

Cheers until next time and I will try to ppost more often.

 

wangas

Newcastle Show 2012

The railway dam, now has the pumphouse, intake arrangment and water in place.

The SM's house is just about finished. A few figures and bits and pieces need adding, thats all.

4711 slumbers in the carriage shed at Gulgong during shunting operations.

A few of the items around the yard at Gulgong.

Well it has been a while since my last post and now I have been invited to show my layout at this years Newcastle Show I have been prompted into action and have been attempting to complete some aspects on the layout in time for the show.

I have decided to do what I can to present a under construction layout but certain areas will be completed. I hope!

Am attaching a couple of photos of areas of the layout that I have been attending to and i have even tried my hand at electrostatic grass. Unfortunately the grass came up so good I will now have to go back and complete more areas of it, covering up the scenery that has been down for a while.

So I present the latest batch of pictutes from Gulgong and hope you enjoy.

Cheers

wango