|
Pics of the S&TR's two Hunter-Garratts |
This page summarises the Latest Happenings on the railway
13th May, 2008
I have created a new website for the S&TR on Trainweb.org.
The left pic shows the north end with main line at far left, and the new sidings in foreground. The sidings are temporary may someday lead to a turntable.
The right pic is the south end and shows the cantilevered new loop at left, and the track removed from the dock platform.
And in a non-GR job, I'm building more shelves in my workshop to store more trains. Boring, but necessary.
I wanted an old style red telephone box, but it seemed a lot of work to cut out all those windows. So I made a perspex 'box' (left), then drew up the 4 sides using Word Draw, and had it printed at my local print shop, onto adhesive plastic sheet. Then stuck the prints onto the perspex. The colours are a bit 'weak, but not bad.
Click here for drawing file I found some 'foamboard' at Reverse Garbage and had to try it out. It's 10mm thick, very dense foam sandwiched between cardboard, and seems very rigid. As an experiment, I'm making a timber box car from it. I've glued scribed, 1mm balsa over it. Floor is 3mm MDF, all glued with PVA wood glue. It's nice and rigid. Now I'll try a building made from it. It will be much easier cutting windows out with a knife than cutting plywood.
Mar 4, 2007
Feb 28, 2007
Feb 8, 2007
Dec 20, 2006
Oct 2, 2006
August 10, 2006
The most recent changes are at the top. Plenty of pictures down the page!
This will slowly replace the existing site on Bigpond, as I have reached my space limits, and am generally unhappy with Bigpond.com
The first pages are a series of recent pictures accessed by clicking on segments of a map of the line. I hope this proves easy to use. Over the next months, the rest of the site will migrate to Trainweb.
You can access these pages via the Photo Galleries link above, or use this shortcut.
May 13, 2008
My little yellow diesel (see April 3) is a real beauty. It's a great shunter but I found it is also perfect as a pushup engine up the 1:25 grade. Because it's nice and slow I just control the front engine's speed so the diesel just takes up the slack on the last few wagons.
May 3, 2008
During a visit to Gundagai, the old weighbridge took my eye. Here's my model using the 2 new materials described for 24/4 below, installed at Melaleuca goods shed.
Here's another material that might be useful - it's fishing 'trace' line. Made from nylon, it's 0.6mm in dia and consists of 7 strands like rope. It's very flexible and could great for electric cables on poles (they always look kinked when you use wire). Even for catenary? The picture doesn't do it justice. And the best bit - $5 for 10m.
April 24, 2008
Here's a couple of hints.
I bought a 'peg basket' at a $2 shop. It's a flat matrix of 12mm squares - ideal for window frames (maybe a bit thick).
The other material is (full size) building window flashing made from polyethylene. But the good thing is that it has a pattern that's a bit like chequerplate steel - it's a bit large but looks good to me. Get it at any hardware store for about $5 for 10m.
April 20, 2008
The big trestle bridge is showing its age - the tomato stakes are rotting away after 15 years in the ground, even though they were well creosoted. So I'll have to build concrete foundations for the 16 bents. Here's the 1st two fixed.
April 13, 2008
The little yellow, switch controlled, diesel is such a success with the youngest grandson Ernie, the next project is another small diesel for the other grandson. This is my own design of a 'sort of' railcar-cum-loco. It has a few seats at one end and an open 'goods/guard' space at the other, with a centre area blanked off for the batteries and sound. It has an on/off/reverse switch on the roof.( but there is room for RC so maybe it will be a dual mode loco.) It's 9" long, based on Aristo motor block from L'il Critter ART 29351.
Without doubt it is the worst piece of modelling I've ever done - everything went wrong. I glued it together and pulled it apart 3 times and it's still not very good. The roof is still a hopless fit. But it will do after I tidy it up a bit. The louvres hide the speaker. With 4 cells it 'gallops' along at 15 kph.
April 3, 2008
The new small diesel shunter (5" long) is complete and works great. It is battery powered and for the grandsons' use it just has a simple reversing/on/off switch on top and uses 4 NiMH cells which gives about 20 kph scale speed. It uses an Aristo motor block ART29356 - these take less than 200mA when running light, so are great for small battery jobs.
The batteries are in the hood, charging points are visible under the running board in the left pic - I have standardised on using alligator clips now, so just need a couple of 'studs' to clip to.
Mar 31, 2008
Ti-Tree has only ever had 2 loops (ie a mainline and loop) ( and 3 sidings) and this causes congestion. I now believe all stations MUST have 3 loops, so 1 train can be running through while another runs around its train while shunting. So I've cantilvered a 6" wide extension off the back of the baseboard, and run a loop behind the platform. It isn't an island platform, because the station building backs right onto the track! The dock platform was removed and extended around the platform to a new turnout in the mainline.
I reused some old aluminium rail but I won't be powering the tracks for any new track I lay. There will be at least two new sidings too.see plan here.
Not the nicest piece of trackwork, but it was easier that way!
The turnout for the future siding is also at left. It will need more cantilever pieces off the back of the baseboard.
Mar 12, 2008
After years of using a locking pin to secure my swivelling turnouts in each direction, I finally figured out how to make an overcentre spring arrangement (Thanks to Bryan and Geof with more mechanical knowhow than me.). And they are simply made from Safety pins (of the baby nappy size).
Now no more pulling out the pins and pushing it back in every time you move a turnout. I have fitted these to 3 turnouts so far.
Now I have to get someone to figure out how to make a 3 position spring for my 3-way turnouts.
Feb 16, 2008
A couple of simple timber bogies to haul big logs. This is a prototype for a few more of these for the Climax to haul. Unfortunately it has turned out to be unstable when going downhill and pushed by the train behind - so there'll be no more after all.
Jan 25, 2008
I made a 'buckle plate' water tank from styrene and timber.
Jan 14, 2008
I built infra red detectors to operate the reversing loops at Termite and Lilyvale. Termite, being indoors was easy - I just used the ceiling lights and put the receiver between the rails.
Outdoors was harder as sunlight reflecting off light coloured wagons gave false readings. I finally had to use a differential detector system. Here's a picture of the Lilyvale setup. The little building houses the receiver electronics.
Dec 3rd, 2007
I have a couple of Bachmann Big Hauler tenders lying aroung unused, so decided to make one into a bogie guards van, using the base/wheels only. I'm putting LGB couplers on one end and and Bachmann on the other, so visitors' rollingstock can couple up to my hook & chains.
I lengthened the base by 55mm and built the body from styrene, based on a NSWR SHG guards van, but reduced to only one passenger compartment. I 'cut' the plan up using MS word Draw - this method works really well when you have a file of the plan. The roof is balsa and paper.
November 22nd, 2007
The S&TR has a new future operator - a new granddaughter has arrived - Alexandria.
Sept 9th, 2007
The S&TR purchased the plans for a NSWR 42' railmotor and proceeded to produce shortened version to suit the patronage on the line.
I used an Aristo motor block (ART29356) at one end and a wood dummy bogie at the other. The luggage compartment contains the batteries (8 cells, 2400mAh NiMH) and my homemade RC & sound gear. Walls are built up from layers of 1 and 0.5mm styrene and the roof a carved piece of western red cedar that was lying around the workshop. The floor is 3mm ply wood and aluminium angle. Ladders and cowcatchers are soldered brass/copper. The radiators are nails and flyscreen.
The lettering is my first attempt at decals produced on my computer using special inkjet decal paper - they are fantastic.
Here's some pics of it complete with roof details, (garden drip fittings) and drivers & passenger.
August 12, 2007
Two months and no work on the SaTR! Now I've finally completed a community hall for Lilyvale township. The walls are made from 10mm thick foam board covered with 0.5mm thick styrene strips to represent weatherboards. Foamboard is good to work with and doesn't seem to warp and is easy to cut to make 'fine' adjustments to wall lengths etc. The window panes are printed on clear plastic sheet and glued behind the outside frames.
June 10, 2007
My Sydney steam tram was built many years ago on a Bachmann Porter motor block. This had split a gear many months ago and Bachmann won't sell spare parts. So I've used an Aristocraft diesel motor block as a replacement. It's all hidden by the side skirts anyway. I've yet to add the fake cylinders. I also took the opportunity to upgrade the batteries, radio control and sound.
May, 2007
I completed the box car from foam-board, with a corrugated cardboard roof and styrene bogies.
April 30, 2007
GRASS website updated.
I replaced some aluminium track in the platform road at Sandstone with some second hand Aristo brass. At the same time I built a new turnout - that's it at the front of the pic, and replaced the one leading to the turntable, with a larger radius. The whole thing looks a lot better now.
April 13, 2007
Here's a pic of Maple Jn finally completed, with trains using it.
April 10, 2007
No train work this Easter, just hard yakka hauling 1 1/2 tonne of gravel down the yard and laying some pavers, to make a pathway where the grass just won't grow in front of Melaleuca & Lilyvale.
I'll do the same in front of Sandstone station, when the back recovers!
April 5, 2007
I removed the Latest Happenings pages for 2006 to old Happenings section (see link at end of this page).
I've added a small hand-operated crane to the new Melaleuca goods shed. It's a few old gears, the large one made from a knurled swimming pool pipe fitting, and the main spindle from a Liquid Nails tube end. The rest from bits of styrene, with a real concrete base. Yes, it does work!
Mar 15, 2007
Lots of changes this week!
Melaleuca now has a small goods shed. It's made from 3mm plywood shell covered with plastic sheet corrugated with my super-useful corrugator.
And Pauline has made me a couple of palm tree trunks from clay. All I have to do is make about 100 more fronds from plastic sheeting!
In keeping with it's recycling policy, the SaTR has rebuilt the old Melaleuca station building to become the new Maple Jn station.
The original building was for a single side platform so the building had no rear door. (see left pic)
Maple Jn is an island platform, so I added a pair of doors in the backside and a small awning. (centre pic).
The right pic shows the side view.
Work has started cutting Hebel blocks to form the new platform. Have also started building a Goods shed for Melaleuca.
Added map to show where website hits are coming from.
Updated Trainweb site pictures - see shortcut above - for pictures of Maple Jn.
AT LAST track laying is complete at Maple Jn.- only final ballasting is required. Roadbed is 5mm bluemetal, mixed 6:1 with cement, applied dry and then watered with a watering can.
Six turnouts were installed. Three turnouts are just visible in the left pic, under the upper track; and then these same 3 are visible in the foreground of the right pic.
My attempt to use model aircraft servo motors to operate the turnouts has been a failure- the track power interferes with them and they operate indiscriminately. So it's back to the drawing board to figure out another method.
The right pic is looking down the fence, and shows the fly-under in the distance.
The centre pier of the bridge in the left pic will be removed when I build a new clear span. The island platform will be in the centre, partly under the bridge. A road bridge may also cross the platform, which will be part of a pathway which can be walked over.
These two pics show the turnout and track power control panel for Maple Jn. It's housed in a corrugated iron Gangers' shed. The roof hinges to allow access to the switches.
After 2 months spent painting the house, the garden railway is getting some attention.
Maple Junction is getting a makeover. After many hours doodling plans I finally went for a simple upgrade. There will be an additional track ( total 3 ) and an island station platform with a 4m long passing loop. The 'flat' junction which made it necessary for trains to cross to access Lilyvale reverse loop, will become a flyover.
The photo shows the crib wall made from treated pine with a few new plants in place. Further along, Hebel piers will provide for the upper track to Melaleuca, and a real footbridge to allow me access to the new garden.
The area behind the crib wall will be a garden with a few railway buildings maybe. The fill for this area came from between the house and fence out of picture at top left, and this will provide another level area for some sidings for Melaleuca.
I have finished making 4 of the 5 turnouts needed, and made the first 2m of track. (about 14m needed).
The 'climax-like' loco is finished. It's now running on radio control and has sound. Just the lettering to be done. It weighs 2.5kg of which 700g is the motor and 800g is the batteries, and has plenty of pulling power. I'm not happy with the brown colour so will have to attempt some weathering. The Aristo motor block is very quiet and runs well, but had little adhesion - hence the weight. It takes less then 500mA even with this weight and will pull at least 10, 4-wheelers up my 1:25 grade.
I bought a few Aristo diesel trucks (part ATR 29356). These are nice units with a metal body and plastic bogies sides, and ball bearing axles (left pic).
Like all Aristo they have very wide wheel treads and this causes the back-to-back wheel dimension to be too small and they bind going through turnouts. Luckily, the wheels are held onto tapered axles by screws, so it was easy to remove, wrap a little sticky tape around the taper and a bit of superglue, and the wheels go back on about 1mm further apart. Finished!
I plan to use one under a Class A Climax, and the right pic shows the Climax truck sides I have built from styrene.
Previous Latest Pages
