Friday, October 29, 2010

Decision made, I think....

Hi everyone,

As a follow up to the last post, let me inform you of some conclusions. Firstly thanks to those for their input, it is much appreciated.

I have decided to still do Merriwa, although renamed to Gundabri. George Hall was a town founder and lived on (or tenanted) what I think was a local  station called Gundabri, I believe near Gungal. Will have to research this more however this will do for now.

The advantage is I can now apply some modellers licence to the line and keep this yard reasonably as is. So, leaving Gundabri yard the line will turn right, instead of left, and meander up a gentle grade of open line for about 43 feet (13mtrs). We now enter Halls Creek (Sandy Hollow). This yard will be reworked and possibly look a bit like Canowindra, without the silo, but with the grain shed. Also added is the co-op siding and possibly a flour mill. Still a bit vague on this but you get the idea.

From Halls Creek we start on a long steep climb to the upper deck, we possibly could use bank engines here. Wow, bankers on a branch, well it will add interest. The grade is expected to be a 1:50 and another 45 foot run. This will be very slow, I really want to use the load function on the DCC here. This function allows you make your locos crawl at say 8 miles an hour but ramp up the sound to really let you know the engines are working hard.

The grade now eases and  we can see down over the valley from the upper plateau as we meander our way for a further 28 foot run and enter Wybong. This is  a passing loop and a signal box here, similar to Pangela. It will be fairly short in length as to make any long train passes interesting however most trains will be of the shorter version. Will also have water facilities for steam engines.

We are now left with a 69 foot run (21mtrs) to Muswellbrook which will be hidden staging. I plan too run more trains then the line ever would have seen in its usual form so this should make interesting operation nights with lots of movements. I do plan on having way-bill cards but timetables will be lax. Also all yards will be staffed with miniature staffs but more homework will need to be done on this. I also wanted the long runs to give the feel of distance between yards and have those nice bridges, cuttings, level crossings and all the things that you would expect to see on a NSWGR line.

I do have an option, Halls Creek could be built as a junction, which would see the line as more of a secondary line and Gundabri becomes a branch. This would see a second hidden staging yard but I am not so keen on this idea as it may be to crammed.  I will draw it up properly one day and post it but not soon.

Writing this out has gotten me fired up a bit so, I made a start on my RU project which I will share soon. One thing the last post did, was make me realise that I had lost my way a little and forgot that I really want to capture railway scenes and model that detail that sets some models apart.  So I will leave with a pic that Thumpa posted on railpage, it gives the feel of what I want out of modelling a NSW branchline. Thanks again.

Cheers 
Andrew 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

What to do now....

Well I know my posting has somewhat slowed in the past few months and there are other things on the layout that I would like to share. My attention really has been on future projects, namely my home layout.

I have built the layout shed and had it lined, so now I am trying to really work out what it is that I want in there. The layout room is basically 23 feet by 18 feet and it was always intended to build the Merriwa branch. My issue is although I really like Merriwa yard, the rest of the line I am not so sure about. There are some structures I want and they are not on the line. EG . I want the Half Howe Truss Bridge. How much modellers license can someone have before you loose the atmosphere of the line that you are modelling?

My latest thought is to build hidden staging and come into Merriwa, then build what I perceive to be the Merriwa Extension,  but does that change the way that Merriwa would be, most of the facilities would have been removed I would think and then it no longer could be considered Merriwa.

Does anyone have any opinion that would maybe get me out of this developing rut.

Andrew

Friday, October 1, 2010

Pretty in steam...

Light has not hit Bowen Creek since Newcastle and to be honest I am rather glad. Now that the warmer weather is here, the house and gardens have been getting a spruce up and besides I am lacking some motivation at the moment. The New England convention is only 5 or 6 weeks away and I am really looking forward to that. We had a few breakages in Newy but we have a days work set aside and all should be good.

In the mean time lets look at steam in P87. It is still a long way off but there are some motivated people tossing around ideas on how things can be done. Oscar Deluca turned up at Epping last year with his Brass 30T and it was the first time steam had been tested. Mike McCormac had turned the wheels as he did on his dogbox and the result was inspiring. Now these took Mike hours to do so I don't believe he will ever do these for anyone but himself ( which is fair enough) it proves the possibilities, which inspired Bowen Creek in the first place.

I nicked this off Railpage, Thanks to Craig Mackey

I need to do this for myself and a few others who want steam, it will happen just takes time. Meanwhile other things need to be done..such as that RU project. Anyway this was just a quick update so everyone knows I am still alive and we may see you in Armidale. Hooroo