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 

6 comments:

  1. so how many frames are you wanting Andrew??

    regards
    Dale

    PS..I like the idea's

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  2. HAHAHA....yep got to factor those in too.
    cheers

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  3. Hello,

    Black and white pictures are beautifull !!

    Pascal

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  4. Andrew
    Good decision, I didn't comment on your previous eamil at the time as the others did a good job of it.
    I am glad you have decided to go the proto-realistic/possible route as the real thing would become boring very quickly. My feelings are to build it around the types of operations you would enjoy without stepping to far out of 'reality'. The other thing I try to aim for is not to have any conflicting items on the layout, I tend to model the common not the unusual but I think you are of a similar mind.
    I look forward to your future posts.

    Ray P

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  5. Great work Andrew, prototype freelancing gives you the best of both.Canowindra has a great track plan and some fantastic structures. The bagged grain shed and the rural produce store offer great interest and operation. If my memory serves me from when I was there in 2008, the large metal silo wasn't built until 68 or 69!!!! Looking forward to meeting at the Armidale convention. Darren

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  6. Hi Guys,

    Appreciate the comments, I think I am getting on the right track here, thanks for backing me up. One day I foresee layout tour trips around the traps with the people on this blog. Specially because I think we are all heading in the same directions. Cool hey.

    Andrew

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