Tonights blast from the past comes from Glen Anthonys Tranzalpine layout.
It has featured on the blog before, but here it is with text and more photo's by Glenn.
It has featured on the blog before, but here it is with text and more photo's by Glenn.
"The layout was inspired by Rhys and Darryl's layout which was displayed in Chch. My layout was started November 1994. The first display was at the first Timaru Model Train Show, held in the Pleasant Point Railway shed in Feb 1995. As it was only 4 months after starting, it was
missing some details like ballast, but all the scenery was done! The scenery was built first and track added as the last step. Due to careful design the whole 4.2m x 1.8 metre layout could fit in my Honda Civic car if I took the front passenger seat out!
missing some details like ballast, but all the scenery was done! The scenery was built first and track added as the last step. Due to careful design the whole 4.2m x 1.8 metre layout could fit in my Honda Civic car if I took the front passenger seat out!
There was a crossing loop on one side (Staircase) and large station on the other (Springfield) and it was designed for two trains running in opposite directions crossing at each station. Relays triggered by a push button at each station swapped the controllers over on the block
sections doing all the hard work for you. Points were all manual. There were colour light signals which detected which way the polarity was on the track and displayed a green light in the direction of travel, and red light for opposing direction.
The layout never had fine details finished. Storage became a problem so after about two or three years I sold it to David Wolff in Timaru. He added fully automatic signalling, a bungy jumper on the Broken River bridge and a new module with Addington Station and Chch gondola. About a year ago he indicated that he had purchased some of John Rappard's old
modules and was reworking them into my ones and they might be displayed some time in the future."
6 comments:
Is this one of the greatest 'big picture' layouts *ever* in *any* scale? The concept sucessfully selectively compresses 45 minutes of rail travel into less than a minute, the bridges are fantastic as are the backscenes - superb. I'm really pleased that layout has survived!
Another thing worth commenting on is that I believe the rolling stock was largely (entirely?) repainted N scale commercial items - showing again that it's the overall effect, not rivet-counting that matters.
still trying to visualize this layout in a honda civic.kinda like imagining Darryl in a mini(car that is)
I put my legs in the back seat and hold my breath for the entire trip.
...While I and our respective partners rode on the roof.
I am getting inspiration from this.I need to find a scale mini and fit a roof rack and passengers on top.Darryl of course would be modelled alongside track with camera (box Brownie-if it was good enough for me as a lad).
re layout.any idea what DSC was modelled from?
The DSC was made from a Kato centre cab shunter. They made an almost perfect DSG. And so there were a few DSG's floating around at the time. Me being me, i.e have to be different to everyone else converted it into a DSC.
Glen
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