The Field Trip (How not to do it)

Am_Fet writes:

After the sterling work so far on the Cheese Store Roundy Layout I had to face the fact that at some stage I would need to get to Patea (somehow) and get some photos from the correct angles and resolution that would allow them to be used for the "photo building" method.  A set of decent photos for the backdrop were also on the shopping list.

A chance comment by Drew a few weeks back spurred me into action.  He announced that the DL invasion was imminent and the chance to ride a DC might soon be gone.  Right then!  Operation "Last Chance to See" was underway!

Tuesday night found me ensconsed in the salubrious confines of the Capital Connection to Palmy where I had a midnight connection with freight 522 to New Plymouth.  After a pleasant evening playing trains in the ManSion, I was duly delivered to Milson depot at 11pm ready for the nights adventure.  Luckily the heater in the cab of 7186 worked well and with 7158 and 4692 on behind we made short work of getting to Whareroa and the joyous reunion with Drew who was down to take the train the rest of the way to New Plymouth.

After dropping off 7186 (which was down to run 537 back to Palmy in the afternoon) we headed to all points north.  Another stop at Stratford has us dropping off 4692 which was slated to run 52 shunt before heading back to palmy that evening on 521.

It was around about here that I fell asleep for 30 minutes or so, not having slept for the previous 24 odd hours.  Oddly enough, I'd slept through the same bit of countryside the last time I was through as well!  Apologies to all Inglewood inhabitants, but it possibly doesnt say much for the scenery....

The plan was for Drew to tie up 522 then drive back to Stratford to run 52 to Kapuni, but a complete lack of tonnage killed that plan.....so after service 7158 we headed for home and breakfast.

With the weather looking threatening, I made the call to pass on the chance to sleep and to head to Patea while we could.  As it was the weather was freezing, overcast and a bit damp, but I still took the chance to get the photographs that I needed while Drew just basically ran riot, occasionally yelling from a different part of the complex "I feel like I'm on Time Team!" and imitating ghost noises.

After getting the photos, we went on a general fossick trying to work out where the old buildings were and their uses.  The engine room took a bit of nutting out, and I still dont think we worked it out.  There are remnants of where the boilers poked through the walls, but where the attendant stuff went (coal piles, chimneys etc) is still up for debate.

Treasures found include

...finding the trolley tracks along the loading bank at the front of the complex were to the weird gauge of 2'6".

and this old wagon door with the intriguing lettering "R E" on the top.

After a bit of siteseeing (Patea river mouth, Tawhiti museum which was closed, Normanby diary factory, Te Ngutu Battle site where Von Tempsky was killed) it was back to Drews place for a few hours kip before being dropped back at Whareroa around 5pm for the trip back to Palmy on 521....and that elusive DC ride.

After 521 came a quick dash back to Welly on 229 with 4191 and crawling onto the couch outside my lab at around 2am for 6 hours kip before work Thursday morning.

SO.....that was the easy bit, now I've got to use the photos to make the backdrop and buildings!  ARGGHH!!

....Lost Control (Again)....

(Ian Curtis RIP)

 Am_Fet writes:

Way back in the dim dark past (actually here), I wrote about the idea of taking a layout "Off Grid" by relying on battery power to run the toy choo-choos.

 Its an idea that still intrigues, so today I started doing something about it. Cabbage had previously provided me with a circuit:

 

Today I found myself coming back from the Safety Shop in Petone (I was eligible for a whole swag of work clothes...after 9 years with KiwiRail who knew!) and decided to drop into our comms workshop in Kaiwhara to gently loot their electronics drawers (now mostly redundant).

5 minutes later (and a call to the Cabbage Support Customer Care Line) a wandered away with my little grab bag of bits.

Here I've got a 5K pot (a double one here, but thats fine), 2 LM338 Voltage Regulators, a tape of 1K resistors and a collection of knobs.  Next to source will be a DPDT switch for reversing and things will be ready for the next build night.

(BTW, the pot came from a draw labelled "Bow Thruster Sensor Relays"....so if an Interislander ferry hits anything, I know nothing!)

Look Ma, a Train!

Am_Fet writes:

This just in fresh off the satellite from tonights club meeting....

I am reliably informed that those present managed to scrape up a Df, 3 ZH's, 2 Ia's and an Ib....not a bad effort at all, really!

Putting the Mockers on it....

Am_Fet writes:

With the threat of an impending public showing of Patea in its bare bones state, I got my skates on and spent a few hours during the week calculating the building dimensions from the pictures I had taken from a past visit.

Monday evening was set aside for a go at mocking up the buildings with whatever materials we could lay our hands on in the shortest period of time.  First up, tonights surprise guest:  An etched MMW OM wagon, complete with a piece of aluminium representing the tank:

So, without further ado, Cabbage and I leapt in with scalpels slashing and after a seemingly never ending supply of different materials, we had this:

I was slightly surprised how unimposing the buildings were and how they lacked some height when seen from this viewing angle.  However, the join between the backdrop and the baseboard is hidden behind all of the buildings (even the low one at the right) and we should be able to hide the rest with scenery.  Of course, this will look infinitely different once the backdrop is done and the final building added.

Here are the "buildings" in close up showing how we cut, hacked and ripped anything we could lay our hands on to get the general shape of each of the buildings in the complex.

And of course, this is how its supposed to look, as viewed from the cab of a passing DXB (apologies for the wiper blade...Doh!)

Finally, here are another couple of pics of the OM.  Cabbage has said its a low priority job to complete as there arent enough crazies to make it viable, so I might have to wait a while to do train 547 for the layout (I only really need 8).

"Hang on, let me just straighten it...." (graunch)  "Thats better..."

Meanwhile, back in the lab.....

Am_Fet writes:

Its been a bit of a crap day at the factory.  The upgraded Tunnel Radio system for the Manawatu Gorge was installed and lit up.....then refused to work.  Hurried phone conferences between the workers and the boffins finally sorted it, but it took a big chunk out of my day.

As I was determined to have a break, I pulled out the bits and pieces for a quick wee project....

With Cabbage threatening to take the Patea layout to next weeks club meeting, I thought I had better make an effort and mock up some of the Cheese Store so the critics could envisage how things would end up.  I sat down and numbered all the different buildings of the complex like so:

Because I'm a weirdly methodical kind of guy, I made the earth shattering decision to start work on building one.  A quick CAD session last night with photos from a previous visit gave me some estimated dimensions to make a start with:

And so, after looting the office stationary for cardboard and sellotape a start was made.  All cutting was courtesy of the NTCC paper guilotine which made short work of keeping everything square....if only the operator was as efficient!  I seem to recall a school age DB using the same tool to great effect back in the days when the Batchelor and Bond Empire Railways ran from Maungatui to Opanaki....

So this is what I ended up with after about 15 minutes work....its as ugly as sin, but its not sposed to be pretty....its all about working out the final look.

Now to get it to Cabbage to see how it looks.  Next up:  Buildings 2 (Cool Store) and 3 (Engine House).  And negotiations are well advance for a field trip to the area on the 10th involving 2 passenger trains and 3 freight trains to get me to New Plymouth and back over a 40 hour period.

Patea in the Round: Dropping a Back On.

Am_Fet spurns writing reports for work and instead:

Another 3 hours in the top secret Stokes Valley Layout Building Facility has completed the structural elements of the Patea layout ready for the pretty bits.

So here are the photos:

You may remember this is where we left our intrepid heroes last week.  Surprise guest in the shape of young Tims DF.

All clamped up and no place to go.  The MDF backdrop has been screwed into side pillars and joined at the back.  The seam will be hidden by a photographic backdrop.

Cabbage investigates building Shrodingers layout (Is there really a train in there?).  In reality, marking out the proscenium arch for cutting.

Yes Virginia, Kilroy was definitely here.  The Arch glued and clamped on with 2" by 1"'s to hold it straight.  An exceptionally rough mock up of the Cheese Store is in place showing where it will sit and its height (not as tall as I'd thought!)

Viewed from the correct height (eyes level with the bottom of the arch) and the correct distance (600mm correct to at least 7 decimal places)

Viewed from behind showing the backdrop supports made from old layout legs and some excessive glue on the back of the arch.  I'm thinking we will need side wings to hide the ugliness from anyone approaching from an oblique angle.

An overall view showing how the wings make an attempt to hide the holes in the backdrop.

Cabbage and I also played with train lengths.  I had in mind the train I wanted to recreate (Train 528 consisting of Blue 7239, Black 4398 and a collection of 8 UK's, 2 CF's and a ZH) while Cabbage advocated that the train should have just disappeared by the time the loco arrived back on the scene.  By some weird quirk of fate, we found the length of the hidden trackage was an exact match for my chosen consist....score!

So that was it.....apparently its getting unveiled at next weeks modellers night, which could be a laugh.  Plus I'm making plans for a visit to play trains with Drew on the 10th, so if the weather behaves I should be able to get all the photos I need of the Cheese Store and environs.

Patea in the Round

Am_Fet surprises everyone and writes:

I have been the benefactor lately of stars aligning and items being thrown up by the eddy currents that hide things in my house.  In this case, the items made it virtually impossible to not make a start on a simple layout designed primarily to beat the inertia this time of the year can bring.

The item that fell immediately to hand was an old 1200 x 600 module built by a friend but passed on to me when he forsook modelling NZR for the joys of North American Gargantuans.  Thanks to Cabbage and his magical work van (layout moving a specialty), 3 of these modules were soon tucked away in the mysterious layout building facility located deep in darkest Stokes Valley.  Secondly, the Taranaki Mystery Box (on its second region wide tour) divulged a complete circle of well battered but passable setrack curves set to some astonishing radius and enough MicroTrains bogies to run an entire OM fleet (once the designer finishes the etch.....breath is bated as we speak).

So what to do.....obviously a simple loop on the board was the way to go, but what story to tell?

Scribbling quickly came up with the answer;  Using the photo on plastic shell techniques described previously, how about a model of (wait for it) The old Patea Cheese Store?  (I know!  Colour me surprised....).  Model it fromthe station side rather than the river and I could recreate this pic of Drews which fired my imagination a few years ago:

So, the goal was decided:  Model the building as the centerpiece with the train looping around it in an almost incidental style....put some pretty photo backdrops on, maybe a full proscenium arch, populate it with accurate train consists and it would be enough to keep the interest going for quite a while methinks.

SO......despite an impending overnight outage at work that had me finally crawling into bed at 0430, Wednesday night was set aside for the MMW/Batchbuilt layout building machine to meander into action.  Armed with a scale printout care of the KR CAD gurus and their lithograph machine (which disappointingly printed out slightly too small) we quickly laid out the track and held an impromptu planning meeting:

Track laying was slower than anticipated due to endless wrestling with the track geometry, fishplates and a soldering iron, often all at the same time (KIDS:  DONT TRY THIS AT HOME).

Once completed, Cabbage pulled his masterstroke;  several rolls of double-sided foam tape bought for an incredibly low price from TradeMe.  And is this stuff great for tracklaying?  Does the Pope s**t in the woods?

Highly flexible it is to, and works a treat in going around even the sharpest of bends.

So here we are at the end of the evening (GoogleEarth style view?)....track all stuck down and immovable with nary a nail in sight.

Thanks to a handy car battery, the first locomotive has circled the track....admittedly with a little smoking, but it looked prototypical.  Pity about that SD9 that melted a wheel (gulp).

So there we have it.  An evenings work with the result being a quick easy plaything to keep your modelling mojo warm during winter.  I can remember back when we both had more hair, I handed Magikan a piece of 10mm chipboard with similar dimensions.  He responded by quickly putting down a loop to run his LPA wagons around.  At the time I think I dismissed it as not worth pursuing, but having played with this idea for a week now I'm suddenly not so sure.....could this be the quick and dirty way into Nz120 modelling for those who like things "In The Round"?