IH Wagons in Styrene

DB continues along his merry trek...

One of the reasons I didn't make three IA wagons, is that I wanted a little variety, especially as the IA wagons are now well outnumbered down here by newer versions like the IH/IK and IL. So here is an IH. Or two.

The IH was built approx 2013-15 and includes a few features that make the newer generation of wagon classes quite different from the older IA/HK: 

• They have no 'extended end platform' with its raised handbrake on a stick. 
• They don't have a continuous side sill like the IA/HK/UK/PK, but instead have end platforms and protruding ribs in the middle to support twistlocks for the 'shorter' containers. 
• These IH (and the very similar IK) end platforms have a little central hump above the bogies when viewed from the sides. 
• They have side-mounted hand brake wheels.
• While older container flat wagons, dating back to the UK,  had their twistlocks mounted outside the side sill on a thin-bodied wagon, whereas the tops of these wagons are wider (the same width as a container), with integrated removable twistlock pockets set into the top deck.

Note the raised 'hump' on the end platform

Without the long side sills, building these will take a different tack, whereby the central rib pieces will be merely for looks, and not at all structural on the model. These were made up from some styrene shapes, as seen  below. I later replaced the central skinny square rod with some half-round at an angle to represent the central section of deck, as I figured the rods might be too fragile, hard to get lined up nice and straight, and hard to see under the containers anyway. The twistlocks are little rectangles of .015x.040 strip. Riblets:

The end platforms below were made from the same chunky rectangular styrene rod, with a thin .020 deck section between to give plenty of clearance for wheels and couplers. Oddly, these platforms have different lengths - one end of the wagon having an extra inner twistlock for some reason. 

These had bogie bolsters drilled out to take M3 bolts like the IAs, and similar Rapido coupler arrangements were effected (with one end of the wagon having a 'long' detached coupler, and the other one attached to the bogie that sits under the deck - see the IA blog entries to explain why!)

On top were glued twistlocks from the .015x.040 styrene strip. The same material was used to create the 'hump' on the platform. This isn't as pronounced as I'd have liked. The real wagons have quite a convoluted top deck shape, but as this will be hidden under containers, I figures the raised hump edges would give enough of an implication of this shapeliness. 

As can be seen above the platform ends (and the central riblets) were painted weathered black before assembly, as its always harder to paint all the fiddly bits later on. 

I had to add some additional sections of internal 'floor' inside the containers to glue the platforms to, and for later mounting of a spine rod.

It was then a simple task to line two of these containers up (one of each length!) and gluing down a 4x4mm piece of 'key stock steel' as a spine on top to join the two halves together and this also adds a little low-down weight:

You can see the coupling arrangements (one protruding, one inset) clearly in the picture above. 

Then the decorative centre side riblet pieces that were made in step 1 were attached:

Underframe sections were cut out (these are fairly plain on the prototype):

And installed. Slopey braces were fitted, along with a few underframe details, such as air tanks and cylinders. I 'painted' the inner surfaces of the sloped braces and the main underframe sides black with a sharpie pen before installing the braces, as its notoriously hard to get a paintbrush in there afterwards. 

A slightly trickier build than the IA, and done in spurts of a few hours over a couple of days, but they came out OK I reckon. 

I painted the sides a weathered brown to make the sill shapes and underframe detail pop a little. 

The IHs then had some some N scale handbrake wheels donated, reflective strip decals added, and I attempted to paint the twistlocks light grey. One of these days we will do some decals. On these newer wagons the lettering is yellow and applied to the black frame, whereas the IAs still have black class letters and numbers on a yellow patch.  

Ah, that looks better:

Plastic fantastic IA wagons

DB still needed some 'modern' flat wagons to go under his fancy new containers. 

Yes, I do need to get back to those brass IAs, but before I overcome that mental hurdle, maybe there is an easier way for now.  Three-foot-six models have some decent looking IAs that are 3d-printed in metal, but are $50 a pop and I usually have to do a fair bit of dremelling to them to make my chosen bogies and couplers fit.

The nicely detailed 3D printed ones, along with the MMW IAs, and the 3D printed 'open' UKs, also look at their skeletal best when empty, or carrying something see-through like a pair of tanktainers. 

To carry my long (prototype 7600mm) long GSH containers, it almost seems a waste to hide all that fancy etched or printed underframe detail and open decking under containers.

So maybe some cheap and nasty IAs could be made up from styrene, modelled off the MMW one?

.080x.080 rodding looked right for the chunky side sills that the HK/IA wagons have, with 14mm wide sections of thin sheet to hold them apart. My builds here are slightly skeletonised in their construction to give plenty of room for swivelling couplers and wheels. The bits that are open will be covered by the containers anyway.

I'm using Japanese 'Taki' bogies that are occasionally produced by Kato. I found these available as 'spare parts' several years ago on HobbySearch, but they are a short run item that was out of stock. I clicked on 'notify me when available' and forgot about them. Last year, I received an email saying they were suddenly orderable again, so I signed up for ten pairs. 

They are a bit larger than Microtrains (Japan usually models in 1:150 rather than the Americans with their 1:160), with larger metal wheels. If you get your monocle out, you'll see they have leaf springs  rather than coils, but the main downside is they have old school Rapido couplers on shortish shanks. 

As the IA has a handbrake platform at one end that protrudes out a way from the bogie mounting point, I decided to cut a coupler off the bogie and mount it onto this extension. As such, the coupler 'sticks out' from the wagon end like dog's roundels.

At the other end, an as-delivered bogie plus coupler would be mounted at the prototypical bogie pivot location, so its shorty coupler would be almost entirely under the wagon. But coupling two wagons with this arrangement (one short coupler and one protruding) would provide a good coupling distance between them. Obviously this means these wagons, plus any more that I make with these bogies, will be operated as a fairly fixed modern intermodal consist, with a microtrains coupler at each end of the rake.

Twistlocks were 'inferred' from .040x.040 rod. 

Underneath the wagon is a 4x4mm piece of 'key stock steel' from the local engineering shop as a spine to provide stiffness and a little weight. 

An ornate coupler box has also been constructed for the sticky-out handbrake end, and the wagon was then crudely painted, and holed for a M3 bolt and nut.

And with containers placed on top, these will look the part from the mandated viewing distance.

A final touch was adding some underframe detail, although this is barely visible beneath the deep IA side sills. 

There seem to be two versions of the IA, the ones modelled in the MMW kit (and in the prototype pic at the top of this) have a zillion smaller holes in the underframe beams, and the other style has 11 larger holes. As I happened to have a plan of the latter, I made this up after 'painting in the holes' black in photoshop and printed it out on the laser printer. Then a wash of brown was applied so the black 'holes' still show through. Hard to see on the finished picture. 

I believe the prototype only has an air tank on one side, but I ended up putting one on each side. 

Overall, these two styrene IAs were not difficult to build other than the coupler boxes. They probably took two hours to do each (four for the pair), but on the plus side, a wagon costs less than $5 in styrene and steel. 

Bolts/bogies and couplers are extra, but would also have to be provided if I'd purchased a 3D printed wagon frame. And had I bought one of those, I'd still have spent more than half an hour modifying it to take my bogies and couplers anyway.

And they were fun to make. It was a good idea to build two wagons at once, as the time to cut out another set of bits once the pondering was done was minimal. I probably should have made three!

Still needs some decals, some paint detailing, and handbrake stands applied. Fortunately some of the IAs have 'plain' lever handbrakes mounted above the deck (see the prototype pic at the top here). 

Fancy curtainside GSH containers

As DB noted, that now the UK container wagons have left revenue service, he lacks anything 'prototypical' to tow behind the DM. 

He had wanted to build a few of these striking modern curtainsiders for the Christchurch show last year, but couldn't get around to making them in time.  

Read on, dear listeners, for in this exciting episode, all those dreams will come true (dramatic chord)...

Righto, firstly the hard bit. In Photoshop I made up a grid of rectangular masks the right size, and then scaled and perspective-corrected a bunch of photos on layers underneath each 'hole' to fit. Thanks to Southern Rails' Mike H, David O, myself, KiwiRail, the container manufacturers and a few others I may have not mentioned here.

Regardless of the process, his resulted in the following fairly reasonable sheet, which I had printed out on some glossy sticky stuff at the local printers: 

This picture above has probably been resized by the blog software, but you can contact me if you want a full sized TIF file to print out. 

And now the easy bit. The real containers taper very (very) slightly towards the top when viewed end on, but this is so subtle I wouldn't be able to replicate it with any degree of accuracy or consistency, so mine are 'intended' to be vertical.

The basic faces of the containers were made from Evergreen styrene. 

• The sides are thick-ish 1mm (.040") plain sheet cut into rectangles 24mm tall x 61mm long. 
• The ribbed roof is 61mm long x 19mm wide, nestled between the sides to give a container 21mm wide.
• The ends are 24mm tall x 21mm (over-)wide. These were made from chunkier corrugated stuff.

One side and roof were stuck together, and then an end was capped on to keep things square. Then the other side, and finally the other end cap. 

Despite measuring carefully, using a magnifying visor and marking out with a fine blade, I have close to zero ability to produce multiple pieces of exactly the same size, no matter how hard I try. Nor to make a 90-degree line. In reality, some of these turned out slightly trapezoidal when viewed end-on, and a couple almost rhomboid in nature. The worst were re-glued into something bordering on rectangles with 90 degree corners.

Fortunately, this construction approach provides multiple ways of 'covering' the inaccuracies, especially making the ends slightly over-width for later trimming. Cutting out multiple 'end', 'side' and 'roof' pieces in bulk allows you to trim or discard any outliers, and once assembled, any bits that are a bit too large can be trimmed up to suit.

For added fanciness,  I applied .010x.080 strip to the ends of the roof, which provided a little detail and covered any gaps that remained from my assembly of the basic box. Again, these were initially chopped into slightly-over-long-lengths and trimmed to match once they were glued down.

Some little .020x.020x.010 squares faked up the twistlock pocket castings on top for a little added detail. More .010x.080 strip was added to the ends. These GSHs are considerably larger than the 'standard' (non hi-cube) 20-foot boxes I'm used to working with in NZ120!

And then there were five. Painted dark grey and stickered up:

Oooo. Cute. 

And since its quite quick to cut out and assemble the pieces in bulk, why not make a few more:

Ten up:

Searching for some Mojo via some brass IA wagons

DB returns.

It's been a while since I last allowed my poor typing skills to wander over these increasingly fallow blogfields, and although I am occasionally accused of bouncing between scales and prototypes, I haven't really done any modelling for six months or more. Every attempt to do something in NZ120 until recently has run into a demoralising buffer stop.

Case in point:

It occurred to me that I didn't have anything 'prototypical' to tow behind the Stadler DM at the Christchurch show last October, so it was fortunate indeed that Aaron Wall had a hicube container on one of his lovely wagons, because the DM is a lot taller than the 'normal' containers on my (now all withdrawn!) UK wagons.

A very long time ago, I purchased a pair of Mark's Model Works IA etches. So why not build these up to give me a pair of modern wagons?

Well, one of the reasons they have sat untouched for a dozen years or more include my aversion to soldering. The etches themselves are also quite complex-looking. The instructions are similarly scary at first, although are relatively straightforward after reading them a dozen times and finally getting my head round the basic processes.

OK, the IAs might be a quick win, so why not give them a crack?!

It turns out that when you cut the IA kit off the 'sprue', all that visible complexity is distilled into only two pieces: a straightforward deck, and the underframe. At first glance the latter looks like a squashed 20-legged brass tarantula, but, as long as you read the instructions properly, it all folds up very neatly within a few minutes to the accompaniment of a few "well, that's incredibly well designed" mutterings. 

The two pieces then clamp together very nicely under their own steam but it is suggested that you drop a little solder between the deck and underframe in the middle of the wagon to hold everything in place permanently. 

Of course that's when things went off the rails. 

I got my first bit of solder to stick almost immediately, but over the next fifteen minutes, I couldn't get any more solder to attach itself to the underside of the deck, despite pouring flux all over everything (including my jeans) and nearly melting the now-discoloured etches under a sustained carpet bombing of intense heat delivered by my soldering cannon. 

The solder stuck as expected to the folded underframe piece but blobbed up when meeting the under-deck and wouldn't stick to it with any consistency.

I was then left with a real mess. The over-heated deck warped away from the underframe, the solder blobbed between these growing gaps and cooled, making things worse. 

The deck and frame are now stuck 'apart' rather than 'together' and I didn't know whether to go back and risk applying more heat and compression to squeeze the two parts together, or just hide the mess under a container.

I headed upstairs, once again disillusioned by failing to complete what should have been a quick and easy task. Modelling seemed so much easier 40 years ago when it was just plastic, balsawood, a knife and some glue. All of which were easy to understand and control back when I had functioning close-up eyesight and I didn't drink far-too-much-coffee. 

A few months later I returned downstairs, to attempt the second wagon. 

Some lessons that had been learned: 

• The semi-industrial bottle of flux I have been using for some time lists a few metals that it is formulated for on the bottle.... but not brass. 
• I should have lightly sanded the mating surfaces first and would try tinning the deck first next time before mating the deck and frame. 
• I held the deck to the frame with wooden pegs, but could have used stronger clamps or pliers (it is indeed a recurring design deficiency that modellers are not born with three hands)
• The etch (or my folding process) results in some inevitable gapping between the side sills and the deck. This could be mitigated somewhat with a file.

That all happened a few months ago, and I have since resolved these (my) issues and built the two wagons, but for now, let us make a slight detour, as I want to construct some containers to go on them.

Hold this thought though, as we will return to the two brass IAs in a week or three. 

Wb 3 - A splash of paint and grot

DB comes out of stasis:

And just to let you know where the Wb got to. This post was actually drafted in July but I don't think this was posted .. I've added the last picture and a few paragraphs at the end.

I decided to spray a top coat. Mainly flat black but a drop or two of that weathered black included to take the edge off. 

Looks better from the mandated viewing distance and under less-yellow lights. There is still a bit of faceting on the domes, but the black hides it a little. Z scale couplers were also added fore and aft after the coupler slots were somehow opened out with files, without either breaking something or dropping the top onto the floor.

The chassis remains a stumbling block. I tested it today (December) and it runs fairly well - even in this state without the additional tender pickups, without the original cast boiler (for weight) and with rubber traction tires on the front wheels (these could be removed). 

I can probably cut off the fancy valve gear (the Wb had internal valve gear). And I'd extend the cylinders in a forward direction.

The stock attached decoder, which used to be in the tender, is too big unfortunately.  My original plan was to have it up above the loco (inside the top of the side tanks) but there isn't enough vertical room. 

There is room to put a Digitrax DZ143 or similar into one of the side tanks. The rest of the tank and bunker space could be filled with weight. Or maybe a 'stay alive' chip/capacitor depending on how big those are. 

I wonder if its feasible to put pickup wipers on the truck wheels? 

So overall, not much progress on this in the past few months. And there may not be for a while as I'm embarking on some improvements to the train room. 

An Ab. Or not. - 1

DB has had a busy lately, but has recently been down to the trainroom for the first time since the Christchurch Show...  

You may recall that I purchased a sound equipped Broadway Limited Light Pacific 4-6-2 earlier in the year, thinking that it 'looked about right' for an Ab.

So a week ago I decided to look more seriously for the first time at the Ab shell that 3-6 models delivered several months back.  

The Ab itself is a decent print. Things look in proportion. The boiler bands are a bit prominent and the diameters of the smokebox and boiler cladding look quite different, but that might be authentic, and anyway, it will all fade away when everything is painted black and a few bits of piping are put on top.

As can be seen, when I pulled apart the Broadway Limited tender, and there was a far bit of stuff in it. All wheels pickup power (as do the drivers on the loco). This is good. There is a multi-wire connector between the loco and tender. The sound decoder and a speaker also live in the tender. All nicely plugged-and-socketed for disassembly.

On seeing this. I decided that an A class might be a better choice, as I might be able to to fit all this back into a scratchbuilt 'box' A tender, but it won't go into a 3D printed Vanderbilt Ab one. The Ab tender print can be turned into a dummy, and hang around inside the Elmer Lane roundhouse.

A few visits to the Dremel in the garage had the underside of the boiler widened out to fit over the motor. It didn't take much effort actually. 

The problem was that even with that done, the whole body sits very high (of course!). A few more visits outside had me thinning out the inside roof of the boiler. 

Now that is minimalism. The main problem was that the chassis has a tiny white square socket above the middle driver (a socket for the headlight wiring) and a cast 'tray' that carries wires above the brass flywheel. I didn't want to risk disaster by removing these. So I thinned the shell further. 

All was going swimmingly until I decided to cut out out a small section of the top of the boiler roof completely, fore and aft of the steam dome, to let the white box and tray sit up into these holes. I'd cover the small holes with paper. 

Of course something snapped when I was reshaping the headstock and then the whole thing ended up on the concrete floor! The dome came off, as did the headstock, and the boiler cracked a bit. Bah. At least the little white socket and cast tray can sit up into all those holes in the boiler now, lowering the body onto the chassis to an acceptable height!

The holes have since been patched up. But not that well, mind you. 

The A doesn't have the Ab's prominent curvy steam pipes to the cylinders, so these were removed, plus the other details (makers plate etc) on the smokebox beside these. 

I think I'll leave the loco here for me to calm my nerves!

 --------------

Instead, lets take a serious look at the tender. Maybe that will be easier. And its really important because of all its guts. Being an American prototype, it's a lot longer than ours. With our much lighter axle loads, we couldn't carry nearly as much water and coal around.

The cast floor has bogie mounts and a coupler, plus the attachment clip for the loco drawbar, so I thought I'd preserve these features by simply shortening the floor. After unpluging the speaker and decoder, a few semi-careful slashes with a Dremel cut-off wheel had the black chassis ready to be snapped into three, with the centre bit then discarded.   

There are three 'levels' of stuff inside the tender. On the bottom are wires from the bogie pickups and the attachment for the loco drawbar. I've had to add some supporting steel rods as well, to hold my two chassis halves together. 

In the middle is the DCC/Sound chip. 

The speaker is on top. All these pieces are nicely plugged-and-socketed for easy detachment. The speaker is nicely shaped to fit inside the tender, creating a snug soundbox.

I wanted to preserve this clever design work, as well as the idea of a removable tender-top so that everything can be easily disassembled if there are any issues in future. 

After more pondering, I figured that the supplied tender top isn't a million miles off the shape of an A tender anyway, so I'm adapting it by lopping a bit off the back to shorten it, and building the coal box on top. Yes, the 'curved top wings' are a little high and should extend further back, but nothing a galloping horse would notice.

So the challenge is now, how to fit the guts back into the shortened tender (I subsequently decided to  extend the tender chassis by about 2mm from what I had cut it down to). It's going to be a very tight squeeze.

Top fits on the shortened chassis. Speaker to be shortened:

The speaker was relatively easy. I prised off the PCB with the socket, cut the PCB down, and relocated it on a shortened base. In doing this, it wouldn't fit easily, and I eventually broke the solder join between one wire and the PCB, so attempted to solder the tiny wires to the back of the tiny socket, then glue the remainder of the PCB onto the shortened speaker tray.

I then thought I'd better see if all this work has damaged anything by plugging things back together and giving them a run:

Good heavens. Its still runs and makes noises.

Playing Trains with Trackgang at the Christchurch Show

The BOP Trackgang NZ120 layout from Tauranga ventured south for the Christchurch train show held over the weekend (4-5 October). DB thought it would be rude not to go up and help out Russell J and John E from Tauranga, and Aaron W from Hamilton.

The milk train on the Trackgang layout, with highsiders on the inner mainline. Note the sidings for display.

The show: its a pretty impressive show. I don't have any actual 'facts' for you, but we were told that the marshals had to pause the entry door a few times on Saturday as the hall can only accommodate 2000 people at once. That seems like an exaggeration, but there were a ton of people in, especially on Saturday. Many faces reappeared on the Sunday too. Rainy weather all weekend helped.

The Layouts: I'd guess there were 15 or so there, but I didn't allow myself enough time to browse properly. I'd also planned to buy knife blades, styrene, some of Brian R's Scenic Textures stuff, a DM coffee mug and rummage through the N Scale offerings, but large chunks of time pass surprisingly quickly at exhibitions until I turn to a zombie towards the end of the day.

The hall at the end of the second day, when pizza was put on for exhibitors, which was a nice touch.

There were a few impressive Lego trains running back and forth using colour sensitive photo detection to change direction using different coloured blocks between the lines at each end.  There was a small London Underground station which was a neat 'slice through the earth' concept. I'd love to see a way of having more tracks in this (a pair of lines at 45 degrees on a lower level with passengers changing lines and levels).

There was a cute wee British N scale offering that had four trains running on two tracks, and an American N modular one had a nice wharf and cargo ship scene.

Half of Twin Peaks

I've always liked the German/Swiss 'Twin Peaks' layout with its multiple levels of action, loads of lights and animated skiers, cars, chairlifts, skaters etc. There is plenty to look at in every little nook and cranny, and the automation is very impressive. A wee Z scale layout was super smooth and quiet. 

I would liked to have had a closer look at Lawrence B's Rewanui when it was running, with the tablet-controlled points and remote uncoupling for shunting. The scenery at the south end under the bridges is coming along nicely, and its sector table is a work of engineered art. As are the overhead lighting supports.

Big little Swiss Tigerli.

A few other NZ scenic beauties were present. Grant M's Three Mile Bush is a lovely bush tramway with Climaxes and other Heath Robinson-like contraptions hauling logs around. There was a vertical boiler that could emit puffs of smoke on demand, and plenty of bird sounds emanated from the bush. This was a real crowd pleaser and I believe it won best in show. 

3 Mile Bush with a log train chasing a light loco

Local group One Track Minds had their big 1:64th modular layout there. The scenery is really well done on this, but I never noticed too much action on it. Perhaps I was looking over at the wrong times, or maybe its just too difficult to efficiently run bidirectionally and cross trains at the stations. 'Sometimes-NZ120-modeller' Victor G had some superbly weathered Sn3.5 locos here, including this gorgeously rusty DXC 5293 modelled before its repaint. I've been meaning to try something like this for a long time. Inspiring. 

Sn 3.5 rustbucket weathering by Victor. Marvellous.

Ian P had his neat little NZ120 Kaikoura layout which is another crowd favourite that was mentioned in the blog two years ago. Small, reliable, plenty of action, and its easy for him to interact with the attendees from within the donut. While not 1000% prototypical (it is a model after all), it captures the locale perfectly, and this is what draws the crowds. The two circuits of track and the moving cars and trucks keep people amused as they look for 'Oaro' and 'Nins Bin' and other recognisable features along the coast.

Coal train on the Trackgang layout.

Trackgang BOP:  I didn't know much about the layout before this weekend, but can now report that it's a brilliant exhibition layout. 

• It is double tracked all around, so again, while not a million percent representative of most of NZ's lines, the reason people are attracted over to layouts, and then stay, is to see action. Having two tracks makes this much easier, and for the majority of the two days we had five mainline trains running at once, some of them quite long.  
• One track was powered with DC, the other DCC, which is entirely practical. For a few minutes early on the Saturday we had to diagnose a short in the DCC, but the DC trains could keep running. On Sunday, the reverse happened and there was a brief short in the DC - this time the DCC trains kept running, so nothing was lost.
• There are three long (about three metres) staging tracks behind the backscene. Brilliant. This allowed (primarily DCC) trains to be set up behind the scenes, and then swapped in and out and then be stored to give locos a rest and provide some variety in what was out on the mainline.
• There were two or three passing loop sidings on each circuit at the 'urban end' of the layout. This allowed medium or shorter trains to also be stored and swapped out on the 'visible' side of the layout - more for people to look at. 
• There are also some industrial sidings at the urban end of the layout, and one clump became the loco depot, where we could display a bunch of locos that were not in use on trains. We also sat wagons in the sidings for show, whether they ran well or not. Another popular spot was a log unloading area, with long wagons, a log truck, piles of logs, and log handling payloaders. 

The urban end, with loco display and log yard beyond the footbridge.

• Turnouts are remote controlled from behind the low backscenes using rods, and switches that power the frogs. 
• Above a tunnel there is an 'airport' where a collection of Air NZ, RNZAF and Safe Air 1:144 planes were displayed. This was a popular spot with many folks who also have an interest in aircraft.
• There were lots of little scenes that kept the kids (and many adults!) amused. Deer in a gully, people walking, sunbathing. Sheep, a nearby dog kennel, a hedge trimmer. A few people spotted the Tardis, a DeLorean, or cars from the Fast and the Furious. These little cameos kept people looking and walking around the layout. 
• The 'non-urban' three quarters of the layout has winding curves, bridges and road overbridges. These areas were nice and long, showing NZ120 at its best, with long trains running through scenery. The highsider coal train had more than 40 wagons.

DM in action. Note the clever crowd barrier - the sticks plug into holes in the layout fascia, which is robust enough to take any mild shoving. Note the wee dude - counting wagons was a popular pastime for the youngsters, especially with the highsiders!

• The modules themselves contained some nice ideas in their construction. Robust and foolproof circular electrical connectors connected all the wires between modules, and the plugs were clipped in place under the modules when disconnected. Loose leg pairs simply plugged into holes under each end of a module. Hinge joints at each side of a the join with L shaped pins made assembly easy and means you don't need fiddly adjustable feet, as any one set of legs in the pair can take the load. The modules made the commute from Tauranga in a small box trailer equipped with racking. Modules have a fascia with holes to plug a rope crows barrier into (see pic above).

Inter-module wiring. Legs are all numbered, making setup easy, with the black painted end on the crowd-facing side.

Clipped up when unplugged.

Such features enabled the layout to be up and working within 50 minutes. This included unloading modules from the trailer, walking them into the hall, laying them out in order, putting in the legs, making the physical hinge joins, laying an extension cord and plugging in the electrics, attaching the black cloth skirt, and installing the integral rope crowd barriers. Then (some!) buildings and vehicles were placed. Getting out of the hall after the show ended was just as quick. Getting the layout up quickly gave us a change to set up and test a few trains so we would be ready to roll on Saturday morning.

Assembled and almost ready to plug in. Nice fascia. The airport is above the tunnel at the far end, and is yet to be populated with planes.

This was an enjoyable and stress-free layout to operate. Plenty of action, ample staging, loads of places to display non-operating stock, plenty to keep people amused, and most important, it was utterly reliable. There's nothing worse than operating an erratic or untested layout at an exhibition when you are holding your breath on every circuit, or any time someone attempts to run through a turnout. 

The one or two glitches we had were quickly fixed. Pretty good for a modular layout that has come almost 1000km in a trailer, that was set up on a subtly un-flat hall floor, and of course the temperature and humidity changes significantly during a very wet day with a hall full of breathing people. 

Some of my Digitrax locos didn't behave as expected on the NCE system, so were sidelined or placed elsewhere. Sometimes a disobedient wagon might behave better when spun end-for end, or  moved in the train if its coupler height was out, otherwise it was removed. The odd repair was able to be made. We ended up with eight or nine reliable trains on deck at once, and these could pretty much circle the layout for hours with out any issues.

Locos and a railcar on standby.

With the NCE's recall button, it was fairly easy to control three trains following each other around the DCC circuit - running one at a steady pace, and slowing or speeding the other two trains occasionally by one or two clicks to have them keep their distance. But you had to pay attention. Being distracted for a minute or two by some sideline chat with a punter might see two trains try to merge into one. 

On the DC line, faster trains had to be stopped periodically in an isolated section to let the slower one pull ahead. And having most of the loops and sidings able to be isolated as blocks has other benefits, for example, switching off one of the staging tracks to avoid upsetting the rest of the layout while putting on a new train.  I should do this on my modules. It seemed to me that the NCE dealt with shorts well. Of course the 'loco depot' area was switched out so we could put a mix of DC and DCC engines there.

Da with livestock. Note the fine power poles made from brass.

Trains and rolling stock on the BOP Trackgang layout over the weekend included: 

• A very cool milk train made from MMW etched ends and frames combined with sections of 'slightly un-polished' handrail tube. 
• A striking 3D printed Standard railcar fettled by Russell. There's nothing like a red railcar to catch the eye of the passing punter. 
• A Murupara log train behind a pair of old Dgs
• Tasman Forestry and Kiwi Lager locos.
• Two TranzScenic trains, including one pulled by a Tranz Rail bumblebee recabbed DG! There was also a KiwiRail Scenic Journeys white twinset railcar in attendance.
• A nice red Da hauling livestock wagons provided something a little older to look at. In hindsight I should have tried that Da or a grubby Dg pulling my three red passenger cars around to see if they ran.
• A few other 'mixed freight' trains ran over the weekend, including one DBR-hauled, and local man Jonty B had his DXR in on Saturday. This had an impressive LED ditchlight setup. 
• And the 'old' and 'new' coal trains were pretty reliable (and relatable to most of the local audience). A couple of the hoppers would derail when they dropping into the staging area. This was away from the public eye, but I'm kicking myself for not swapping those wagons around to see if that could have been cured. Not that we swapped that train out often. The highsider train reached 44 wagons at one stage, with Aaron's LCs being absolute works of art - brake hoses, etched side chains, handbrake levers, and... little loops on the side to tie your tarpaulin ropes to!  Wow.  He also had a couple of intricate etched container wagons that were very impressive. 

Note the side chains, handbrake levers, brake hose, and the rope tiedowns on the sides on Aaron's Trackgang LCs!

Almost prototypical - a  bumblebee recabbed DG on the Tranz passes a milk train that has been pulled over. Over on the DCC tracks, another Tranz passes going the other way.

A quick check of the NCE manual. I've never used this system before, so was of no help! Visible is the highsider train looking good on the reverse curves at 33 wagons, before Aaron's LCs were added.

Tranz Rail freight through the S curves on the Sunday.

DM again. Signals, relay boxes and crossing bells are fine details. The containers are Aaron's twin-layer etches.

NZ120 in full flight.

NIMT viaduct.

The DBR's freight train (Aaron Wall pic)

Popsicle DX (Aaron Wall pic)

Most of the stuff that I operated has never been used before in anger because this is the first exhibition I've run NZ120 on since 1995. And I loved it! Thanks to Russell, John and Aaron for coming down, putting up with me, and making this possible. Now to finish off my modules....