Layout ideas.

I've been looking at the pictures at http://www.kiwibonds.com/ taken around Dunedin in the 1980's. As this was where I got my start in NZ120 ( and my family is from around the are) I've always had a soft spot for the railways of the area. So, I've come up with an idea to model an interesting part of it that has not been done before. I've based the layout on the line between Dunedin and Port Chalmers where it runs beside (and across bits of)the Otago harbour.

It's a bit minimalist in terms of point work etc, but the main aim is to run trains (which I suppose is then a signature design feature of all my layout designs). The blanket bay section would run down one wall, and be about 3' deep, with the track across the causeway 12" back from the front of the layout. the Roseneath tunnel is very useful, as the layout can either be linear, or bent at right angles here to fit in a room. the line runs through sawyers bay, and then either runs up the hill on the SIMT, or into another tunnel to port Chalmers. If there was more space then port Chalmers could be modeled to have an area for shunting on the layout. The real beauty of this scene is that it has not really changed since the 1960's, and therefore is completely flexible in terms of rolling stock, from Ab's and Ja's ( and possibly even Wab's from the 30's) through the Dg/Di/Dj era of the 1980's to the Dx/dc combination of the modern age. I do wish I was a better artist sometimes to do these ideas justice, as I have a fully developed picture in my mind of how it should look.

Guest spot: David Weedon

Sent in today, and I had to share this before I head off to the monthly meeting/support group. Davids work is reasonably well known on the NZ120 yahoo group, but not much outside that. his layout is a lovely looking model that I would like to visit in the flesh. David has sent in these pictures, and this description as well.

Working Coal Bins

These bins are loosely based on a plan in the Journal
I made the bins from scribed styrene sheet.
The roof is Campbell Products corrugated roofing
There are lights in the office, the upper area and beside the discharge point.

The top comes off so imitation coal can be dropped in.
The power connection is to enable the unit to easily be removed from the layout.

Here is the hopper which lifts out of the bins.
You have to make sure coal will flow down the interior corner valley angles
The motor has a worm and wheel drive from Jaycar.
The screw conveyor body is brass with the internal auger made from an old auger drill bit.
I turned the ends down to fit some brass bushes and made the auger OD match the inside of the brass tube.
It makes a lovely noise as the coal goes through.
It takes about 10 seconds to fill a wagon

Here are the bins in position on the layout with the Y class shunting some bog cast Lc wagons running on peco chassis.
There is a hole between the rails to let any overflow coal go into a plastic container under the layout.
One day I will install a miniature camera so I can easily see when a wagon is full.

I'm impressed by this. I would never have thought of building a loading working coal facility. More pictures gents please.

“Realistic scenery with realistic prototypes at a realistic cost”.

I can't resist to comment on the back and forward on the list in the last few days. There's large questions about how to grow the scale. Again it always comes back to cost. Since I'm going through the process at the moment, lets do the numbers.
1 pr of wheels, N scale metal UK1.60 = NZ4.20 at this evening's exchange rate. 1 pr microtrains couplers at US$2.50 = 3.70. So the fixed costs are NZ$7.90 before we add anything. lest say that the total cost of a 4 wheeled wagon chassis is $10. If you are selling them through shops, once you add the %50 you can see we get to $20, just for the chassis. Now, you can avoid selling to shops, but where do you place the benchmark for breaking even by selling X units.
Its just as well I'm going to make models for me isn't it ;v)

The resin years

In the 90'2 I did all of my casting in resin, even for bits that I shouldn't have. I didn't know any better (and now that I do, I'm still not sure I'd do anything differently).
Kiwibonds has come up with some pictures of some of the resin casting that I did back in the dark ages.

From left to right (I'll get it right this time), a mk3 resin Dc top, an Etchcetera Dc, and a DBR made from resin Dc bits.

Can you tell the difference from 2'?

Kiwibonds has sent some closeup pictures of the DBR, which is a nice little model, while also pointing out all the flaws in my casting and master/mould making skills.
The description reads 'Hood was cut it in half to remove a pair of engine room hood doors, new exhaust stack cover, replaced the cab with a paper one PVA’d onto clear plastic from a shirt box. Chassis was new made of styrene including the high heels for the cab and nose.'I'll point out that any flaws are down to my casting rather than anything else.

'Honestly officer, I haven't been drinking, my nose always looks like this...'

(I'd like to thank Kiwibonds at this point for giving me stuff to write about while I'm busy at work sorting out stuff to file some patents. Nothing earth shattering just giving the start up company I work for a leg up into the industry. Hopefully I'll get back to some real modeling next week after this madness has finished.)

Oh the horror

Found by amateur fettler (having seen his house I'm not quite sure how) during a hunt for something else (possibly his children).

T-square, who needs a T-square?

This appears to be a Mk1 version of a 2' models resin Dc top. This was from memory the first crack I had at a master and mould for a locomotive top. I also seem to recall selling a few. It's a one piece casting from a 2 part mould. Note the notches in the sideframes to fit the handrails in. the windows were just painted black. The numbers on the cab were letraset, and the writing on the side was printed out on a laser printer as a strip, glued to the side and them the colours were blocked in. Not sure if it would be good enough for anyone else, but in 1992 it was state of the casting art. having said that, all the major detail is there, even a radio aerial on the cab roof.
(So, how can your modeling be worse, send those pictures in otherwise I'll have to let the resident nutters out again;v)

Saturday morning guest spot

Courtesy of Kiwibonds we have this mornings post. As with any post the views here are not the views of the blogs owners unless they coincide with the views of the blogs owner in which case they are said views. Again thank you for your attention.

Did Trackside 120 move the scale to the next level or deflate the hopes of a new generation?

Pate Eade’s Trackside 120 kits broke new ground and elevated the scale to new heights. Suddenly we had a sprawling range of wagons available! Suddenly we were as good as Sn3½, with a broad range of quality whitemetal kits. Wagons, carriages, locos, accessories! Alas, the week I received three hundred dollars worth of trackside kits marked the the end of my NZ120 experience. The DFT was a disappointment for some detail challenges but it was the wagon chassis that killed it for me.

Today, half a dozen years later while assembling some Trackside LPAs and NCs I remember why. Nice wheels, but in bendy whitemetal holes? Squeaks! Friction! How about some bearings then (not included). I had some from the UK 2mm scale assn so put in high hats. OK, now the solebars are way two far apart and they won’t even fit on the floor. How about some cup bearings? OK, closer but still looks weird, Could try drilling deeper holes… but then, is this really worth the effort? I thought we were shelling out money for kits to make things easier…How about no bearings then, squeaking and friction be damned? Great, now without bearings, the wheel rims rub on the solebar inners which are for some reason thicker than the hornblock containing the axleholes. How about angling them? Nope, wheels pop out when a smidge of weight applied to the top. Maybe file them down for more clearance… ok, now they are all bent. Jam them in, superglue them cos I can’t solder, break them apart try again to get them straight. I couldn’t even make a flat square 4w chassis in S...

arrrgh!.

OK, it’s finally sitting flat, now apply some ends and …now the chassis is too long for the NC sides!!! I guess I was supposed to cut the solebars shorter but have long lost the instructions. As if boys read instructions anyway. Is this a kitset? God I hate those couplers. And the bogie centers! Several feet further in than they should be to clear the couplers. And you can’t move them easily outboard because the bolsters are cast in. And can I live with flexy whitemetal bogies with no bearings? Arrrgh!

resin vs trackside on peco vs trackside too long

The tops are really nice though, loads of detail in nice, thin, crisp castings. My solution: bin the chassis and put the tops on Peco 4 wheeler or microtrains bogies. I can mod a peco in less than a minute, and its bulletproof. For the NC, that means basically after spending all that money, I’m keeping the two wee ends and doing the rest in plastic.

mod a peco

I’m no Robin Knight, but I’m hardly the lowest common denominator either. I wonder how many others thought “great! finally a quick and easy way for a non-scratchbuilder to get into the scale properly” …only to end up disillusioned.

I hope the next kit makers will learn from my experiences. NZ120 may attract fine modelers, but it will never be the scale of choice for finescalers. To make the scale more accessible, you have to make it easy. Decent tops on modded Pecos or Microtrains are fine thanks.

Friday night shot

Ive just been over at www.kiwibonds.com, and maybe it's the beer, but I've picked out a shot I really like.
Back from the 80's (big hair, velvet boots, shoulder pads, and then there was women's clothes)here's another shot from the Ken Devlin collection. There's just something about this age, and this photo is a good example. A rebuilt and unrebuilt Dg head a train of scarp metal ( how apt) north from Sawyers bay. A pink Dj heads the Port Chalmers shunt back towards Dunedin. Even the 30' steel vans as well. All the trains in this picture are from a bygone age. From a modelers point of view the 80's are just as valid as the 60's as a modeling period, as there was a major changeover again from the first generation diesel loco's to the more modern Dc's, Df's (now also gone) and Dx's. I remember carrying a paint chip from a rebuilt Dg (2111 I think from memory) for years.
for more pictures if you have not already looked http://www.kiwibonds.com/KenDevlin/KenDevlin.html
(thanks to Darryl for making these available. They are true modeling gold)