60012 Commonwealth of Australia

Some more progress on track laying over the last couple of nights. But first, trains! C26, a modified brass loco with scratchbuilt tender body, with a 9 car plus goods van passenger train, consisting of SAR D van (R-T-R); VR BC swing door passenger carriage (Kit built from a 3D printed kit, both designed and built by myself); VR ABW passenger car (Kit built by a friend); VR ABE passenger car (R-T-R); VR BE passenger car (Repainted R-T-R); VR BE passenger car (R-T-R), VR BW passenger car (modified kit, built by myself); VR BE then AE (both R-T-R), and finally a VR CE van, also R-T-R. In the background K160 is "shunting" wagons in 3 road to marshall a stopping goods to Ararat, whilst a set of SAR vehicles with a couple of VR added in awaits a guards van and loco to head to Adelaide. The next 3 photos are different views of the same scene. As for the actual progress, 3 of the 5 turnouts in the SA end yard throat have been laid, along with the catch points for 3 and 4 roads. The track up the incline to the coaling stage has also been laid, as has almost all the remainder of the underlay around the turntable approach tracks, with only a small piece in front of the coaling stage incline remaining to be done - the small triangle of bare baseboard between the incline and the two turntable approach roads. The cans being used to weight the track down while the glue dries were only taken off for the photos, in particular the track up the incline will need to retain the weight on it for at least 18-24 hours after being glued, to ensure the glue dries completely so the track doesn't spring up (being an 8% gradient with not much transition has it's disadvantages, even though it is required to fit the space I had). Some adjustment will need to be done to get the turntable at the right height for the rail heads to line up - I have started the work to do this, I will just need to go through trial and error to get the height right. The track and inspection pits around the turntable and approach roads will most likely be added on the weekend, as I plan to focus on the SA end and the mainline tracks tomorrow and Friday nights. As enjoyable as moving various pieces of stock and locos around is, I'm extremely looking forward to having all the track laid, and start wiring it up. Peter

Well the track laying in the station is now on the final stretch so to speak. 5 road and Siding A (the dead-end extension to 5 road at the SA end) have now been fully laid. The diesel depot is now fully laid. The incline to the coaling stage is now glued down and underlay glued on. All the loco depot underlay is down, excluding a small section leading up to the turntable which will require careful positioning, and will only be done once the coaling stage track is 100% finished so the position of the coaling stage (determining the approach track position) can be determined. First up, the diesel depot tracks were completed. The fuelling area will go in the large gap between the 2nd and 3rd roads. Next, as can be seen in the middle background here, the Woodlands Scenics risers up to the coaling stage were glued on. Being a short distance incline that will never have more than one or two wagons on it, it's an 8% incline (1:12.5). As can also be seen, there is plenty of stage in the diesel depot for the servicing and refuelling of more diesels than I have. Finally, the turnout back to the mainline and dead end extension (Siding A) on 5 road were added, which really shows how little station track is left to go. At this rate, the track in the station, and quite possibly loco depot, will be complete by the end of the week. Peter

Some more trackwork completed today. 4 and 5 roads were glued down up to the same point as 1, 2 and 3. The turnouts and most of the track for the diesel sidings and fuelling point were also added, with only the small extensions to the track on the baseboard on the far end to go. As can be seen the underlay will need a lot of neatening up/adding to/removing once the track is completed, my priority at the moment is having enough underlay under it to lay the track properly. Peter *Edit* On another note, I just noticed this thread has reached 1000 views!

Having spent most of the day in the shed, a fair bit more underlay and track is now down. The Victorian end yard throat has been laid, along with 1, 2 and 3 roads on the first baseboard. The underlay sheets for the roundhouse have been cut to shape and glued, and the underlay for the diesel depot is underway. Photos and captions below. First, the 2-road track glued down the other day was extended up to the board join, with a gap left for a copper clad sleeper. Next, the points at the Victorian end of 2 road were glued down, to enable 1 road to be fitted, and the turnout and slip for 3, 4 and 5 roads to be glued. While this was happening, some more underlay sheets were being added to the South Australian yard end, in preparation for the laying of the yard tracks. And, while waiting for the glue for both to dry to free up some of the cans (For weighing things down), the location of the turntable was marked, cut out, and the cross-bracing added to the baseboard - I had waited to fit the turntable before adding the central cross bracing, just in case I had to move the turntable, as if I had needed to it would have likely necessitated moving the cross-brace. At this point, using the 1:1 plan (I printed out the loco depot part of the plan in 1:1 scale to help position where all the track for the layout goes, as per my previous post the entire layout is determined by the position of the first piece of track glued down), I cut out underlay sheets to the shape of the roundhouse, which were joined together using masking tape first to ensure the size, shape and position was correct. At this point, having freed up some cans, I continued by adding the 3 road turnout and catch point. The two cans stacked on top of each other are due to some of the modifications I made to the catch point to make the throwbar area less obtrusive, but they resulted in a small, 0.5mm strip of plasticard being placed just underneath the sleepers at one point, necessitating two cans to hold it down - the foam underlay allowed the plasticard to sit in, but having no other track attached meant it needed the extra weight initially. While this was being done, the underlay for the roundhouse had been glued down and was drying. Next, 3 road (up to the baseboard joint), and the double slip connecting 4 and 5 roads, and the loco depot, were added. I stopped work at this point (being 11:45pm), and the cans were temporarily removed to enable the taking of the photograph. The underlay for the first of the 3 diesel depot sidings can also be seen, however will be extended further up towards the turntable tomorrow. The two long turntable roads (not the roundhouse stalls), and two short roads (for yard shunters) were also added at this point, and this was the condition of the roundhouse and turntable area when I left. Some renewed motivation (as seen from the progress made in the last week when compared to the three weeks prior) means that hopefully, the station area track will be finished in the next week or so, at which point the first of the real landscaping (coaling stage incline excluded, as that will be part of the work over the next week) will need to happen - the area with the dropped baseboard for the bridge, as the landscaping determines the height of the bridge, and no track laying past the bridge can occur before the bridge is in place. There is a large model railway exhibition here in Melbourne over the last weekend in August (24/25) which I'm saving money for, so no fiddle yard baseboards will be bought before then, however after that I plan to spend some more time *properly* clearing up the shed to enable the final 5 boards to be fitted, and hopefully the complete circuit will be ready shortly thereafter, followed by point motors and levers to enable the layout to actually operate. I'm uncertain how I will get the turntable to operate as yet, at least as far as which motorising kit to purchase for it. The control itself will likely be a DPDT centre-off switch mounted on the control panel (Also yet to be built). Tomorrow I have two family birthdays to attend (uncle and grandpa), and an open day at one of the universities I have on my preference list for next year, so there won't be as much progress today. Peter

The coaling stage, seen in my previous post, was entirely scratchbuilt out of plasticard, using 1mm plain styrene, 1mm planked styrene (2mm planking) for the sides, 2x2mm square styrene for the legs and edge bracing, and 0.75x1.5mm styrene for the leg bracing. The construction was commenced by cutting out the 1mm plain styrene to the overall footprint of the coaling stage (200x60mm), then cutting lengths of the planked styrene, 5 planks high, one to the length of it, and two to the width. These were then glued on, with the square styrene used to brace it, at 25mm intervals along the length of it, and with 3 on each end. Next, the leg units were assembled. This was done by taping three lengths of the square tube of the same length (in this case 50mm), at intervals of 29mm (for a total width of 60mm, the total width of the coaling stage). Then, two bracing pieces were glued on, before the tape was removed, the unit flipped, and two more pieces of bracing being glued to the other side, leaving a leg unit looking like IXIXI . These were then glued to the underside of the stage, at 25mm centres (with 9 leg units giving a total length of 200mm). Below is after the first leg unit was glued to the stage. After the second leg piece was glued on, I added cross bracing between the two leg pieces, following the same X pattern as the bracing on the legs. This was then repeated a further 7 times. Below are some photos after the 4th leg section was added and the bracing fitted. By the time I had completed the 6th leg piece and attached it, I had run out of the 0.75x1.5mm styrene strip being used for the bracing, so work had to be stopped for a couple of days while I waited for time to go and get more. Once this was done however, after a couple of hours work I had completed the final 3 leg pieces and subsequent bracing, which brought it up to the stages shown in the previous post. This is by no means a perfect, scale reproduction of a VR coaling stage - the fact that most were built to fit the location meant there were no diagrams available, and with no clear photographs of large-size ones such as this one all I had to go on were mostly obscured shots, with the locomotive as the primary focus. As a result, it has more leg bracing than most do (although I can not speak for South Australian ones, which may well have been built more to this style), and a couple of other minor details may be wrong (positioning of edge bracing etc). However, it certainly looks the part (in my opinion at the very least), and having spent several hours on it have no intention of changing it or building another (for the time being at least). More trackwork to follow later in the day when there is more than just a couple of slightly different looking points and copper sheet to show. Peter

Bit of actual progress for once, but first, more wagons! As per my last posts, last week I embarked on a program of increasing my wagon fleet, so that Borderton wouldn't be left with an empty yard all the time. To that point, last week I built and painted 3 open wagons and 4 vans. Yesterday, having a day off school for Parent Teacher Interviews, I constructed another two vans, this time a B type box van, and a UB type bogie louvre van. Here they are still waiting for brass handbrake details, which were added before painting. Once the painting was complete, I decided to see just how many vans I've built/collected, which led to this: This is the current wagon fleet. Of the _ wagons here, 19 are kitbuilt, 10 are unmodified R-T-R (other than couplers), and 7 are modified R-T-R, mostly either repainted parts, or replaced bogies. The new B van is 3rd row down 2nd from left, and the UB van is 2nd bottom row on the far right. Most of the kitbuilt wagons are yet to receive decals - it will happen one day but for the time being is not a huge priority, as many are still yet to receive details such as buffers or other modifications that may require repainting. Next up is some actual layout progress. Some time ago I scratchbuilt a coaling stage out of plasticard (I'll post photos of the construction later today, as they are on my personal laptop at home). Yesterday I painted it - an overall coat of matt black. Seen below just after being sprayed. The freshly painted B and UB vans can be seen in the background. Later that day, using bluetack, I created a former to put real coal on. Then, after a layer of PVA, the real coal (Woodlands Scenics, a mix of "Mine Run" and "Lumps"). Having checked on it this morning before leaving for school, I'm very happy with how it has turned out. On the layout itself, I have slowly been adding the Woodlands Scenics foam underlay. As it needs to be formed to the track layout, it has taken far longer than had I simply put a layer of cork over the whole layout, however the inclusion of the mainline run meant I wanted to include a decent ballast shoulder. Below are some photos of the progression of the underlay being glued down. Due to this type of underlay requiring the track positions to be precise to get the positioning correct, once I had reached this point I decided to glue down the first piece of track. The single piece of flex in the photo above was the one I decided to glue, as it started right on a board joint, so didn't require cutting, and being a dead-straight piece that started to form the centre of the yard, could then be used to position all the other track as accurately as possible. The next step will be to complete preparing all of the points (not all of them have had the wiring modifications), and cut some copper clad sleepers for the board joints. I hope to do this tonight, to be ready for more track and underlay laying tomorrow. Peter

The 7 wagons were painted over the weekend, having fitted the BB with the correct bogies (40T Cast with spoked wheels). The BB will still need some sanding and filing to hide the joins in the sides better, but it still looks better than the plain grey/white. The QR will receive a sleeper load, the I wagon a coal load, and the GY will probably remain empty. Peter

Thanks, Yeah, one of the things that frustrated me with Skipton was the very flat topography, my choice of location doesn't exactly lend itself to large hills, but a floodplains bridge shouldn't be too far from the realm of possibility. Having learnt from Skipton how easy it is to end up with very train-set type hills. I will be attending the AMRA exhibition, however for the first time in 3 years it will be without a layout - Skipton now having been permanently retired, partially due to this layout taking up the entire shed, resulting in no space for the required upgrades/repairs. The sale has fallen through for now, but I'm in no rush to get rid of it at this point. Peter

Thanks Yes, the QR does look very similar to the bogie brick wagons. It seems to be a very commonly used style - the SAR had them, albeit a 4 door version (the VR also had a number of 4 door ones, about 70 from memory, built after the 3 door ones, resin kits are available for the 4 door ones), Queensland Railways also had a very similar design, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of other similar types around the world. Peter

Not much layout progress recently, been slowly gluing the track underlay (Woodlands Scenics 5mm foam type) to the baseboards. Over the last few days of last week, and the weekend I built a number of new wagons for the layout: one BB type bogie box van, two T type insulated vans, one TP type insulated van, one QR type open wagon, a GY type open wagon, and an I type open wagon. All except the BB were standard Steam Era Models kits, the BB was a severe kitbash from two Steam Era Models B type vans. In order to get the side panels the right size, each BB van side is formed up from no less than 9 cut/shut pieces from the B van kits, and the ends required a number of the ridges to be filed flat (5 on the handbrake end, 3 on the non-handbrake end). Below are some photos of them. BB Van (Currently awaiting handbrake details and the correct bogies). T van (As there are two I only photographed one) QR wagon. The handbrake on this wagon was particularly fiddly, being made up of 4 brass and 4 plastic pieces. GY wagon. One of the nicer kits to build, although the brass handbrake detail is always fiddly (although not as much as the QRs!) I wagon. This one is far, far simpler, being a much older (1990s) kit, so has less detail parts to add, with things such as handrails being molded on. Whilst the BB van was built over 3 days (to give the sides time to harden before proceeding with other parts), the two T vans, QR wagon, I wagon, GY wagon, and TP van (seen in the photo below, it's the one with the black bogies) were all built on Sunday, between waking up at 1pm and starting to study for my Product Design assessment at 1:30am (The assessment was this morning, and despite only 3 hours sleep was completed successfully). These 7 wagons, especially the three bogie vehicles (bogie stock being few and far between in my fleet), will make welcome additions, and will help to fill the layout with stock. I have another T van (this time a short wheelbase one, unlike the long wheelbase ones above), two more GYs, and two M type cattle wagons to build, however have used up my supply of Sergent couplers so they will have to wait until I can order more (hopefully this week). Peter

Several hours and a lot of sawdust later, the remaining legs were cut and joined to the boards, and the boards bolted together. The layout seems so much larger now it's up on it's legs and the whole scenic section assembled, even more so than just having the MDF sheets sitting on the floor. Viewed from the South Australian end. From the Victorian end The dropped baseboard for the bridge can be seen in the background. Below is a close-up showing the board, with a trestle bridge I built for a diorama on it. The bridge isn't the right size or shape for the layout, otherwise I'd use it instead of building a new bridge. And, as usual, some track was placed down. I need to buy cork underlay and a new track cutter before I can stick it down properly, but it's really nice to see how it all looks properly. ^Station looking towards the Victorian end and the loco depot ^ Station looking towards SA end and the floodplains bridge (or site thereof) Loco depot, showing the 3-road diesel depot to the left, the coaling stage in the centre, and the two turntable roads to the right. The precise positioning of the track will vary from where it is now to enable all the turntable roads to fit properly and fit a decent size station and environs, but the arrangement of the track is more or less correct (minus some lengths). Peter

Ended up being somewhat busier than planned, got back from Maldon Wednesday evening, then had a friend over Thursday, went out to the Diamond Valley Railway (a 7 1/4" miniature railway in Melbourne) where I'm a volunteer and spent the day at a young members workday/playday (4 hours of sleeper replacement followed by train running), then went and chased the Steamrail shuttles between Bell and Mernda with A2 986 and K190 on Saturday. So, this morning, I made a start on cutting to size and bolting legs to baseboards (as, of course, Bunnings 1200mm lengths means 1200mm +/- 20mm). Cutting them down to 1150mm ensures that any lengths shorter than 1200mm are still useable, and yet will still fit over the stairs (there are small walls next to the stairs in the shed, which are 1015mm tall, meaning a minimum leg height of 1105mm to allow for the 90mm framework, 1150mm makes it comfortably fit over the top with some room to spare. The first board I started with was one of the 900x600mm boards, as the way I have set out the legs (see the plan in Post 1) means that there is a certain order that boards have to be joined in, as only approximately 2 in 3 boards have legs. Next, I did one of the two 1200x600mm boards that will receive 4 legs (one will get 2 legs, due to there being 6 baseboards along the scenic end means that I can't have the nice one with one without arrangement that can be seen on the fiddle yard boards.). Next I did the turntable board, which differs to all the others in that one of the legs isn't on the end of the board, as the bolts would conflict with where another board connects to it. Next I decided to take a break from cutting and joining legs, and the final turnouts and catch points having arrived on Friday decided to set out all the turnout arrangements and fit rail joiners and cut sleepers where necessary. With luck the remaining 10 legs will be cut to length and fitted, and the boards bolted together this evening. Peter

Today saw the completion of 5 more baseboards, leaving only two (one of the 900x600mm boards, and one of the 1200x900mm boards) to be completed, for which one (the 900x600mm board) has had the framework cut out. Below are some photos of the boards, including the one which is modified to allow for a bridge. The pile of baseboards slowly increasing (being piled up to retain the space being used to assemble the boards). The final basic 1200x600mm board has been assembled and added to the pile. This was followed by about half an hour being spent trying to decide how to do the dropped baseboard. In the end I went for an extra brace piece on the top of the boards, to drop it so that the MDF board will be below the bottom of the framework on the other baseboards. Below is a basic drawing of how this will work. Once I had decided that this was how I would do it, I assembled the board. Next, the first of the two 900x600mm boards were assembled, and is seen here next to the dropped baseboard, along with a close-up showing the assembly of the dropped board The two small strips of MDF will be added to the top of the planks used to bolt the boards together (the two pieces above the board), in order to bring the track height up to the correct height at each end of the board. That's all for now, will assemble the final two boards tomorrow and hopefully complete the legs before driving up to the heritage railway at Maldon to do some volunteer work there on Wednesday. Peter

After dinner I decided to go out and build some baseboards. This evening 3 of the 10 scenic boards were completed (minus legs) before I decided to come back inside. The 3 completed are the 3 to the top-right of the track plan in the first post. The first board completed was the hardest, as I had to use a jigsaw to cut it on an angle, as this board provides the transition between the 600mm wide station boards and the 900mm wide loco depot board. The cut was done, and the framework added. As always, the temptation to put some track down onto the completed board was too great to resist. The 3 tracks to the left are the diesel depot, the one to the left of the diesel depot is for the coaling stage, and the two to the right go to the turntable and roundhouse. Next, the 900mm wide turntable/roundhouse baseboard was built. The 2 boxes worth of flex track, 7 turnouts and double slip that form the scenic baseboard trackwork (aside from the 4 turnouts and 3 catch points that should arrive from hattons tomorrow or tuesday) can be seen on one of the unassembled boards. Next was the first of the 600mm station boards, seen here receiving the framework. I use 89x19mm pine with 9mm MDF, with 30mm 8G screws to hold the boards to the framework and 40mm 8G screws to hold the framework together. Then, once again, the temptation to put track and stock down was too great. This time however I started putting it down semi-properly, fitting rail joiners to the turnouts and cutting the end sleepers off the flex track. Cork underlay will be fitted prior to the track being laid permanently. Then a few locos and wagons were put down. In 5 road next to where the grain silos will be are a few VR 4-wheel grain wagons, in 3 road are a mix of VR and SAR general open wagons and vans, with 835 and a BP tank wagon next to the fuelling point, and S313 in the third diesel road. Hopefully tomorrow will see the assembly of the remaining 3 station baseboards, and the fitting of legs and bolts to all 6. Being on school holidays for the next 2 weeks means I will fortunately have a lot more time to work on the layout. Peter

Unfortunately not. All scenarios I can think of leaves it with either one of the 2 being unprotected (the most effective scenario I could think of left 5 road unprotected in one case and 4 road unprotected in the other), or makes moves from 5 to the main impossible. Either 10 or the catch point in 4 road (lever 9 catch) need to be separate from 9 to be able to have both roads protected and still have all moves possible, and in reality the catch point is more likely to be connected than 10. Thanks for the suggestion though. Peter

Haven't left my room to go and do baseboards yet today, but have drawn up the signalling diagram for the station lever frame. So far it's at 25 levers, not sure if I'll add any more shunt signals or not but it's a possibility. As I plan to use Cobalt S levers and Cobalt iP Analogue point motors, the 25 levers and 18 motors will be quite expensive. Whilst in reality it is likely that the loco depot turnouts (14, 18, 19, 21, 25) would be hand-thrown, they're still being included on the diagram and in the lever frame, and I may run point rodding to them (but I'm not sure yet). Most VR loco depots were hand-thrown, however a couple had some (but not all) turnouts operated from the signal box, including Korumburra, Seymour and Traralgon (all except one end of a double-compound were operated from the signal box at Traralgon). As such, there are precedents for having at least a couple of points operated from the signal box. Peter

Some spare time Friday afternoon and yesterday lead to the shed being cleared up enough to fit all the baseboards purchased, and then the boards being placed down to give me a look at how everything will look when it's finally put down. Below is after the track was placed down initially. Please excuse the mess that surrounds it. Next, some Peco turnout templates were printed off, added, and a passenger train placed in the platform road to get an idea of how long the platform is. The 7 car train appears short in the platform, and yet is double the size of the passenger trains that could be run on Skipton.\ Next, another trip to a local hobby shop yielded another box of flex track, and the final 4 turnouts, which along with the 4 turnouts and 3 catch points which are due to arrive from Hattons in a day or two will provide the rest of the track for these 10 scenic boards. These were loosely placed down, along with almost my entire fleet of VR and SAR wagons, reminding me that whilst they may have been more than enough to operate Skipton with, I'm going to need many, many more in order to run this layout well. Subject to how I feel today after a personal incident yesterday evening I may start baseboard construction later today, however at the moment am having difficulty finding motivation for anything so there may not be any progress until tomorrow. Peter

As biased as I am to VR stock, I have to agree that you can't quite beat the semi-streamlined look of the massive 500B and 720Bs (725-737 being the semi-streamlined ones), except for perhaps by an S class. I have a PDF file of basic diagrams for all SAR locos, the S, Q and K are other older locos that interest me and may end up as scratchbuilds. An Orient Express F class is definitely on the cards at some point as well as an Rx or two, which will most likely be a conversion from a Wombat Models NSWGR C30T which I hear is almost identical. I would also like a 750 or two, as the VR Ns are one of my favourite classes of loco. Certainly a long enough list to keep me buying/building for quite a while yet! Peter

Yes, it will be in the second story of the shed (the previous owners had a large pinball machine collection so built a double-story shed). One of the fiddle yard baseboards will have to sit over the stairs due to their location. And yes, the quality (or lack thereof) of the Bunnings wood is annoying at best, infuriating at worse. I went through an entire pile to get the 1200mm long framework, and even then had to settle for a couple of minorly bent pieces (not twisted though thankfully). Peter

The fiddle yard will be hidden for now, the red lines on the plan denote where the scenic sections end. I may extend them though to get more of a scenic mainline run, at the moment there's 7m of scenic mainline (counting the station), if I extend the scenic section along the curved boards I can get up to 9m, although I'm not a huge fan of scenic ~180 degree curves, even with the extremely large rardius. Peter

Yup, got a BGM 500B brass and whitemetal kit to build when I get around to it, and I'm hoping to get a resin kit of a 720B too. This is my SAR fleet at present: Austrains SAR 700 class, #700, superdetailed and repainted from ANR livery in DCC, Auscision. It still needs to have horns, numbers and piping shrikes fitted. SAR 830 class, #835, in SAR mustard pot, and a Powerline kitbashed 48 class to make Australian National DA1 (currently waiting for correct AN paint), sitting on Slamron Valley with my 11 SAR wagons, a mix of 4-wheel and bogie opens and vans. Next up is the rarest loco in my fleet, a Powerline R-T-R CL class. From the only source of information I could find on the R-T-R ones - they released them as body kits, but until I found this one on Ebay wasn't aware that they had ever been done R-T-R - there were only 12 made total, with as few as 2 of each livery/number. As such, this makes it the rarest loco in my fleet. For anyone interested, a google search of Powerline April 2000 newsletter shows the only information I could find, the section on the CLs is on the 1st column on Page 4. Here are a couple more photos of DA1. This was kitbashed from a Powerline models 48 class, with the front hood being cut down to form the sides and front of the nose, the top of the nose being formed from plasticard strip as was the front cab windows, side cab windows extended out and new dividers fitted, and a double-skin roof and aircon being formed from plasticard, with the number and light boards being cut from the remainder of the short hood and refitted to the top of the cab. The chassis was heavily modified to move the motor bogie to the rear (it originally fitted in the cab, however due to the lower nose it was unable to remain there. As with the 700 this is awaiting some extra detail. I also have two 930s on order from the Train O Rama 2nd run, 934 and 959 in SAR red and silver so I have one each of the single and double enders. For SAR rolling stock, I have 2 O type bogie open wagons, 3 OB type 4-wheel open wagons, 2 D type bogie louvre vans, 3 DW type 4-wheel ventilated vans, and a D/DA 4-wheel louvre van, and an Auscision BE which has been repainted into the 1930s Overland livery of green with black roof, and will receive yellow lining. Peter

Thanks Connor. The track plan is purely fictional, based on VR practices as unfortunately SAR track plans are hard to come by. My idea behind the name Borderton was a combination between Bordertown and Serviceton (having forgotten about Wolseley being between Bordertown and Serviceton, the logic was it was a combination of the names of the stations either side of the Vic/SA border. My other options were Pinnerton or Serviceroo, combinations of Serviceton and Pinnaroo, being the two border stations actually located near the border, but I decided Borderton sounded nicer.) In theory it is possible to modify the plan to have two continuous tracks, however I personally much prefer shunting and operation to continuous running, the through-road is primarily for running locos in, something I was unable to do with my last 3 layouts, all of which were end-to-end. My focus for operating is the process of loco changes, having a train come in from the VR fiddle yard, have the VR locos come off the train and get serviced, shunting locos do any required shunting, and then the SAR locos come on and move the train through to the SAR fiddle yard, enabling me to have a disproportionate number of locos relative to rolling stock as well as show something that I have never seen done on a model before should I choose to exhibit it, which is a possibility however if I decide to do so will not occur often due to its size. Thanks for looking. Peter

Here are the photos that I was unable to put in the post above: Points as purchased: Points as modified: Baseboard Materials: With the pointwork I have so far, I was able to complete most of the yard throat for the South Australian end (minus the two catch-points being shipped from Hattons): Star Trek: The Next Generation on in the background, always find it nice to watch something while I work! Peter

Having completed Skipton 2 years ago, and taken it to 7 exhibitions in that time, I decided it was finally time to start a new layout. From my experience with Skipton I had a few primary conditions that the new layout needed to have. 1: Through-running capabilities to enable running locos in. 2: Peco Code 75 trackwork, as the box sleepers on the Code 83 that I used on Skipton don't look right for Victorian track. 3: A large fiddle yard with at least 10 tracks. This is as on Skipton prior to the fiddle yard rebuild I often had trains sitting on the baseboard due to not having enough track. 4: A working turntable, with a preference for a Peco one, which scales out at 86' in HO. 5: A maximum size of 7.15 x 4.8 metres (approximately 24x16') , due to the size of my shed. 6: A minimum radius of 91.4cm (3'), to enable the running of my brass stock. In addition to this, I have recently begun an interest in South Australian locomotives and rolling stock, having collected 3 locomotives and 11 wagons to date. Therefore, for prototype (or basis thereof), it had to meet the following conditions: 1: A border-station, to enable the operation of both VR and SAR stock. 2: A large locomotive depot, as through-running of locos (except for the occasional transfer) wasn't implemented until almost 20 years after my modelling period. 3: A decent size yard, minimum of 5 roads including platform. 4: A long platform - the Overland, the passenger service between Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, ,and Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, was often around 8-10 cars long in the 1950s and 60s. At 26.5cm for a 75' passenger car in HO this meant a minimum length of 2.12m, and ideally around 2.7m. 5: Significant goods facilities to enable the transhipment of goods where necessary (through-running of wagons was permitted, but was rather rare). Namely at minimum a 75' goods shed, 50' goods platform, stock races for both cattle and sheep, and wheat facilities (if located near Serviceton or Pinnaroo, the two real-life border stations to the north of the state. There was another one to the south on the South Australian side at Mount Gambier, but it was much more of a branchline.) A number of plans were sketched out, with one drawn up in Anyrail (this early plan will be posted this afternoon, this is being done on my school laptop during a spare period), however I wasn't satisfied with them, as I wasn't able to get all my requirements into the space the way I was drawing it up. Success finally came, albeit on the back of an Accounting assessment whilst waiting for it to finish. The following plan was drawn up, and then transferred to Anyrail from memory when I got home. The plan fitted all requirements. Through-running is possible through the use of the centre fiddle yard track (with the other 7 either side being dead-end). Peco Code 75 track is used throughout, even better it is all large-radius with the exception of the single curved turnout in the fiddle yard. The fiddle yard has 15 tracks, including the through-road. The turntables are all Peco, and it's overall dimensions are 7.1 x 3.6m (~24' x 12'), with a minimum radius of 1m (~3'3"). It is also a large border station, with a 5 road yard, 15 road engine shed, 3 road diesel servicing depot, 2.7m long platform, 75' goods shed and 50' goods platform, grain silos and stock races. Having had my 18th birthday on the 18th of June (Tuesday last week), I received a number of vouchers for my favourite model shop (Metro Hobbies), and for Bunnings. Thus, in order to force me to not continue changing the design (my habit of doing so being the only reason I haven't built a new layout since Skipton), I started buying items. I started with track due to needing to wait for Mum or Dad to come with me to go to Bunnings (I'm not allowed to drive unsupervised yet). I bought 2 left-hand turnouts, 3 right-hands, the curved turnout, and the double slip (known as double-compounds in VR terminology), along with the turntable for the scenic section and a box of flex. The turntable was quickly assembled, however the handrails have been left off as it will be modified to represent a South Australian 85' turntable. Another 4 left-hand turnouts and the 3 catch-points are on order from Hattons and should arrive either tomorrow or early next week. The sleepers around the tiebar on all points and the double compound were modified, with the sleepers cut down to the same length as the others around them, and the tiebar also shortened. The wood for all of the baseboards except the 5 fiddle yard boards was purchased yesterday and Tuesday, in the end I had to go to 3 different bunnings to do so as the first one I went to didn't have the 1200x600mm MDF boards, the 1200x70x35mm lengths for the legs, or the 1200mm lengths of the framework. The second bunnings had those two, however didn't have the 70x35mm size for the legs, thankfully the final one did, however even then it didn't have all 22 pieces I needed to do the scenic section, so for now I only have 14 legs. Baseboard construction will commence this evening, and hopefully all the scenic baseboards will be assembled by the en of the holidays (tomorrow is my last day of school for the term). I intend on eventually getting an NCE Pro-Cab 5amp system for the layout, however for the time being it will receive the Powercab from Skipton. All pointwork will have Cobalt motors, and I hope to use Cobalt S levers for control, at least in the station area - the 28 lever frame for the station yard will be expensive but hopefully somewhat impressive! Due to cost I may end up utilising Peco levers, or even just plan SPDT centre-off switches in the fiddle yard, however will still use Cobalt motors due to having had issues with polarity switching with Peco and SEEP motors in the past. Due to the size limit of files, I am unable to upload any other than the one above (having initially uploaded a couple and then deleting them to resize them so I could fit more, before finding out that uploaded but deleted files counted towards the limit), so they will be put in the next post Peter

Not much progress lately, unfortunately Year 12 has a nasty habit of getting rid of any spare time I might otherwise have. Additionally, having been asked very nicely to bring it out for another last exhibition, I'm currently busy preparing Skipton for it's final final exhibition over the Easter weekend. However, after a lot of thinking and discussions with a couple of people regarding my modelling choices, the decision was made to change the location and era to one which fits in my other UK based modelling interests, so that locos and rolling stock that I buy for the layout can be used (albeit gauge converted to P4) on whatever layout I build in the future, once this one has been sold off or given away. With that in mind, the period is now 1946-1950 LMS. The LNER signals I will just have to live with. The first loco has been ordered, a Mainline 2P from Hattons (see attached photo from the Hattons stocklist), along with a Ringfield motor replacement from Ebay. Rather amusingly, the total cost of $72.50 AUD (including shipping for the loco and motor) was less than the £73 GBP price for a new Hornby Railroad 2P (at an exchange rate of £1 = $1.85, this represents a saving of $62.50). The money saved will, in a couple of weeks, be used to buy an Airfix 4F and another replacement motor. My reason for buying second-hand locos and upgrading the motors is due to budget - I recently invested basically all of my savings into getting a model factory produced overseas (A Victorian Railways infrastructure item, will be available in a couple of months once production is complete), so as a result I am limiting my spending on models for the next while. The 2P, and eventually 4F, will have their tension-lock couplers removed, and have screw link or 3 link couplers fitted as appropriate. Over the school holidays I plan to wire up the layout, finish the station and signal box, build the goods shed, and ballast, however this may happen sooner or later depending on spare time. I hope to have an update with some actual progress and photos soon. Peter