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Borderton: Victorian and South Australian Railways in HO


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4 minutes ago, DougN said:

Can you check the drawing you were using for any names for the drafting or sign off, the name I am looking for  is John Nash. 

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No reference to a John Nash, J. Nash, or even J. N., sorry. This is the same in the bottom corner of all the plans I have, although dates adopted and plan numbers differ (F.269 for example is 'Substructure of Timber Bridges: Two Pile Piers - Narrow Gauge Lines'. The legibility of the signatures of J. H. Ashworth? and W. Bromby also varies!

 

Peter

 

 

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Thanks for looking. I am guessing by the engineers sign off this is actually the engineering inside the railways where as I believe that John Nash did the shop detailing. Ie the length size of the timber and holes to be bored. It is a bit different to today where we have recharge able drills, back at that time the drills were large and cumbersome and needed a power supply near by. So the idea of dragging a drill and generator all the way to a bridge in the middle of no where wouldn't have happened it would be more likely to be drilled and cut to length at a factory then transported to the site and assembled the same way now we do structural steel. It is amazing to think that less than 100 years ago what we think is everyday handyman tools would have been unimaginable! The holes at the bridge would probably have been done with a bit and brace! 

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  • 1 month later...

No work on the layout recently as having to study for my Year 12 exams (first one is October 31, last is November 8), I haven't had more than an hour or so of spare time at a time, meaning it's inconvenient to go out to the shed, get tools etc out, only to have a short amount of time before having to pack up and go inside again. What I have been working on, are model designs for my business. Most of these will be seen on Borderton, with the an obvious exception. One of my long-time interests has been Victorian Railways swing-door carriages, the name given to the type of bogie stock constructed between 1887 and 1910 approximately. As such, I've been working on designing the entire range of carriages (with the exception of some diagrams with small numbers of carriages built), for 3D printing. A couple of my 3D designs are below.

This first one is a suburban electric D car (the M car of this diagram is identical, I just need to finish designing the mechanism and chassis for it). 11 D cars and 39 M cars were modified to this design, from loco-hauled cars, between 1919 and 1924.

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The second is the carriage that the M and D cars were converted from, an AC first class carriage with van. Most were converted to M or D cars, but some remained as loco-hauled cars and recoded to BC second class cars from the mid 1920s.

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I had actually completed this design, right up to the point where I realised I had made the two panels between the end and the guards doors too wide, missed a panel between the guards doors and the passenger compartments, and made it 2mm too short. I have already got two prototype models of this design 3D printed to me, to the current (as above) wrong design, and I'm part-way through fixing the errors. Below is a photo of one of the completed prototypes, having had bogies, buffers and couplers fitted, been painted, and decals fitted. It still needs a dullcoat to dull down the gloss paint.

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The cars are also missing some underframe detail, as good photographs of the cars are few and far between this makes that part difficult. 

 

Long-term, I have 34 different types planned, ranging from the original, as-built 45' and 50' long cars, the extended 58' cars (as per the one above), and the suburban electrics, which I've designed all from scratch, as none are available, and only 5? variants have ever been available, kit or R-T-R, and none have been available for the past several years at least. At some point I'll have to build a layout to run the electric units on, but for now I can inundate Borderton with loco-hauled cars, filling a gap in my carriage fleet.

 

Another gap in the carriage fleet (consisting of currently 11 carriages) was filled the other day with the addition of two Victorian Railways S cars, in the blue and gold livery they carried between 1954 and the 1980s. These are from the latest run of Powerline S cars, purchased in a sale on Ebay, 20% off, a not insignificant saving when they cost $165 each normally.

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That's all for now, hopefully more progress after exams are over!

 

Peter

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Today's study breaks saw one side of the other two coaches, 37B and 58AC , having the window frames painted and decals fitted. When together these cars have an operational time period of September 1929, when 7BC was recoded from 7AC, and July 1931, when 58AC was recoded and renumbered to 19BC. Below are photos of the entire set, and each individual car. One thing I forgot to do before taking these photos was adding the underframe number to 58AC, but it's since been added.

 

The entire set, left to right 7BC, 37B, 58AC

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7BC, as shown the other day, suitable for the time period September 1929 when it was recoded from 7AC, to the late 1950s (if it got repainted into the bright red introduced in 1954 for VR carriage stock), or September 1966 (if it wasn't repainted prior to withdrawal, which is entirely possible.)

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37B, suitable for the period from 1910 when it was recoded from 37BB to 37B, until 1951 when it was stripped for use as a Workmans Sleeper car, although the conversion was never completed. Of interest is the fact that this car was loaned to the SAR from October 1942 to November 1944. 

Prior to 1910, VR bogie stock was given dual letter codes, BB for second class, AA for first class, ADAD for first class with van compartment and so on, with single letters denoting four wheel stock. Post 1910, four wheel stock was recoded to X, Y and Z, for First, Second, and Guard respectively, hence the recoding from 37BB to 37B in 1910.

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And finally 58AC, suitable for the time period June 1911, when it was extended from 45' to 57'3", to July 1931, when it was recoded and renumbered to BC18.

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These cars should provide a nice addition to my somewhat sparse coach fleet, now that I have the full set operational. The cars are fitted with Sergent couplers on the van ends of the BC and AC, with Smiths screw-links on the B and passenger ends of the BC and AC. They still require windows, decals on the other side (in the case of 37B and 58AC), dullcoat, and at some point will be retrofitted with underframe detail once I've designed it.

 

Peter

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For quite some time my wagon/coach storage boxes have been full, with excess vehicles being left on the layout. Yesterday, along with another blue and gold Powerline S car (5BS), I bought another wagon storage box, which brought on the need to empty the other 4 and re-organise them, as I like to have them all sorted in a very specific way. This gave the rare opportunity to get some photos of my entire loco and wagon fleet.

 

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Overall, there are:

33 bogie vehicles
5 bogie guards vans (+1 on long-term loan)
3 4-wheel guards vans (+2 on long-term loan)
10 passenger cars (+4 on long-term loan)
52 4-wheel wagons
7 steam locos
6 diesels
1 railmotor
Plus 1 part-built steam loco, 1 part-built diesel, 4 diesel locos on-order, 4 part-built 4-wheel wagons, 1 coach on-order, 5 4-wheel wagons unbuilt and 2 bogie wagons unbuilt. The vehicles on long-term loan are included in these photos as they're also being stored in my boxes.

 

The one thing this really shows up is the disproportionate number of wagons to carriages, so once I've completed the final part-built and un-built wagons I'm going to focus on my passenger stock fleet, and on increasing my SAR fleet. I'll be obtaining a resin 3D printer soon, an EPAX x10, which is large enough to 3D print any VR carriage I could want, once I've made designs for them that is!

 

The 3D printer will also allow me to make the largest building for Borderton, the station, as well as make platforms rather than spending $200 (at $20 per 30cm section for VR platforms). The station is something I've been putting off for a while, as to get a decent quality 3D print done by someone else (shapeways etc) would cost several hundred $ at best, given the size of it, and as it would have taken a significant amount of time to build it by hand with plasticard. This combined with the fact that I'm much more confident in my ability to get things nice and square and symmetrical with 3D designing means that it will now be possible to get the station completed in a much shorter timeframe than previously estimated. The station will be a loose copy, with some variation, of Serviceton station. The photo below is of Serviceton from the Wikipedia page. 

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As can be imagined it will be a very time consuming task, but will hopefully be worth it for the end result. During study breaks I have also been preparing to continue with the track modifications, this time at the South Australian end of the yard, where a turnout will be pulled up and replaced with a double slip to extend #3 road, and the spare turnout used to put a dead-end extension on the platform road, enabling faster loco-changeover from Victorian Railways to South Australian Railways locos. The extension will be long enough to fit two Victorian Railways R or X classes, the longest locos double-headed on the VR. 

I plan to start buying point motors and other associated control equipment early next year, and will start work on the 5 remaining baseboards (fiddle yard) at the same time, with the goal of having the layout fully operational by June.

Subject to how far along it is when the invite for the Caulfield 2020 exhibition arrives, I may or may not submit an application to exhibit it then, obviously if it's not going to be very complete then I'll be waiting until 2021 to exhibit it. When I know if that will happen or not I'll post here. 

 

Peter

Edited by 60012 Commonwealth of Australia
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  • 2 weeks later...

The first bit of layout work in several weeks happened today, with underlay being glued down for an extension to the siding the grain silos will go on, as the first part of major changes to the South Australian end of the yard. This extension will more than double the capacity of the siding from 9 4-wheel grain wagons and a short loco to 19 or 20 4-wheel grain wagons and a short loco. Borderton_64.jpg.2b74f900f068930cade9916e35f3d012.jpg

 

Work on the more major changes, including the removal of two catch-points, replacement of a turnout with a double-slip, and re-locating said turnout to the platform road to enable faster loco-interchange between the VR and SAR system, will commence either tonight or tomorrow. 

 

Peter

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1 hour ago, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

Don't know about these getting down your way, but one of these would be nice.

 

Taken by me, at Aldgate, in the Adelaide Hills. 1969.

 

manna

 

 

520 class 526 at Aldgate 1969.jpg

I think the 520s ran out to Serviceton occasionally, but one or two are definitely on my list of locos that I'd like to get for the layout. There are a couple of resin kits designed to fit on Bachmann R-T-R chassis available which I look at every now and then, will probably get one once the layout is more complete.

 

Peter

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  • 1 month later...

Merry Christmas to all those who view this thread!

 

As I'm currently nearly 2 weeks into our 5 week holiday, writing this from my hotel room in Helsinki, there has been no progress on the layout recently. However, on a personal note, I got accepted into my first preference for university - a double degree in Business and Accounting at Monash University, close to where I live. At this point my uni timetable looks likely to be completely clear on Mondays, which may well get set aside for railway purposes, either volunteering at one of the heritage railways I volunteer at or for work on the layout.

At some point during the year I may also continue on construction of a layout I'm building on commission for someone else - subject to funds starting to appear from their end again, at which point Borderton may get taken down for a couple of months to enable work on it. 

 

I hope everyone has a great new year, and I look forward to being able to show some more progress later on!

 

Peter

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  • 1 month later...

Finally some more real progress on the layout. This will most likely be the last for some time, as once some materials arrive Borderton will be dismantled so I have the space to continue working on a layout I'm building on commission for someone. 

The first item on the agenda was to test whether the sidings made available in the last track plan change would be suitable for carriage storage. These are two of the three sidings that formed the diesel depot on the original plan, the third of which will become the cattle race, which gives the excuse for the wider than normal gap between roads 2 and 3, which was originally going to be a fuelling point - keeping the smelly animals away from the nice clean carriages. How often these sidings will end up getting used for carriage storage will remain to be seen, but the possibility is there, with one of the sidings fitting 4 75' carriages, plus a standard length bogie guards van, and the second fitting another 4 75' cars. 73389348_Borderton65Compressed.jpg.f524140813e42b30b9aab9406efc7d51.jpg

 

The next item on the agenda was to lay the track to finish the extension to the grain silo siding. This was done, and the new siding will fit 18 standard length 4-wheel grain wagons and an F class (VR imported Class 11). The oil tanker is included in the rake as I only have 17 grain wagons so far!

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Seen in the foreground is one of my latest projects - an SAR Model Co 400 class single-car Red Hen railcar. This one is almost complete, only needing couplers, a DCC chip, decalling, and the windows being fitted to be complete. I also have a 300 class 2-car set to build, the 1st car can be seen part-built in the background behind the wagons. The remainder of the trackwork in this area (two more sidings through swapping a turnout for a double-compound, and moving the turnout elsewhere) is yet to be done, and most likely will have to wait for the commission layout to be completed. 

 

Finally, I moved on to do more work on the super scissors. Some of the track required re-aligning due to kinks, and the addition of extra sleepers. The former was completed, and the latter started, as seen in some photos below. If you compare the following photos to those on the previous page, you'll be able to see the differences, as the kinks were quite obvious in photos. 

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As can be seen in the above photo, even the extra sleepers make it look very rough, and at some point in the future I may well replace it with a handlaid one, this will depend on how well it goes in operation.

 

If I get permission to do so from the buyer, I may start a thread covering the build of the commission layout, if so I'll post the link here when the time comes. Subject to funding coming when necessary, the commission build should only take 3-4 months at most, so construction on Borderton will hopefully continue at some point late this year. 

 

As always, thanks for the interest, and would always be happy to hear any thoughts or suggestions about the layout!

Peter

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