A Narrow Gauge Deviation

Towards the end of our visit to Northern America, my wife and I visited the delightful town of Durango in Colorado. Delightful not only because of its location but also because it is the home of the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. There are many heritage and tourist railroads in the US and we have encountered a few of these during our vacation. While it’s a bit tenuous, the attraction of this particular railroad is that it operates on part of the old Denver and Rio Grande Railroad running on a 3ft gauge track, the same gauge that I have modelled on my short logging railway operating out of Mount Windeatt

Our itinerary did not permit a trip on the train but it did allow us to witness the arrival of the last tourist train for 2014. Operating steam at last! Durango, as the terminus, has an extensive yard with a collection of rolling stock predominately carriages. It also includes an interesting museum. The museum is not big, occupying about three or four stalls of the old roundhouse. Its collection is more extensive than the usual railway memorabilia, including vintage cars and motor bikes, replica aircraft, a model railway and a collection of military figurines. Entrance to the museum was free. 
 
The museum was also pushing a range of local HOn3 models marketed under the Blackstone Models label (http://blackstonemodels.com/). As is common with most models these days, they are manufactured in China to the same standards we now expect from ready to run models. They are not cheap but very nicely detailed and well, the inevitable happened! I weakened and purchased a flat car similar to the one shown below.

It was a great visit to Durango!

The question now is what to do with this new acquisition. I already have a few logging cars in service and the very short sidings at Mount Windeatt discourage longer consists. The options are to use it to carry equipment in a similar way to the wagon photographed at the Durango roundhouse. Alternatively, I could build or modify a carriage section to fit over half of the wagon. Then, it could be used to provide basic passenger transport moving loggers between the sawmill and the logging site. I seem to recall seeing something similar in a narrow gauge magazine that I purchased many years ago. I’ll have to wait a few days until my return to Australia to confirm this. 

However, I don’t anticipate that work on this wagon will happen at any time in the short term after our return. There will be too many other things to catch up not to mention cleaning up Philip’s Creek after an absence of nearly three months. Hopefully, a possum hasn’t taken up residence but I’m certain the geckos will have left a few calling cards.  

A Change of Scale and Prototype

This post is a bit 'off topic' but no, I'm not moving away from the NSWGR prototype or away from HO scale.

Currently, my wife and I are on our first major retirement trip to catch up with friends in the US and Canada as well as visiting some places that we haven't seen in our earlier sojourns to this part of the world. So I thought I would post a few images of two of the 1:1 scale US railroads we have encountered to date.

The first three photos come from the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Alaska. The narrow gauge railroad was originally built to provide a link to the Alaskan gold fields in the late 1890s. The 110 miles of track was constructed in a very fast two and a half years just in time for gold rush to falter and then subside. However, the railroad continued to operate commercially until the early 1980s when it closed, only to reopen as a tourist railroad in 1988.




The railroad currently operates a mixed diesel fleet of GE locomotives from the 1950s and Alcos from the 1960s hauling a number of restored passenger coaches. Their literature also states that they run two restored  Baldwin steam locomotives but these were not present when we visited. All I saw was this old Mikado looking like it has seen better days and is probably providing spares for the operational locomotives.


However, what sets the WP&YRR apart is its engineering in a very harsh environment. The track hangs on the side of a substantial valley with grades up to 3.9%, numerous bridges and a few tunnels.  Perhaps the most dramatic bridge encountered, in the 40 mile round trip that we did, is the one shown in the photo. It is no longer in use with the trestles and probably the steelwork in very poor condition. However, I suspect that it remained operational until the 1990s at least. What sets it apart, in my view, is the apparent lightness of the steel structure. It's a great example of the versatility of the steel truss design.

The second group of three photos covers two competing railroad companies running parallel operations on banks of the Columbia River Gorge that forms part of the border between Washington and Oregon states. The operations of the BNSF Railway and its rival, the Union Pacific Railroad seem fairly typical, multiple units pulling very long freight trains frequently with additional assistance at the rear as this photo shows. However, what sets this area apart is the spectacular setting with railways operating on either side of a very wide river dominated by massive basalt cliffs and steep slopes.

If one were to attempt to model accurately the mountains dominating the Columbia River in this area in HO scale, the mountains  would need to be somewhere between 10 and 30 feet high with the odd peak rising higher still. That's a lot of Styrofoam! The photo opposite, taken just west of the township of Hood River in Oregon, actually shows a BNSF train moving on the northern bank of the river. It appears only as a thin multi-coloured line just above the water line.

The final photo shows the same train, this time with a 24x zoom (the best I can get out of my camera) looking like a distant photo of someone's N scale layout.

I once wrote about the concept of 'modelling the ordinary' but on the Columbia River, the 'ordinary' is spectacular.

Next stop is the Rocky Mountains in Canada.


Obviously, physical work on Philip's Creek has been temporarily suspended while we are away. However, a copy of XTrackCAD loaded on the laptop has allowed me to work on the plan for the upper level of the layout. This may be getting ahead of myself as I haven't yet finished the Halls Creek Bridge scenery or started the transition and helix that will enable an upper level, but hey, there's nothing like thinking ahead!

The Hall's Creek Bridge 3 - Still a work in progress

My last two posts have focused on the construction of a simple bridge based on the Hall’s Creek bridge on the abandoned section of the Merriwa Branch line. I am now at a point where the bridge structure must be ‘planted’ on the layout so the final landscaping can be integrated with the overall landscaping of the module.

I fashioned the bridge abutments from  stripwood and the other retaining walls from Wills timber planking. The check rails were fabricated from a length of Code 75 track, glued to the sleepers, and then painted with Rail Brown (part of my dwindling stock Floquil paints).

My activities are now concentrating on the construction of the surrounding landscape and laying the track leading to the bridge. Once the adjoining track height has been established, the position and height of the bridge will be adjusted to ensure the correct alignment. With the bridge finally located, the surrounding terrain including the actual water course can be shaped and sceniced. 

I am reasonably happy with the outcome, but as always, there is room for improvement. As a whole, the bridge looks OK, although some individual components are below par if subjected to close scrutiny. Perhaps the most disappointing elements are the concrete columns. After several attempts, I couldn't replicate the impression of the timber formwork planking that can be seen on the prototype. I probably should have cast something in plaster, but if it bugs me too much, I can install these retrospectively.

Photo from "NSW Steam Train Ride To Merriwa - John Gaydon  (http://steamtrainstories.com/category/australia/nsw/)

I could spend more time tweaking the detail but I need to keep moving towards the helix and upper deck construction, otherwise the bridge will become a "bridge to nowhere" and end up like its prototype.

The Halls Creek Bridge 2 - A Thank You

Following my earlier post on the topic, Ian Phemister  (http://iansmuswellbrookmerriwa.blogspot.com.au/) kindly provided me with a copy of his photos on the same subject taken from his extensive collection of information on the Merriwa line. It is a goldmine of detail. The first thing I noticed was that the shorter of the timber pier sets only has three piers rather than the four that I had constructed (based on old standard drawings). This has now been corrected. 

From Ian's information, it is also interesting to note that an extra pier set has been added to reduce the span between the larger timber pier set and the abutment. I presume this occurred sometime after 1970 as it certainly not there in a 1970 photo of 3090 taken on the bridge.

Many thanks Ian. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

To start the fabrication of the components, I fixed a length of track upside down to a strip of ply and then glued the steel and timber beams to the underside of the track. The main concrete piers were shaped from styrofoam, coated a mix of coloured tile grout and 50/50 PVA/water, and weathered further with soft pastels and isocol alcohol. Looking at the photo below, I may need to revisit the right hand pier to lighten it up somewhat.

The concrete piers were then glued to underside of the steel beams, and then a further strip of ply was glued to the underside of the piers thus creating a plywood sandwich. Additional styrofoam was added to create the locations for the abutments and timber pier sets. Again, looking at the photo (still a work in progress), a bit of shimming is still required to remove the slight curvature that can be seen around both bridge abutments.

Once the basic alignment has been finalised, the terrain will be finalised, and then I can focus on the detail of the abutments and the underside of the bridge using the information Ian provided.

The Halls Creek Bridge

Photo from Merriwa Rail Society website - Photographer Unknown

After removing the non-prototypical and very distinctive brick viaduct, I still would like to have at least one reasonably sized bridge on the layout. Over the last few months, I have been searching the internet for possible prototypes and came across the bridge over Halls Creek at Sandy Hollow on the now disused Merriwa branch line. Interestingly, Google Maps (a very definitive source??) names the watercourse at the crossing point as Giants Creek but all of the literature that I have found refer to it as Halls Creek.

Photo from Merriwa Rail Society website - Photographer Brian Leedham

According to the Byways of Steam article on the Merriwa line (Byways of Steam 10 p62), this bridge was one of three on the branch line and the only one no longer in service. It is also the most basic but perhaps, the most interesting of the three with a combination of steel and timber superstructure and a mixed arrangement of piers. The other great attraction for this bridge is that a gentleman by the name of Brian Leedham took some photos of the main span which was still in place in 2009 and these have also been published in the Merriwa Railway Society's website (http://www.merriwarailwaysocietyinc.org/alongtheline.htm). The photos have been a great help in determining the arrangement of the main beams and the internal bracing for these. They also give an idea of the arrangement of the timber bearers on the shorter spans.

My intent is not to create an exact copy but use the bridge as a guide. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate any drawings for the bridge, and therefore, the dimensions that I am using to create the model are approximate based on comparisons with locomotives and rolling stock shown in several older photos of the bridge.

To date, I have fabricated the major span steel bream arrangement from styrene and the timber piles from bamboo satay sticks and stripwood from Northeastern Lumber. I have also added bolt heads from Tichy Train Products on the timber pier sets but drew the line at adding rivet heads to plate web girders. I have also cheated a little by not including all of the internal vertical cross bracing and the horizontal cross bracing attached to the bottom flange.

Once the individual components bridge are painted, I'll probably finish the bridge upside down, fixing everything to a length of track before placing it in position. 

The bridge when completed will not form part of the main layout but will be shown as a cameo scene on the branch line before it enters a helix that will provide access to the upper level.

More to follow as the project develops.

Running Tender First - A Basic Kadee Adaptor

A few weeks ago, I identified a scenario where I should operate a train pulled by 5248 running tender first. The only problem was there was no compatible coupler on the front of the locomotive. Having just repainted the model I did not want to fit a Kadee coupler, so I experimented with an adapter that could link the coupler on the rolling stock with the existing hook coupler on the locomotive. I'm sure this has been done before, but my searching on the internet didn't bring up any suggestions. So it was back to first principles and this post details the outcome of that experimentation.

By way of background, about a year ago, I came across a number of Youtube movies showing steam operations on the NSW railways in the 1960s. One of these showing operations in northern NSW is at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDVUsaeFKhs&feature=relmfu . While the quality of these videos is well below the standard of current cinematography , they are a great source of contemporary information on the topic.

Recently, in search of information on MHO guards vans, I revisited this video and was surprised by the number of empty coal trains (primarily LCH and CCH wagons) being hauled by a standard goods locomotive running tender first. So the hunt was on to find a way to replicate this.

After a couple of tries, I managed to get a piece of copper wire shaped in such a way that it would fit a loop into the hook on the locomotive and drop two prongs over the rear of the Kadee coupler. As expected, the copper wire was too malleable, so I fashioned a similar piece using brass wire. This has proved to be successful and is now awaiting painting to match the locomotive and wagons.

You will note from the photo that a second piece of wire has been soldered to the device. This performs two functions. The first is to provide a way to stop the adaptor lifting off the Kadee if the locomotive pushes the wagons for any distance (which the adaptor still does to some extent). The second function is to provide a lifting points for a pair of tweezers or pliers to remove the adaptor when it is no longer needed.

This is a device developed for a particular function and requires a bit of fiddling to make it work. In addition, the normal Kadee features, such as automatic uncoupling and recoupling, are lost, but as I uncouple manually, this is not a problem. Even with the addition wire to retain the adaptor on the hook, pushing forward is done very cautiously. I have also found that it works better with the old Number 5 Kadee rather than the new prototypical couplers but this is probably a matter of further fine tuning.


Notwithstanding these challenges, the device does what is required and now I can haul empty hoppers to Philip's Creek tender first.

 As a  footnote, I had tried to upload a short piece of video to show the adaptor in operation but the process seemed to freeze, so I had to make do without it. The file may have been too large.

Back Conversion - the consequence of being a pedant

I have always been something of  a pedant when it comes to things historic and I am usually frustrated about the inaccurate portrayal of history or equipment that was not in use during the events depicted. However, in my younger days, I was a bit more relaxed about such inconsistencies in the rolling stock used on Philip's Creek, but as I am getting older, and possibly acquiring a bit more knowledge,  the pedantry is becoming pronounced.

Although I broadened my modelling time period to about six years to allow me to run a greater range of locomotives through Philip's Creek, I have set the end of the steam in NSW as the right hand boundary of my interest. As a consequence , I recently found myself 'hoisted on my own petard' and had to address the issue of rolling stock that was not in service in the late 60s/early 70s.

Over the last few years, I have been gradually upgrading my Powerline and Lima passenger coaches. Interiors were added several years early, but recently, I have been concentrating on external elements, specifically, roof detail and hand rails. The last wagon to be upgraded was a Powerline KB Parcel Van shown opposite. Although I was aware that these KBs had been modified from surplus MHO guards vans, some preliminary research determined that the conversions occurred in the early 1970s, possibly around 1973-74. I decided that it was better to give myself some certainty and so the KB van should be returned to its earlier form as a MHO guards van. And, if I have got my understanding of the timings incorrect, I have just added a MHO to the fleet at the expense of a KB parcel van.

The conversion itself was not difficult, with the roof treatment again using masking tape to simulate the malthoid strips and new torpedo vents fitted once the strips had been set in place. As an aside, I have tried both techniques suggested in recent AMRM articles, teabags and masking tape, as a means of creating the malthoid roof. I think teabags provide a marginally better surface but the masking tape strips are much easier to apply. I also apply a thin film of PVA glue to the finished roof to help seal the work. The photo opposite shows the body as well as the roof before the addition of the torpedo vents.

I purchased an Ian Lindsay under-body kit and used some left over MHG doors and louvre panels for the guard's doors and the coffin/animal compartments. To date, the van has been painted, and weathering to the chassis and roof has also been completed. I am waiting to purchase suitable decals possibly at the Thornleigh exhibition, if not before.

The final photo is a similar but updated version of the first, now with the newly converted MHO immediately behind the 48. The changes only seem minor from this distance, but at least now, it can pass a steam locomotive at Philip's Creek without incurring the frustration of this pedant.