Some Piccy's

Not many pictures have been taken, to busy building the thing.

Anyway, here are a few...

 Just after the bathroom demolition

On the left is my trike restoration to-do pile.

 Site all cleaned up, levelled to with in 3mm and form work assembled for the concrete. The sheet of MDF was used as a square.

 Then we skip many months and it's lock-up!

 The view from just inside the door. The wall on the right is the existing shed

 Looking from the small window

 Left pan of the above shot.

Taken from the layout side. Plenty of holes to fill in.

Dad and I have decided to have a weekend off. Going for a trip to Sydney for a model railway supply run and swing by Train Works to have a squiz at the new look museum.

Progress and new toys

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and new year.

The new building has been full steam ahead. Over the Chrissy break the frame, roof and outer walls went up and is now in the lock up stage. It's now back to weekend work fitting out in inside.

Thanks to Santa, he delivered some building tools, drop saw, table saw, cordless drills, levels, hand tools... certainly makes the job easier. Dad was saying how far things had come when he and his parents hand build their first house without power tools in the 50's. Just an imperial tape measure, pencil, hand saw, chisel, and a hammer. He said, what would have taken 2 weeks 'back in the day' we did in 24 hours.

Australia Day is here again! So to celebrate the birth of a nation the ceiling is going up and a start will be made modifying the internal wall (old external wall of existing shed). I've more than likely jinxed the time table again, but in a month it should be ready to move in. Only 3 months behind the original schedule.


The model collection has grown as well over the holiday period. 3 x TrainOrama 44s, 2 packs of NHDF hoppers, all 3 packs of Columbia Models BCWs. The last being a present from the folks.

 I scored a L and C Kits Powerline chassis conversion kit for an 81 class off eBay and with another auction 2 x C class bogies and motor. When I find the time this will go under 8115, my first HO scale model. It will be good to have this loco running around the layout again.


I'll post some picture after this weekend.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year

I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas.  May 2012 bring you all happiness. 

Oh joy of joy's!!!

The concreting is finished, no more shoveling, no more heavy lifting, no more hoping the concrete doesn't go off before final troweling. It also means that the frame and roof will be on the extension for the new year.

To top off a successful weekend, the Wickham trike I was working on for a friend was fired up for the first time in 20 years.

My Father and I are off to Crookwell this coming Saturday (17th Dec) with the Wickham in tow for it's shake-down and delivery back to its owner.

Mixing it up

The next section of concrete went in today. An early start to the day had 3 of us finishing in just under 2hrs and before the sun hit the slab.


Progress is slow since last update. Rained out, Wagga model railway shows, tinkering with trikes. The frame for the extension should have been up by now but the slab isn't even finished. However it's hoped things will move faster now that there is less other things to distract us.


On the 5th November, my Father and I went to the Wagga Model Expo. What a great show they put on. It's one show that you can take your time to browse what's there without pushing and barging your way through. It was great to catch up with fellow trike enthusiasts from the TUMBARAIL mob. They had 3 vehicles on display near the entrance. 2 were mine that I sold so it was good to see them again. I didn't take many pictures as the camera had decided to play up by over exposing the photos and Dad forgot the memory card for his.



I have been working on a Wickham trike for a friend that he couldn't get the engine started. It is almost a goer, it had a very stuck exhaust valve and the ignition points needed a clean up. Some re-assembly and the engine will be ready to fire up for the first time in 20 years.



Next Saturday is a trip to Crookwell again for the monthly meeting and working bee of the GCHR.  


It obvious that model railways has taken a back seat at the moment. Like everything else it has its long to do list. I scored a Hollywood Foundry 48 Class mech off ebay. This will take the count to 3. I wish I had bought more when they were available, such nice runners. I have given very serious consideration to going DCC lately. I missed a bargain on ebay with an NCE Powercab going for $160. Would have been good to 'play' with it to get a feel for DCC. For now, the layout will remain DC.

Who knew....

...You could suffer model railway withdrawal.

Having moved away from from my layout I'm kind of missing it. No longer is it practical to go to the shed and do "something" for a while. At the moment I'm reduced to staring at a length of track with a 38 with a couple of cars on it.

Last Monday I started on what will be a small portable shelf layout 2400mm x 200mm. It will have a very simple track plan. A passing loop, one siding, small station platform, broken down A1 Station building and loading bank. Probably end  up a diorama more than a working layout.

The plan is to have it look good enough to place in the living room of the new house, so it will end up on display to any and all. It's going to be a large task for me given the lack of progress on Carcoar and the rest of the layout scenery wise.

In other news, Yesterday, my Father and I started the construction phase (3 weeks behind schedule) of the new layout extension with mixing and pouring a third of the new concrete slab. It went quite well with just the two of us pouring and levelling 1.2 cubic meters of concrete in 2 hours and the rain held off allowing the concrete to set enough. Next Saturday will involve another delay to the project. We will be off to Crookwell for a meeting of the GCHR. This group has just been raised from the dead and with it once again holds accreditation to use track vehicles (trikes) for members only at this point.

2011 AMRA Liverpool Show

I drove over to Sydney early Saturday morning with my Father to this years Liverpool show. We arrived around 11:15am. The was still a large que waiting to get at the time but the line moved quickly.

I made a bee line for the Austrains stand for the new KB, LHO and FS carriages. I had nothing to fear, there were plenty to go around. Also got some of their 2AN bogies (the ones with pick-ups) for a LHO project I'm working on. Next was a visit to Antons Trains and got a turntable motorising kit. I have to say what great service I received from Anton, his product knowledge is very helpful.

Across the way was Bergs Hobbies. This is a time where I would win lotto to get the whole range of NSW passenger cars they custom build. Very nice!

Had a quick squizz at Eureka's upcoming models.

Then over to Casula Hobbies for their wheels sets. The plan is to experiment with Austrains recently released NSWR Steel S cars. The cars have 11mm disc wheels but the bind on the brake shoes this arvo I tried a 10.5mm wheel. Sure enough it fixed the drag issue and made no noticeable difference to appearance...However! The lighting pickup have to be modified as Casula's wheels are not insulated mid axle, meaning the bogie now only pick from one side of the track.

Picked up some books and DVDs from ARHS and other retailers.

Arrived at the Auscision stand to find they will be releasing NSWR fully built and painted grain silos. Namely S008, S016 and the larger S024. This mob is going to keep me broke for a while. Also got some coil steal loads and cradles.

All up we spent 3 and 1/2 hours at the show walking around checking every stand. Truly this is a great time to model railways with the RTR available and kits.

As usual there were the high quality layouts in attendance. Arakoola an O scale display topped my list of favorites. Made me think about changing scales. Then the ol' favs Dungog, Brunswick Park and Jembaicumbene. Wallerawang is coming along nicely, the Guildford group have done great job on this layout.

Another plus of the day was the crowd seemed a bit smaller, either that or the floor plan was better organised.

All in all 9 out of 10, well one AMRA.

Next month Wagga Wagga.