Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Bundaberg Model Train Expo 2015


After hearing some good reports about the 2014 show from some negative people I decided to make an effort to get there in 2015 if I could and I was not dissapointed. Bundy is about two hours drive south of Gladstone so it was also a shopping trip for the family which allowed me to have only one child in tow who didn't want to go with mum. There was a mix of local layouts and ones that made the trip up from Brisbane and the South East. The venue allowed plenty of space to move around and the retailers that attended to spread out as well.
These photos were taken with my video camera so they might not be up to my usual standards.
First up we have the excelent Wallaville layout which is sponsored by Bundaberg Sugar this layout depicts the narrow gauge tramway in the town of Wallaville about 40km inland from Bundaberg on the north bank of the Burnet River. The yard features a small loco servicing area and storage facility as well as storage yards for cane bins. Usual activity at this location during the harvest season is smaller locos collect bins from the varoius branches in the area to Wallaville then made up into bigger trains for the larger locos to haul to the mill to the east.





The L.N.E.R Door to Door Layout had two things going for it, first it had two trains racing around it which kids love and it had a high level of detail for the adults.

Logan Bend had a mixture of things running including some scratch built Queensland Rail N scale equipment.

Come on dad its been ten minutes since we got here, i'm bored.
A compact but well detailed N scale layout running N.S.W.G.R equipment.
Your not a railway town if you dont have a Railway Hotel this ones in Brendale.

Excelent scenery on this N scale logging themed layout.
Anyone for cricket at Pine Rivers N scale club?
Dan-Brae an English HO or OO themed layout.

West end of the hall.
Roger from Gladstone get roped into doing an interview for the local news.
What it lacks in size this layout makes up in detail featured some excelent kit and scratch built locos that ran perfectly.


George (red shirt, model collector) and Anthony (actual modeler even has a 3d printer) at the Wuiske Models stand arguing about the minute differences in locos. Some excelent local prototype at this stand and the owners should be commended.



Tuesday, March 17, 2015

More Lower Bench Work and Helix Rework

Welcome to my little prison, as mentioned in the previous post I have decided to add staging to the lower deck and return loop to allow trains access to the upper and lower yards without returning to the layout when I attempt to run an operations session on it. The one thing I did right was make the helix wide enough to have three tracks if needed and this has allowed me to make the change and big enough for me to sit in and lay most of the track.
The new points and track at the top of the Helix this middle track will be isolated at each end and fitted with a DCC reversing module to allow trains to switch direction and the section will be long enoug that the train will not be able to cross both gaps at the same time which from all I have read is very important for a reversing section .
I have soldered feeders to the end of the lower staging yard and isolated the last section of flex track for each of the roads becuase I want to install a cut off switch to prevent trains over running the yard. Once the wiring is finished I will put up some skirting to prevent equipment from doing a dive to the floor.
Quick and easy horrizontal wiring of feeders.

Lower level deck on the right is finished and the skirting is up.

I will cut out the river crossing skirting once I decide on the width.
Lower level crossing loop.