Friday, May 29, 2009

TW Bogie Tanks Wagons

After some head scratching and discussion on Railpage – one of the internet discussion groups Australian modellers regularly use to nut things out I have begun.

TW part 1 005

Progress is at a measured pace largely due to the need to Araldite the brass to the underlying plastic frame. Tonight I have added the headstocks using “Slow Zap” CA which is a slower acting cousin of the dangerous “Zap a Gap” which could be relied to stick anything just where you don’t want it (such as another finger).

The headstocks needed some serious holding in place but there was no space to clamp so CA was the way to go and it seems to have worked.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Cement and Railways – SCMRA Seminar

The Southern Cross Model Railway Association runs an annual thematic seminar on matters relating to modelling the railways of NSW. It is usually held in a community centre in Epping with a spit roast provided. I have been to a few – notably one with a just broken foot.

The topic for this year was Cement and the running order was:

Modern Day Cement Trains - Alex Nadalini

Cement Wagons -John Beckhaus

Portland Cement works -Howard Armstrong

Cement plants and their railways - Trevor Moore

Kitbashing a limestone wagon - Alec Warner

Weathering your Cement Wagons - Mike Crompton

Models for Cement - Trevor Moore

Modelling a Cement Batching Plant -Marcus Ammann

Smaldon the layout -Geoff & Ben Small

Closing Discussion -John Parker

It was a well run event and for me very useful in giving me lots of ideas about modelling approaches and techniques.

Bald pates

Here is Marcus Ammann’s presentation –this view unfortunately shows off the bald pates of the audience!

A sample of the model rolling stock is below.

Cememn models

Cement works

I am not sure who is doing this but a cement works is under construction in HO and it looks pretty good.

Below is one of the curves on Smaldon Curve.

Smalldon Curve

This model shows what you can achieve with a simple concept. Better still it was completed one of a number of models Geoff Small has completed to exhibition standard(roughly 1 every 2 years).