Category Archives: Site seeing

Posts regarding site seeing for that day.

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing – March 2

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Yesterday I focused on David Ballie’s Victorian Railways scratchbuilding site. In keeping with that theme (and who knows March may end up being the month of scratchbuilding and kitbashing – scratchbashing anyone?).

Site 1: Peter’s Model Railroading

In the scratchbashing vein I’m going to point you at Peter’s Model Railroading (link here). Peter is an S Scale modeller and is working with radio control (using DCC chips in the locos). There are articles and how-to articles on a range of topics. Take a look around and enjoy his range of articles on scratchbuilding.

E-Book, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing – March 1

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I’ve been a scratchbuilder since my early teens. In those days it was mainly sci-fi models that I built. The modelling bug bit early, like many of my friends, with ship, tank and aircraft models; most of those in the early to mid 1970s being Airfix kits.

Sci-fi kits however were a little harder to come by and once you want past the Space 1999 Eagle Transporter, sci-fi kits in Australia were thin on the ground.I saw lots of them in the modelling magazines, but for an economically challenged teen in Sydney’s west, they were out of the question.

Early on I came in contact with Plasticard and balsa (both of which at the time were cheap) to begin making my own models and accessories. I remember among the first of these was some extra pods for the Eagle Transporter. Over the last 20 years I’ve built many models that I wanted, or that I’d seen in the model railway magazines and wanted to reproduce.

NOTE: Keep an eye out – I’ll have an article on a long-term scratchbashed O gauge model will be posted some time in March.

This year I have a couple of scratchbuilding projects in 1/32nd scale running on 32mm scale track. I know it’s not quite exact for the gauge of track, however, it is easy to get running and there are parts available left right and centre. There are a lot of articles in my head but little on paper (or on-screen) at the moment.

Site 1: David Baillie’s ‘Modelling Victorian Railways‘

Today’s site gets the nod because of the amount of sharing that David does. Every modelling project he does gets its own PDF (available for download). Good one David!

There’s a list of complete scratchbuilding projects, and kitbashing subjects on Victorian rolling stock as well. Most importantly he has a range of ideas, and best practices for building models from the ground up.

Take a look at the site, and no matter what railroad you model, there is information here that will increase your modelling skill.

PS: David notes on his site “5 Jan 2015: I am in hospital undergoing treatment for an aggressive cancer, and I am hanging on to get home to see my family maybe sometime in February. In the meantime, I will miss my modelling, but even more so my family!”

I feel for him as a fellow cancer survivor. I wish him all the best. If I get any information back from David, I’ll let you know. More importantly if you feel right about it, send him an email from his site. I’m sure he’d feel better knowing others were thinking about him and his family at this time.

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web, YouTube

Site seeing – February 28

Introduction

Hi my name is Andrew, and I’m a YouTube-a-holic.

It’s true; I love YouTube. In the same way the Internet has changed the way we read about the hobby due to the explosion in E-Zines, how we consume our train videos has changed too.

YouTube has become my go-to place for rail fanning vision. Today’s ‘Site seeing’ reflects the best of railfan video.

YouTube site 1: Delay in Block productions

There’s a great choice of documentary length videos here. Some switching related, others location related. Some are only 6-8 minutes in length, others like this one (Offsite Link) run to just under an hour and show a lot of freight action.

YouTube site 2: Distant Signal

Danny Harmon’s a railfanning machine. He’s been producing railfan videos for a long time (view his website here to buy his DVDs) with some of his earliest videos from 1995.

His recent series on the CSX signalling display and head indication (speed signalling) has been great to watch. Based in Florida he manages to have a great volume of vision and all of it interesting. As he says, he’s a railfan, not a modeller, and his videos reflect this. With great production values and a melodic voice, the Distant signal ought to be on your favourites list.

Look in the resources section for a bunch of links to Danny’s videos.

Other thoughts

We are 1/6th of the way through the year, and tomorrow we’ll be at the beginning of March. In Ballarat (and the rest of the southern hemisphere) it’s the beginning of Autumn. We’ve just had a big cool front blow through with rain and thunderstorms. 2015 is rocketing forward and before we know it winter will be on top of us. Thanks for reading along with me during February. I’ll talk to you next month.

Resources

Delayed in Block

· Fall Freights: NS, CSX, and the World’s Worst Railroad Tracks

Danny Harmon (Distant Signal)

· How to Read Signals On the CSX – Part 1

· How to Read Signals On the CSX – Part 2

· How to Read Signals On the CSX – Part 3

· How to Read Signals On the CSX – Part 4

Information, Magazine, Publishing, Site seeing, Web

Site seeing – 22 February

The Internet has changed the way we model. No longer do we have the tyranny of distance – where what we model is simply too far away. Over the last few years a modellers ability (in my case from Ballarat Australia) to model US prototype no longer relies on the US model magazines to show me the areas I can model. And this does not apply only to the US. If you want to model Romanian railways, French, Lithuanian, Scottish, Welsh, South African or Chinese railways the resources are out there for you.

Modelling magazines have changed what they present too. There are the old school magazines, like Model Railroader, and the new magazines like Model Railroad Hobbyist, S Scale Resource and O Scale resource among others.

Site 1: The O Scale Resource

Another of the new style magazines, with no upfront costs and advertiser supported. The new March – April edition of the magazine was just released.

  • There’s a review of the O Scale West (USA) show
  • A feature on Battery power, and
  • Making retaining walls from castings

Check the website for more and note that you can also download previous issues for free.

Resources

The O Scale Resource Magazine (Offsite Link)

1. Small, HO Scale, Layouts, Liked off site, Site seeing, Switching, Web

Site Seeing February 21

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It’s all operations Saturday, thanks to Martin Hogg, the owner and operator of Brett.

Site 1: Brett – a full operating session video

Martin Hogg’s released a new video (Brett’s been featured recently on the blog).

This time you get to see a full operating session from start to finish.

This video shows just how much enjoyment you can derive from switching on a relatively small layout with a reasonably simple track plan.

I’m guessing the operating session lasted around 25 – 30 minutes from start to finish. As soon as I get some feedback from Martin I’ll update this post and let you know for sure.

Good work that man! On you Martin.

Update 1:
I talked with Martin Hogg today and he confirmed that the operating session takes about 25 minutes (although he says its heard to be sure as he was busy phaffing around with the camera to be sure). He’ll be running another session to confirm that but I’m pretty sure that it’ll be right around the 25 minute mark, depending on the work to be done.

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing – 20 February

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While looking around for some research material for a fellow weatherer recently, I came across a site with a surprisingly large amount of information on prototype trucks. Now that the information pertains mainly to ‘N’ Scale is neither here nor there. The more information you have on trucks under freight cars the better.

Site 1: Mark Peterson’s N Scale Model Railroading Projects & Resources

For the N Gauge modeller Mark has a lot of useful information for N gauge modellers, but there’s more there than just that. Go take a look at the site and then check out the truck detail page.

Visit http://www.spookshow.net/for more.

Site 2: Trackside Treasures

For all things Canadian, including up to the minute updates of train movements. Eric Gagnon’s site states that it’s about ‘Trips, Trains and 35+ Years Trackside with Canada’s Railways’.

You can read more about the railways of Canada and his published works here: tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com

Layout Design, Layouts, Liked off site, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site Seeing 18 February

Introduction

The IAIS Grimes Industrial Line

1 – The IAIS Grimes Industrial Line

In my site seeing post yesterday I mentioned the publishing bonanza we’ve inherited thanks to the internet. One of these great sites is the free (as in Beer) internet Model Railroading Magazine – the Model Railroad Hobbyist (Link Here).

Apart from a great magazine that I’ve read since issue number one, there are the modellers blogs that are associated on the site. Among the best of the blogs is the Grimes Industrial layout blog of JFMcNab (Link Here).

You can also see a range of photos from his layout on the Unofficial IAIS Railfans website (Link Here).

Take some time and take a look around and discover the Grimes Industrial Line. I think you’ll enjoy the Grimes Line sites.

Resources:

Watch one of James’ videos from his YouTube channel:

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing 17 February

Introduction

I love the internet publishing phenomenon. What Gutenberg did for the printed book, the internet has done for the publisher. We now have more access to more information than ever before. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the information provided, in general for the modeller the publishing boom has been a godsend.

We now have access to more free, high quality photos of areas, industries, locomotives, railroad operators and rolling stock than in any time in the history of railroads. I could not create the prototypical layout designs I do without this access.

If you’ve not read this blog before, I live in the Western Gold Fields of Victoria, in the fair city of Ballarat. The city is steeped in our country’s (albeit short) history. Primarily Ballarat’s history focuses on the Eureka stockade and the beginnings of the Australian democracy movement. Geelong our nearest sea port (and Victoria’s largest Regional centre) is a short 88 kilometre, 60 minute drive south. (Unfortunately there is no direct rail service there at the moment.) But I digress…

Site 1 – Rail Geelong

Today’s site seeing tour focuses on our nearest big regional centre Geelong, and its railways. I only discovered the site thanks to T-Trak Ian’s blog with a link from there to the Sadliers photo page (Link Here)

There is a lot of photos there, and even though I am relatively short drive down the road, I’ll be using Marcus Wong’s site for quite a bit of research in the near future.

You can visit Marcus’ excellent site here: http://www.railgeelong.com/

E-Book, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing – February 15

Introduction

Today’s site seeing adventure is for those of you interested in railroad operation, in this case dispatching. Today’s link came across the wire thanks to the ‘Ry-ops-industrialSIG’ SIG group on Yahoo! Groups.

Site 1 – Train Dispatching

Today’s link points to Train Dispatching by J. G. Lachaussee. It has two separate sources of the same article (one from Scribd – the other directly on the site.) The article is as published in ‘The Sandhouse’ – A Publication of the Mississippi Great Southern Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.

I’ve had a quick read of it and found it to be really interesting to see the information presented by a long time dispatcher himself. You can read more of the article here: <Offsite Link>

The article is by J. G. Lachaussee; published in the November 2011 issue of The Sandhouse.

Site 2 – Scribd

A while back I began a short history of the 40’ Hi-Cube Boxcars that rode the rails for a short period from the late 1960s through to the 1980s. So far I’ve only completed the SP and SSW part of the document and have not yet completed the other owners or operators or the modelling section for the final eBook.

There seems to be an inordinate amount of modelling interest in these very specifically operated cars; the model manufacturers have made a lot of them over the years. In fact there are more models available than those produced by the car makers themselves.

They’ve lived in model form for longer than they ever did during their prototype railroad days. If you’d like to take a look at the first part of the eBook please go to: https://www.scribd.com/doc/103033209/A-Very-Short-History-of-the-40-Foot-Hi-Cube-Boxcars

Now it is time to go model with my 10-year-old son.

1:43.5 (7mm Scale), Australia, O Scale, Site seeing

Site seeing – February 14 – with a difference

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Site seeing with a difference this St Valentines Day. The family headed for the ocean today to Geelong Victoria. While we were down that way I took the opportunity to visit K & L Model Railways Hobbies & Model Construction Supplies of 81 Ryrie St, Geelong VIC 3220.

All I have to say is – what a surprise. The shop is small, but what it lacks in floor space it more than makes up for in stock. They have a great range of O scale parts, kits and so on.

Had a chat to the owner to the owner this morning and I’ll be back there again once I have a bit more disposable income.

With K & L’s assistance I’ll be building a rake of O scale (7mm:Foot) NSWGR 4 wheel RU Grain wagons (see a photo here: Offsite Photo).

These cars have been on my build list for some times but not being able to find a local source of Brass ‘W’ irons and sprung axle blocks has meant that I’ve had to hold off on the build.

With K & L’s owner assuring me that he can get me everything I need the RU planning process can begin. I expect to build the first body out of styrene, then I’ll cast the remaining bodies before tackling the chassis out of brass section. This will make mounting and securing the ‘W’ irons much easier.

All the best on a lovely ‘cool’ summer Saturday in Ballarat.