Category Archives: Sites of interest

Involving specific sites mentioned in daily posts

1. Small, Exhibition, HO Scale, Layout Design, Layouts, Liked off site, Scenery, Sites of interest, Switching, Web

Layout Builders of Note – Chris Gilbert

Introduction

I’ve known Chris Gilbert for many years thanks to the Internet, specifically RMWeb. Chris has always managed to be a great mentor on things model railroad, even if he was not aware of his mentorship. He’s been successful in building, exhibiting and publishing a range of model small exhibition layouts over the last several years. What gets me is how quickly he puts these model marvels together.

Florida Springs (V 2.0) – An HO Scale exhibition layout

Chris in his own style said that he started the layout on Tuesday the 10th of February with a trip to his local hardware store.

Within five days he was at this stage:

As if that was not enough to make me feel like I need to pick up my game, his detailing is exquisite. If you take a link at post number 5 (link here) you’ll see what I mean.

Every time I see what Chris can do in so short a time, I am simply bowled over. He thinks about something and then he gets it done. It’s something that I am going to aim for in my modelling this year.

Before I can get there though I have to complete some other modelling projects to finish for my local model club show in April (you can read more about that on the Modellers of Ballarat blog (link here).

I’ve listed other sites in the resources section below. Enjoy having a look at Chris’ layouts. They really are magnificent works of art.

Resources

· You can find out more about the O scale Fort Smith Railroad layout (External Link) here.

· You can visit Chris’ YouTube channel (link here) – and watch his videos of Haston and North Haston – great stuff.

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.

Diesel Rail Cars, RDC, Site seeing, Sites of interest

Site seeing – February 13

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There are some who believe in Friday the 13th as a bad omen. I like to think of Friday the 13th as a good time to get things done while everyone else is cowering under their beds, waiting for the sky to fall.

Site 1 – Clear Iron (YouTube)

I just got through posting about the new Rapido RDC-1. If you are unfamiliar with this little cracker of a design enjoy this video from 1952 about the RDCs.

Site 2 – Trinity Railway Express (YouTube)

When we lived in Austin Texas we’d head on up to Dallas and Fort Worth every now and then so I could indulge my railfanning needs, which to be honest I never could really meet in Austin.

Of interest is the ex- B&M 6110 RDC-1 heading the consist of 3 RDC’s. TRE #2005, TRE #2006, and TRE#2007

Site 3 – US Budds (again from YouTube)

This much longer but just as interesting video takes a look at the US operators of RDC-1s including:

  • Belfast & Moosehead Lake,
  • Connecticut DOT/Amtrak (SPV2000’s),
  • Metro North,
  • Bellefonte Historical RR,
  • North Shore Scenic RR (Duluth),
  • Trinity Rail Express (Dallas area),
  • Reading & Northern, and
  • Cape May Seashore Line

Enjoyed a massive storm through Ballarat tonight, and now the temperature is dropping away. Hope the day has been great where you are.

1. Small, Inglenook, Layouts, Operations, Personal Layouts, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Switching, Web

Site seeing – February07

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There are some sites that I find myself returning to time after time. Vibrant sites with lots of new ideas and a great wealth of modellers, who love to share.  My favourite message board is to be on and partake in is RMWeb.

There is always a project or layout build under way that has something to give you. Today I’d like to point out two projects on RMWeb that I find really interesting for a number of reasons.

Site 1 – Down Ampney

Built in 7mm scale as a basic garage-garden-garage line; the garden section is in effect just a single track with a couple of sidings and scenery provided by mother nature. Control is planned to be a mixture of DCC and RC.

The Scenic modelled section is to be situated within the garage with a cassette fiddle yard on the other side. The garden will include a viaduct but be fairly basic for the sake of ease of building and getting something up and running quickly and to reduce maintenance.

Site 2 – Draycott (Camp) Halt Sidings

The model depicts a small corrugated Goods Shed and two sidings, with the tail-end of the Head-Shunt also represented, the Loop being ‘off stage’ so to speak. This is a classic Inglenook type ‘shunting plank’ and will give somewhere to have some fun with ‘shunting puzzles’ and to test new stock whilst Down Ampney is being built.

Conclusion

While both are 7mm O scale layouts, the standard of modelling is very high, while the area and layout being modelled is small and simple. Lots of working potential too.

Well its a very warm day in Ballarat, and my son and I are off to the local pool. Hope you’re having a great day where you are too.

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Tramways, Web

Site Seeing – February 01

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I live very close to Melbourne in Victoria – home of the worlds largest urban tramway network in the world. The entire network covers 250 kilometres of track; has 493 trams, 25 routes, and 1,763 tram stops. Melbourne’s tram network is larger than the largest networks in Europe (admittedly not by much) such as those in St. Petersburg (240 km), Berlin (190 km), Moscow (181 km) and Vienna (172 km). What does all of this have to do with today’s site seeing post? Funny you should ask that question.

Site 1: Victoria Park

The first site I wanted to mention is Victoria Street (Link here). This great tramway layout has visited several of the model shows in my region and is a well thought out and small layout. Somewhere in my large collection of digital photos I have some of the layout. When I can find them I’ll post them up.

Site 2: Proto: 87 stores

If you’ve decided to model a tramway, you can use the track and switch components found on this page (Link Here) to make all that lovely street trackage. Now this is not just for tramways, any street railway can be modelled using these components. Very nice stuff.

Overcast and cool in Ballarat today. Hope you are having a great day where you are.

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site Seeing – 2

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Originally posted on the Old DasBlog – Monday, April 15, 2013

Every now and then I run across some sites that I find really interesting, for one reason or another.

This week I found the following sites that might be of interest to you too:

  1. Ever wondered what moved the stuff your railcars delivered?
  2. With an English bent here is another site I found with lots of descriptions of industries on the UK’s side of the pond:

On the modelling side of the house:

  1. I found a new product called “ELECTRIC AVENUE”. Touted as “THE WORLD’S FINEST STREET TRACK SYSTEM FOR MODEL TROLLEYS AND TRAMS”. Their CAPS not mine, but in looking at the webpage it does look really nice and maybe something for a future small exhibition layout that I am looking at, for 2014 with some street running

There is one last link I want to share:

The Columbia Industrial park, in Vancouver WA, USA. Take a look around there is a lot of cool stuff in here. CHeck for the Centre cab and the Plymouth that you’ll find on Bing.

Well, that’s about it for today.
Hope you enjoy the links
Regards
Andrew

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site Seeing – 1

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Originally published on the old Das Blog – Monday, April 15, 2013

Every now and then I run across some sites that I find really interesting, for one reason or another.

This week I found the following sites that might be of interest to you too:

  1. Ever wondered what moved the stuff your railcars delivered?
  2. With an English bent here is another site I found with lots of descriptions of industries on the UK’s side of the pond:

Regards

Andrew