Category Archives: HO Scale

HO Scale modelling articles and posts

HO Scale, Large, Layout Design, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site Seeing – May 14 (the All American Model Railroad show issue)

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Thanks to Neil Cowie, a friend and former fellow member of the Essendon Model Railway club in Glenroy – Melbourne, I got invited down to his new club’s show today.

Site 1: US Model Railroad Club of Australia

The US Model Railroad Club of Australia are all US modellers (obviously) and model a variety of US prototype. You can find the club’s web presence on Facebook. Their show was open today, Saturday 14 May, and will be again tomorrow from 09:30 – 16:00 hours at 27 Talmage Street, Albion, Victoria. For locals it is Melways ref: 26 – F10.

The club has only been going for a relatively short time (a couple of years) but they’ve secured club rooms in an iconic (some might say landmark) building in suburban Melbourne and have made a solid start on a large HO scale club layout.

Based in the former Albion railway sub-station, one of several built around the Melbourne metropolitan railway system in the 1910s which housed large rotary converters to transform the 20,000V AC electric current supplied by the Victorian Railway’s Newport Power Station to 1500V DC to power Melbourne’s electric trains. Luckily that very building now allows them plenty of floor space.

If you get  chance tomorrow drop by and visit with Neil. Tell him that Andrew sent you. He’ll get a kick out of that I’m sure. Below is a work in progress shot of the layout.

 

1. Small, HO Scale, Inglenook, Layouts, Scales, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Timesaver, Web

Site seeing – March 29 (Trackmobile layout edition)

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The BLI HO Scale Trackmobile
The BLI HO Scale Trackmobile (image courtesy of BLI)

One of the better small locos to have come out in the last 10 years is the HO scale Trackmobile available from Broadway Limited Imports. I’m working on my unit to weather it into a loved if hard worked unit. There’ll be an article in April about how I weathered it and how you can do so too. The only drawback with this model is the dummy coupler on the front end. Somewhere on the internet I read about a change to the Trackmobile front where you add a shortened Kadee #58 coupler directly under the dummy coupler. Essentially the change was drilling and tapping a 2-56 hole in the bottom centre of the dummy coupler, shortening a #58 coupler and then drilling a hole in that for the 2-56 screw before screwing the two of them together. While not perfect it falls within the Kadee coupler height gauge requirements and allows the Trackmobile to be double ended. Saving the Hand from the sky (the 0-5-0 hand of god) traverser. Now, onto today’s site.

Site 1: RÜGENSHAVEN (Carendt.com)

Thomas Van Hare's Rugenshaven Layout
Thomas Van Hare’s Rugenshaven Layout

Thomas Van Hare of Ashburn, Virginia, USA put this layout in the Carendt.com First layout design contest in May 2008. While the layout location is imaginary this HO Scale German fishing harbor corner layout Thomas says “involves a Timesaver (with eleven destinations), plus dual opposing Inglenooks, competitively running two DCC ‘Little Cow’ Trackmobiles”.

The layout features small fishing warehouses, boat maintenance facilities, fueling and supply shops, a fishing net manufacturer and marine diesel repair shop. At center is the harbor’s main canning smokehouse business, with two loading platforms.

You can find out more about the layout design challenge and the entries from the 2008 challenge on the Carendt.com site.

 

1. Small, HO Scale, Layout Design, Layouts, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Switching, Web

Site seeing – March 28 – Layout presentation ideas

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Layout presentation is something that I care greatly about. Today’s post, from The Small Urban Rails site takes you through a comprehensive review of proscenium arch and other presentation styles useful to model railroaders. Enjoy.

Site 1: Small Urban Rails

This insightful article about the author’s Southside Industrial District, originally housed in a 28” x 88” closet (thus its dimensions) and his discovery of the beauty of presentation after leaving the closet light on one afternoon before returning later in the evening to a darkened room and the image of the HO scale skyline of the Southside standing out from the room darkness.

Discussing styles of presentation and moving onto how he framed the Southside Industrial District this post is well worth the time to read and understand how your layout can really pop out of the background with simple framing techniques.

Like this post and comment if you find it useful or would like further information; if you’ve not already subscribed to keep up to date you can do so now using the link at the top of the post.

HO Scale, Scales, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Claremont Concord decals in HO

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Over on Chris Meer’s Prince Street blog a recent post points to a new supplier of decals for the Claremont and Concord RR (yes that is the Railway that MR did a G scale layout of some time ago).

The C&C is a great prototype for the small layout builder (especially in HO) and these decals are in HO scale and at first glance appear to be crisp and match the prototype exactly.

While there are no guarantees, and Chris points out that he has not received them at the time of this post, these look very nice and here’s hoping that the seller’s customer service and the product meet expectations.

Chris Mears's avatarPrince Street

A quick cruise in eBay led me to this listing:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/CLAREMONT-AND-CONCORD-44-TON-HO-SCALE-DECAL-SET-/141937362595?hash=item210c2046a3:g:xQAAAOSwP~tW6qy0

I have no connection to the seller and I haven’t seen the decals. Regardless, I’m excited and I’ve ordered a couple of sets of these to have a look at them. I’m a fan of the Claremont-Concord Railroad (my interest lies during the LaValley ownership period) and this decal set would be perfect for use on a model of the CCRR’s #30.

While I have no connection to the seller, I did exchange a few messages with him and each has been pleasant. I’m impressed with the service so far. I’m looking forward to seeing the decals and I’m thrilled to shine a light on a product that I haven’t seen produced before.

Frankly I’m surprised, constantly, by the lack of models or even just decals, for those with an interest in any of the shortlines owned or run by Samuel…

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1. Small, HO Scale, Layout Design, Layouts, Liked off site, Operations, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Switching, Web

Site seeing – February 13 (the behind the scenes edition)

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Site 1: Switching/Shunting/Shelf “Small Model Train Layouts” (Facebook group)

Glenn Sanders runs a very tight-knit and helpful group over on Facebook. I’m pretty sure that you need to be a member of Facebook to view the group, and you have to be added by Glenn, but since joining I have found some of the best modellers on there. Ray O’Neill of HELM and 59th and Rust fame is just one of the great modellers on the group. It is also a great place to share ideas and plans for your industrial switching layout (ISL) too. If you get a chance drop by and see what’s going on. Very layout focused.

Site 2: End of the spur!

For those of you who might know Ray O’Neill through his 59th and Rust layout, he has another underway at the moment that I wanted to share with you. End of the spur is an industrial switching layout (ISL) set in an inner city industrial area, using combined motive power moved because there is no run-around as in the image left, there is a lot of switching to do and surprisingly a lot of space to get it done in with 12′ (feet) of run and 14″ (inches) of depth. There are some great ideas that I’ve seen in this build that I’ll be using on my layout too. Among them the switch frog polarity controller – which is genius.

Have a great Saturday.

1. Small, HO Scale, Layout Design, Layouts, Operations, Personal Layouts, Switching

Site update – January 7

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Is there no end to designing a layout? I sincerely hope not, I’m having too much fun!

I’ve added a page to the 12 foot layout modelling project for the design process. It’s been really good to check the images from a distance (and not standing at the layout board) and seeing where things could be improved. I’m going to make changes and get to the Mk III design later this week.

It’s nice to know that I’m getting closer to an ideal layout design that will keep me happy switching and let me enjoy the layout for the next few years.

Keep an eye out for updates to the page later in the week.

1. Small, HO Scale, Information, Layout Design, Layouts, Operations, Personal Layouts, Switching, This Site, Web

Site update – January 1 – Happy New Year edition

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I’ve added a new Modelling section – My 12 Foot Layout.

This will provide a Work-in-Progress report of what’s happening in the layout build process. For now there’s a front page. It provides my overall thoughts and a photo showing the proposed design (already laid out in track).

As I stated on the page there’ll be more coming in the future including:

  • Track laying,
  • Building construction,
  • Detailing,
  • Operations design, and
  • A session report or two

Looking forward to getting this underway this month.

HO Scale, Tools

Site seeing: 02 October – the pigs ear from a silk purse edition

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EDIT: Not sure what happened to all the text in this post, the problem was on my end obviously! Here’s take two of this post.

Site 1: Athearn BlueBox Gondola Build

I posted back on August 30th about the new models I bought at the Caulfield Exhibition – found in the bargains bin. I found going through the three models that one of them had, after being stored poorly, suffered some pretty nasty damage. There was a wicked bend throughout one side of the casting, and the other side had been sheared fromthe base along most of its length.

But for $10.00AU I am not complaining and aimed to instead see what could be made from the remains of the kit, or if it could be saved (somewhat) and made serviceable.

If you head on over to the build’s main page tomorrow (AEST time) you’ll be able to see part 1 of the build process.

1. Small, HO Scale, Inglenook, Layout Design, Layouts, Liked off site, Site seeing, Sites of interest, SuperNook, Switching, Tuning Fork, Web

Site seeing 28 September – the Sprung has springed edition!

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It is spring in the southern half of the world, and as a result everyone is coming down with seasonal allergies after a very long (well it seemed that way), cold (no it really was as cold as charity according to the weather bureau) and miserable winter.

Today is also marks my brother’s birthday – so Happy Birthday Scott. Hope that you get the message. More importantly I hope that you are reading the blog! But enough of me and onto the site seeing!

Site 1: One turnout layout variation

I’ve mentioned Chris Mears’ site in the past. His current post provides some interesting thoughts on variations among other thoughts on the “One turnout layout” posited by Lance Mindheim in the May 2013 edition of the Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine.

Read the article, and then read, and take part if you’re willing, in the discussion at the end of the post. It’s been thoughtful reading. Not saying that I agree with it all, but it has been thought provoking.

HO Scale, Scales

New models – Athearn Blue Box 50′ Gondola

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At the recent Caulfield model railway exhibition I managed to find three Athearn 50′ Gondolas (undecorated) for $10.00 each. They came from Casula Hobbies‘ back room clear out pile. These kits may have sat there for a week or ten years; apart from the covered tops being missing they were complete.

My understanding is that these kits are completely freelance, designed by Irv Athearn to fit in the same box as the 40′ box car and use the frame from the 50’ flat car.  This frame also causes a problem in the side of the Gondola should be straight if you use the drop frame.

For my purposes – I really don’t care. They were 10 bucks each, look interesting and will fit in nicely on the layout as end of life cars, specifically in use for scrap loading. Besides which as a mid to late 1970s layout, a riveted car with a worn wooden floor, full of rusty scrap will look really nice.

The interior of the car at the moment is the standard riveted plastic with horrible ejector pin marks (photos will be forthcoming). I do have some wood siding that I’ll use to replace it though.

For this model I’ll make the following changes:

  • Kadee 70-ton Friction bearing trucks with 33″ wheels
  • Metal grabs, stirrups, coupler release lever
  • Extra weight
  • Kadee #58 couplers

The paint scheme: boxcar red with HVL markings. These cars are considered to at the end of their usable life, and as home road cars.