Tag Archives: video

About, Web

1 August 2025 – The Journey of a Thousand Miles

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First channel video (talking about the channel and what I intend to make of it) releases to YouTube on Sunday, August 3rd.

It has been a journey

This common saying originated from a Chinese proverb. The quote originates from Chapter 64 of the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Laozi. This saying teaches that even the longest and most difficult ventures have a starting point; something which begins literally where one stands.

I have had to relearn almost everything I knew since my last time working in this arena. My family has been wired, mic’d and are listening through good basic pro gear. Everyone has come on board to help out and get this done. Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants.

Thanks also have to go out to the following YouTube creators:

  • Wayne Fick (Created by Wayne) for his outstanding Canva video learning videos
  • Kevin Kolbe for his, unknown to him, continuing support and encouragement over the last several months

I aim to have a second video out by mid-August to kick off the topic of small layout operations. Then, one video will be released each month, on the first Sunday of every month, until the end of the year.

And yes, I know I said I’d do that last year, too. What I’ve learned since then is that I was overestimating my knowledge. My skills weren’t up to the level I needed them to reach a standard I believed the subject and those of you who’ve been reading this blog deserved.

I am at the bottom of the ladder now, but I’m pleased with what I’ve created, and I aim to better my skills as I go forward. I look forward to your feedback on the next post that will be out on Sunday morning, my time here in the freezingly cold South-Western corner of Australia.

Staying in Contact

Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas?  You can do that in several ways by:

    • Leaving a comment on YouTube starting Sunday, August 3rd 2025
    • Commenting on this post (I read and answer each one)
    • Sending me a note using our About page (email)
    • Connecting with us on Facebook at Andrew’s Trains
Web

New home, and an unexpected wait for the internet

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Moving on out

We’ve had to move twice in 12 months. This gets old fast when it’s not by choice. However, we’re now in a new house and we’ve a level of certainty that we have not had recently.

But, there’s a problem with that.

It’s like 1985 in here…

There is no internet, and our mobile phone reception is marginal on a good day due to our distance from the nearest cell tower.

We’re waiting on an electrician to come in to trench out and replace the current conduit, which ends 25 metres short of the pit in the street, so that the broadband company can connect us up.

The result is that hopefully sometime in February we’ll have the internet connected and I’ll be able to upload January’s video.

1985 is better than I remember it in someways, but worse in others. For now I’ll keep working on thing’s here in the Turdis, and keep carrying on.

I just wish you could see me typing this on my phone. It would be nice if I could make my sausage fingers work on it, like they do on the keyboard.

I’ll be in touch in a week or two. Assuming we’ve arrived in 1997 by then. I wonder if my CompuServe account still works?

Resources

  • Wish we had some

Staying in Contact

Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas? You can do that in several ways by:

    • Commenting on this post (I read and answer each one)
    • Sending me a note using our About page (email)
    • Connecting with us on Facebook at Andrew’s Trains
About, Operations, Sites of interest, This Site, Web, YouTube

No plan survives first contact with cancer

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Promises, Promises

In a post dated November 2023, I mentioned that I had plans for more content during 2024. Unfortunately, health complications came along.

An ongoing battle with Colon cancer (since 2015) came to a head along with a more recent workplace injury to add injury to insult.

I found it difficult to focus on tasks outside of maintaining my health. Together, the two challenges overwhelmed me. Leaving me exhausted at the end of each day.

My thanks go out to you for your support and for remaining a subscriber, especially over the last two years.

But, it would appear that things are looking up. My doctors have told me that my cancer is finally under control. My workplace injury is getting better which has also been a long painfilled road.

Looking forward

Therefore, here’s my focus for 2025.

I’ll be producing new content just for you. If you are someone into small layouts who is interested in getting into or improving their current understanding of operations, then I’m here to support you.

Whether you are at the start of your journey or further down the track, I’ll help cut the effort it can take to learn about and understand rail operations.

I’ve been reviewing my current operations content to make it better and to support the upcoming video content.

The topics I’m going to tackle first are:

  1. what is the meaning of operations in a modelling sense
  2. what that means for you the small layout owner/builder
  3. why operations are important for your small layout, and
  4. how you can make it work for the layout you already have

My challenge is to post the first video before the end of January 2025. I’m challenging myself to complete one operations video each month throughout the year.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you would like to see covered in these and other videos. Please get in touch (more details in the “Resources” section below).

Happy New Year!

Finally, I want to wish you a safe, and prosperous new year. (I missed wishing you a Merry Christmas – my apologies.)

I hope that the end of 2024 sees you and your family in good spirits and health and I want to wish you and yours the very best for the new year.

Resources

Staying in Contact

I hope you’ll keep in touch and discuss posts, pages and ideas!  You can do that in several ways:

1. Small, Acrylics, Layout Design, Layouts, Liked off site, Operations, Operations, Paints & Painting, Paper/e-Paper, Passenger, Scenery, scratchbuilding, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Switching, Switching, Tamiya - Spray and Jars, This Site, Weathering, Web, YouTube

Recovery, Delayed Posts and the flat-out best Chain-Link Fence tutorial ever!

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I wrote back in December 2021 that I caught “the virus” and was hoping to be over it in short order. Yeah, well that didn’t happen.  Read on…

Recovery and Delayed Posts

“What doesn’t kill you gives you a set of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a dark sense of humour” – Unknown

So, what started out as an optimistic case of COVID-19, turned into a 7-week absence from work, including 5 weeks (solid) of 24 hour-a-day coughing fits, being as weak as a kitten, and 2 plus months of continual work to get back to my fitness level. I get that everyone’s story with COVID is different. I was lucky not to have ended up at the hospital, but it was a close-run thing. Thankfully, Australia’s public health system held up and is outstanding; I had a fantastic team on my side made up of my GP, The Royal Melbourne Hospital‘s COVID triage team, Nurse-On-Call, family and friends to help out. Seems that raising a child is not the only thing that requires a village.

I’m still finding that overwhelming tiredness at the end of the day remains. Each day that goes by, thank the fates, I am still here and getting back toward normal. While my wife caught COVID, it was less aggressive with her than with me. It would have been better not to have caught it at all. I’ve now had my 3rd vaccination and hope not to catch it again. Let’s just hope that it turns more benign as time goes on and as we become used to having it in the world at large.

If you’ve been through it I hope that you are O.K. and that your family and friends likewise are on the mend.

Needless to say, posting has been delayed as life, in general, has taken priority. I hope that you will stick with me as I get back on track to work on finishing the last post in the “Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 7 – Op till you Drop)” series. In this post, which I’ve begun working on again will take us through an op session on the layout. I aim to finish that soon.

Chain-Link Fence Tutorial

Boomer-Diaries on YouTube has been a must-watch, that I found during my time watching ‘everything’ on YouTube during my convalescence. He recently posted what I feel is the best Chain Link fence tutorial I’ve ever seen or read. I’ve linked it below. Watch and enjoy as you get a masterclass in how-to modelling, painting and dressing a great scenic item.

Once you go down this rabbit-hole though, you may be some time, to misquote Capt Robert Oates (of Scott’s doomed Antartcic expedition) as Boomer diaries has a big collection of outstnading videos on the current layout build.

Talk more to you all soon.

Andrew

Resources

This series so far:

Staying in Contact

Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas?  You can do that in several ways by:

    • Commenting on this post (I read and answer each one)
    • Sending me a note using our About page (email)
    • Connecting with us on Facebook at Andrew’s Trains
1. Small, Layout Design, Loads, Operations, Prototype, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Switching, Switching, Web, YouTube

Site Seeing – The Little Critter that could edition

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It’s not often that you get to see internal (in-plant) company railway operations today. Thankfully “Saginaw Terminal Docks” (Facebook and YouTube) posted a video from Reid Machinery in Lansing, Mi showing how they use old freight cars to store valuable machinery on their site prior to sale.

Reid Machinery’s internal railroad

Reid Machinery Inc of Lansing Michigan have specialised in moving machinery, primarily in the forging industry, throughout North America since 1992. And while that may not seem like the most worthy thing to write about on the third Tuesday in July – I urge you to hang around a moment longer. You see they also hold their large (as in big – not lots of) inventory on and in their own railroad assets.

Yes – they have their own switching layout.

Thanks to Saginaw Terminal Docks we have a front row seat, and a cab ride on one of these switching moves. I asked him about connections to the rest of the world. He tells me that the in-plant line connects to the JAIL/Adrian & Blissfield on over a mile of old track through Lansing’s south side.

And this is so modellable…

YouTube video

Some of the things to watch out for in the video are:

  • The three person crew (Engineer, conductor, and digger – and yes it’s a guy with  a shovel)
  • Slow switching speeds
  • At around the 18 minute mark – opening the boxcar door with the forklift forks (we often model the result but the actual operation is rarely filmed)

So sit back, turn up the volume and enjoy the show.

Resources

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

Site seeing – Saturday morning video watching edition

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It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to post. A range of reasons you’re all familiar with – work, tiredness, time pressure and the needs for others among them. And then that this is at the moment a hobby and not my primary income source (sigh).

While taking a little time out for myself in the early morning (before the sun came up on a very chilly day in Ballarat) I rediscovered the video produced by the folks over at Model Railroader on model railroad operations. Hosted by the late (and greatly lamented Andy Sperandeo) this video is a great introduction to operations, without all the paperwork, and other stuff that can hamper your entry into the realm.

I hope you enjoy, and it is great to share with you Andy’s wit and personality. I miss being able to chat with him as I did every now and then online about operations and the finer points he knew from a lifetime of modelling. Have a great weekend.

Magazine, Prototype, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Switching, Web

Site Seeing – 29 June – A new series from Model Railroader – Taking Care of Business

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I’ve been quite hard on model railroader over the years. They’ve been very predatory in their behaviour over the years. I even got a cease and desist letter from them at one point because they thought I’d copied part of their intellectual property when I published a corner layout of my design. After to-ing and fro-ing and a level of “kiss my A##” from me since I was in the right, we’ve gotten along well ever since.

However, I may, and I stress only may, change my point of view if they keep up their new free to watch video venture – Taking Care of business. The basis of the idea is to ride along with a crew (in this video SMS Lines switching the Pureland Industrial Park in Bridgeport, New Jersey) as they go about their day-to-day work. The video was entertaining and informative. My concern is that if it doesn’t stay free I certainly won’t be putting up my money to pay for it. Lots of content providers share similar videos on YouTube and other sharing sites that help me understand as much.

Free is good as in beer, and speech. Hopefully MR keeps this series going as free to watch. There is some really interesting content, good production values and I enjoyed the narrative of the story showing the crew going about all of their tasks during their day.

Resources:

  • Video: To watch the video (while it is still free) head over to Taking Care of Business: SMS Rail Lines | ModelRailroaderVideoPlus.com
  • SMS Rail Lines: SMS Rail Lines restores, maintains and operates many historic Baldwin diesel locomotives (in fact I believe they have the largest fleet of Classic Baldwin’s in North America). It’s a labor of love to keep these rare and historic units in-service for future generations to witness. For more just search “SMS Baldwin” on YouTube.

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Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web, YouTube

Site seeing – March 26th (the “Have a great Easter” edition)

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While tooling around the Shortline Modellers’ site I mentioned in my post of March 24th I found a video that I wanted to share with you. Onto to todays site.

Site 1: Painting diesel locomotive trucks

I find it amazing that when you need something the most it so often appears out of the mist, landing at your feet, as if sent by the gods direct from Olympus itself. Watch on as Shortline Modellers’ Shawn Branstetter goes through what he did to paint, weather and masterfully finish the diesel locomotive truck in this video.

I hope that he keeps on posting videos like this. If some of the articles I’ve only scanned so far are near as good, this site will become a modeller’s resource for many of us.

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.

Layouts, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing – January 6

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It’s the load ’em up and lock ’em down edition.

Site 1: Loading a boxcar with broken down loading bins

If you’ve ever wondered what a load should look like inside a boxcar (I know that this is specific to this particular load – but I am certain that I can make up some realistic looking loads using these principles) then watch the video below; it is fascinating.

No longer should you boxcar doors open with nothing inside of them. I’ve gotten some ideas out of this one for a small project.

Layouts, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web, YouTube

Site seeing – June 20

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I love signalling, and modelling signalling systems. In the future I have a plan for an exhibition layout running under catenary, fully signalled using automatic block signals. For now though the plan is to get the current layout done.

In the meantime we can all enjoy some great old video – thanks to YouTube.

Site 1: YouTube – The Railroad Signal by the New York Central System’s PR Department

I love these old videos and collect them when I can. This one is great, and shows a lot of features of the steam era railroad that you might not otherwise notice.