Strange Saturday at Philden

Some absolutely downright bizarre movements occurred over the weekend, when a number of strange sightings were recorded passing through Philden late on a Saturday afternoon. It was if the hands of time were turned back, as one-by-one a procession of out-of-place, out-of-time trains time travelled through the mouse-hole portal and onto my layout. But before you jump to the conclusion that I've changed eras, the accompanying photos were all models belonging to another Sunshine Coast modeller, Anthony Veness, who stopped by for a much shortened running session after we were both waylaid in the north of Brisbane at the Pine Rivers Model Train Show. With the beachside extension now ballasted and operational once more, I captured the following images, beginning with the Berg's Hobbies Sydney suburban parcels van shown above, running between Philden and Phills Harbour.

Another Berg's Hobbies Sydney suburban electric set, this one with the blue & white 70's era driver car.

No sooner had the parcels van cleared the station, a 3 car single deck suburban set magically arrived without any wires, reminding me of the days I would see a mix of red rattler and blue & white single deck sets poking their heads out of the Hornsby car sheds as I'd ride the train from Gosford to Sydney.

A pair of heavily modified and beautifully weathered Powerline 48 class locos.

Next spotted in the yard at Philden, were a pair of Powerline 48 class locos, one in Indian Red and the other in the 125 Years of NSW Railways commemorative livery. It was around this point that I began to question my reasons not to have bought one of the recently released Auscision 48's.

As evidenced by this photo, the 48's would actually have suited my layout very well.

Fortunately the 48's were only brief visitors, and soon the pair departed light engine from the platform, taking with them any lingering questions as to whether I should still try to find some money to add the little Alco to my layout's roster.

What's a V/Line passenger A class loco doing shunting in Philden Yard? That ain't right!

It was around this time that things got really weird. Next spotted shunting in Philden Yard was an Auscision A class Victorian locomotive painted in V/Line passenger colours. I'm not sure if this loco ever ran on standard guage to be this far from home, and it looks about a strange as seeing Gary Ablett Jnr lining up for the Cronulla Sharks!

The newly released Wombat Models C30T class steam loco. What a delightful little engine it is to run!

Next to saunter into Philden Station was the C30T NSWGR steam locomotive recently released by Wombat Models. This loco is delightful to run, and the fire irons, driver and fireman figures and footplate details have me thinking that this model is a steal at the $350 it was released for. Apparently there were some minor issues for its owner to smooth out such as adjusting the spring arm that pushes the front pilot wheels to the rails, and removing some minor flash moulding that is visible on the top of the boiler, but that aside, it sure is a delightful little engine!

One nice little New South Wales steam loco!

Once the 30 had simmered at the station long enough to be admired and photographed, it too chugged out light engine and never to be seen again, as its owner plans to install a DCC chip inside it, thus making it unable to return for a visit. Still, it was nice to have the rare opportunity to photograph some steam at Philden.

Now that's nice! An Auscision Models pair of Interail/QR National 421's seen in Phiden Yard.

Things then started to return to normal, as my own 421 class Interail loco 42109 appeared, only this time coupled with visiting QR National sibling 42103. The QR eagle livery on this model is striking! Had I had the money and foresight at the time, I too would have added this loco to my roster.

Seen idling above the harbour, these 421's look right at home together. Pity only 1 of them is mine!

With the 421's last seen trundling off into the Port Authority Yard at the newly opened Phills Harbour, the eagle livered QRN loco was soon packed up into the time-travelling locomotive storage box along with its other friends, and I farewelled Anthony and thanked him for an awesome day of driving down the Bruce Highway to the Pine Rivers Model Train Show and for an afternoon of talking and running trains. Having the chance to run some different locos on my small layout was an eye-opener. It was a real surprise to discover that my small layout has a strong non era-specific nature about it when it comes to swapping locos or rollingstock. I hadn't quite expected that.

The beautiful character of Auscision's 46 class is there to be seen, but what do I do about the wires?

And finally to round-out the afternoon cavalcade of colour, I placed this newly acquired 46 class locomotive on the tracks to consider another case of the 'could-have-been's'. I've had this loco for a few months now, only I've kept its knowledge quiet from my model train friends on account of one thing.... the wires. Or lack of any on my layout.

Pent-up over the pantographs. They're beautiful, but running them up requires a rebuild of one end of my layout!

This model sold out the first time, and whilst the re-released version with the white roof was still available, I bought one and tucked it away while deciding if, or should, I add the overhead wires to the short beach extension of my layout. My thinking was that I could have a country/city transition between sections, with the wires emphasising the rails had reached Sydney's outer reaches. But the extension in its new form is still nothing more than a staging shelf, with the added bonus of having scenery in place. Adding wires? Well, that's just going to complicate placing and removing rollingstock from the rails. As for the pantographs? Unless I want to rebuild the mouse-hole beneath the overpass to make it 1.5 cm higher, then I'd have to always run this model with pantographs down. I wish I had the chance to run one of these locos first on my layout before buying one. And after a great afternoon of running some different locos on my layout, I thought the timing was right to move the 46 Class on, and place it up on eBay.

I suppose chopping and changing locos is a way of keeping a small layout looking and feeling fresh to operate. I also recently moved on the AustrainsNEO NR class on account of it being a little too long to work in and out of every siding with a wagon in tow. Now, I'm hoping that the soon-to-aarive 442 Class loco proves to be the final answer for my layout. A simple roster for a compact bookshelf layout in the form of a 421 Class and 442 Class locomotive to work alongside my 2 car Xplorer train. Apart from that... there is always the option of having another Strange Saturday at Philden somewhere further down the line!