The Philden Model Railway Blog: Philden Street Yard

My Secret Project is on track to be completed over the Christmas Holidays!

Well I've made it this far. After six months of hints and teasers with what I was building, I can now leave the Secret Project Philden V3 days behind me and announce that my new switching layout is to be known as PHILDEN STREET YARD. However, the new layout wasn't the only secret project I've been up to.

That's right. Alongside constructing a new HO scale switching layout, I've also been hard at work preparing the first 3 instalments of my new Philden Model Railway Presents range of books. Aimed at quickly turning newcomers to our hobby into intermediate modellers, (without taking two decades to do so as was my experience), the first title BUILD A BOOKSHELF LAYOUT will be available at the start of 2022. Exciting as that is, the books are funnily enough a Phoenix that has risen from the ashes of 2020/2021....

You see, choosing to build a freight only switching layout was a combination of wanting more operational potential than my previous efforts, and scaling things back on account of an absolutely hellish 2021 that at one point had me contemplating selling everything, and at least temporarily exiting the hobby.

I'm glad things didn't quite come to that point, but if you recall my Philden Road Finale post on Friday 13th August, I've been navigating a pretty rough year that just hasn't gotten any better. Not only has my wife still been unable to work since March due to a back injury, but I then went and tore my knee up while trying to run our cleaning business on my own. Anyway, as a result of this unexpected spare time, the new layout has come along nicely, to the point where I'm planning to debut Philden Street Yard on the South East Queensland exhibition circuit sometime in 2022. I take that as proof enough that there's always a rainbow after a storm.

At 1720 x 450 x 450 mm, the shadow box layout was built to fit into our car.

Which brings me to the whole how did I end up switching from modelling South East Queensland and the North Coast of NSW, to modelling a relatively modern urban Melbourne scene?

Well, I guess it was a combination of wanting to both keep my Queensland Granite Belt idea for a small project of its own, and also wanting a fresh start with something new. A modern Melbourne layout was just the ticket, while my next little project in 2022 will be a 1400 mm x 350 mm QR 12 mm narrow gauge Granite Belt themed micro layout that will sit beneath my Philden Street Yard staging shelf. Set in the 1990's and based around a great little Inglenook track plan I have already mapped out, I'll have the added bonus of being able to call upon good friend and experienced modeller Anthony Veness to help with some of the details.

My Walker Models Goods Shed has been heavily rusted and survives into its' third Philden layout.

Combined, these new projects were all neccessary to garner enough material for my newly launched range of Philden Model Railway Presents books. Moving forward, I had the choice to try one more time with novel number five in the hope that a new publishing contract might be in the offering, or just say 'stuff it!' I really want to have a crack at producing my own series of Australian themed model railway books. Announcing a range of upcoming books all at once immediately establishes the blog as a brand, and means that I can enjoy both modelling and writing for the next two years, instead of being tied to a keyboard writing a novel with no time to run a train.

Expect to see my wife Denise beside my layout in the near future as we develop a small trade stand for her to manage selling my own range of books alongside me whenever I exhibit Philden Street Yard. It's the right time for both of us to be trying something new, given that we're not getting any younger, and working any harder physically after recovering from injury is just not going to be possible heading into the next decade.

The loco refuelling tracks are at the heart of operations on Philden Street Yard.

So let's get to talking about Philden Street Yard.

Philden Street is a fictitious little HO scale yard set in Melbourne, that incorporates both broad and standard gauge service tracks. Its fictitiously set somewhere in the vicinity of the Melbourne West Yard and ex-Footscray Wharf branch along the Maribyrnong River. As far as my penchant for building small-ish layouts goes, its a kind of Philden Version 3 if you wish.

The staging shelf I'm building for Philden Street Yard will be a more complex track arrangement designed for home operation, and as such I'll dub it Home Yard. As oppossed to the simple 2 track shelf that will suffice for model train shows which I'll nickname Show Yard. Trains arriving at Philden Street Yard are met with a headshunt capable of handling two lashed-up NR class locomotives, and runaround capacity for between 2 to 3 wagons. Not bad when you're talking about a scenic portion only 1720 mm long! The incoming train is then broken up and Tracks 1 & 4 are shunted on either side of the yet-to-be-named Distribution Centre. The outgoing train is then assembled on the branch line, the locos are sent to the refuelling tracks (Tracks 2 & 3), swapped for a fresh locomotive, and the train returns to staging.

From this operational design point, I just had to select the right mix of rollingstock and locomotives that would keep things interesting.

Green Bulldog A81 is sitting on the dual gauge Track 1.

Back in 2019 I pre-ordered the Indigenous NR Class locomotives for my previous layout, so knowing they were coming I planned to centre my roster around the pair of them. Fast forward to 2021... and well, how can you really plan a layout around pre-orders in a pandemic? You can't. The last thing I could afford to do was tie-up money on a pre-order that may not arrive before 2027. So my first rule was to avoid purchasing anything that wasn't available right here, and right now!

Secondly, having wanted to do something a little different, I'd already started collecting some Victorian outline models over the past few years thinking I'd build a small micro layout at some point in the future. So I started planning something that could be compact enough to combine both standard and broad gauge operations in the one track plan, given that any commercially produced models of these types share the same common HO scale track anyway. After the problems I encountered trying to include both 12 mm and 16.5 mm gauge HO scale track on a previous layout of the same size, this was a relatively simple task.

The backdrop view of the Melbourne Yard Cement Sheds gives my layout a sense of place.

I came up with the idea of using super glue to add some leftover code 83 rail to the outside of my code 100 HO rail on one stretch of track to create the illusion of having a dual gauge line. The code 83 rail sits lower than the code 100 and doesn't create any hinderance to operation whatsoever. In reality its just there for looks, and I run whatever train I'm inclined to on any track I like, guilt free. It turned out to be a stroke of genius for the concept of this layout.

Luckily there was still a good choice of Victorian locomotives and rollingstock readily available to suit the 1997 to mid 2000's period that would match the time era for my eagerly anticipated Indigenous NR Class locomotives. With the money coming in from the sell-off of my previous New South Wales locomotives, rollingstock and XPT set, I was mindful to just purchase the bare minimum of what was needed to make this layout come together. I started out with a Freight Australia P Class locomotive, a West Coast Railway B Class locomotive and a V/Line Freight X Class loco, 3 different classes of locomotives in 3 different liveries. All Auscision Models, and all of which happened to be on a special sale price at the time through Tate's Trains down in Geelong. Just when I thought I had my broad gauge fleet finalised, my friend Anthony surprised me with an added thank you gift for sending my old layout his way in the form of a long sold-out Freight Australia A Class which brought my broad gauge fleet to 4 locomotives.

I already had a nice little fleet of National Rail era rollingstock and containers from the previous layout that have transitioned across to my new layout to help keep the cost down. It essentially left me only some long sold out Freight Australia VLCX louvred vans to hunt down through a Facebook group to round out my broad gauge roster. Somehow in the face of a tough year, I'd managed to get everything I needed for the new layout on a budget. Until... early one Saturday morning when I checked a group post on Facebook and saw that someone was selling their still new, NR75 loco in the 'Steve Irwin' Ghan scheme. Sometimes you've just got to get that one model you missed out on when it was released unannounced. So I treated myself to a third NR Class locomotive, knowing full well that it didn't match the era of my V/Line Freight X Class, more on that in a moment!

So there you have it, that's how Philden Street Yard came about. It was then up to me to finish building a layout that was relatively affordable, lightweight to transport to model train shows, and most importantly would hold my interest with operating it for the rest of my years.

The as yet unnamed Distribution Centre is this layouts' major traffic source. It was originally bought to be a backdrop flat industry on my last layout, Philden Road. Being able to build it in all its glory was another of the reasons behind Philden Street Yard's construction.

To that extent it seems to have come together quite well. The 1720 mm long x 450 mm deep shadow box layout will be accompanied by a 1580 mm long x 450mm wide staging shelf. A decent staging shelf is something that I've neglected in the past as I've always been tempted to use it as additional layout space. While I'm looking forward to taking this small layout to model train shows, I won't be taking the whole 3 metre long set-up. Instead, I will build a smaller 600 mm two track clip-on staging shelf for when Philden Street Yard is exhibited. It only needs to be big enough to hold a throttle pack and give the appearance of having a locomotive disappear beyond the Philden Street overpass. It means that I will be able to pack the layout and a small trade table in our car for when I take Philden Street Yard to a show. It will be nice as a husband and wife team to plan some weekends away with my latest layout alongside a small table offering my own railway books for sale.

Not blogging this layout's construction step-by-step as I have in the past was also something that I planned when starting work on Philden Street. I took the motto of build it first, and worry about what you share on the blog later. Very early on I thought that this layout would make some great subject matter for a book, given that it was now my third small bookshelf switching layout. So I put writing the book/books on top priority ahead of writing on my model railway blog. As you read this, I have already released two new books in 2021, and the first in the series of Philden Model Railway Presents books is on track for an early New Year release.

Long posts such as this may now be a thing of the past. When I need to leverage more career time as a writer, that's the way it needs to be. What has worked however, are the Secret Project posts that I was able to auto-cue over a three month period in the space of just a few evenings. Proof has been the 300% increase in blog readership over the past 6 months. It seems people are more interested in guessing what I'm trying to do rather than reading through a long post of me getting sidetracked with everything that is happening in my life. So expect another new regular series of posts to take the place of my Secret Project PV3 updates. Perhaps cryptic updates on my Queensland layout, or a photo-of-the-week from Philden Street. Or maybe both?

And just when I thought I had the new layout all sorted.... a simple operating session at my friend Anthony's place early in November changed everything. When he hooked up his newly acquired DCC sound equipped locomotive, (on my old layout of all places), and put the model through its paces, I knew I was in trouble! Adding sound to a simple switching layout takes operating it to the next level. Each shunting move becomes more deliberately focussed, the application of air brakes draws out the realism beyond a simple fast flick of a turnout, and the shut-down sequence brings an air of formality to the end of an operating session. I was instantly hooked!

In less than a week I had phoned Auscision and upgraded the pre-order for my Indigenous NR locomotives to DCC sound, and purchased a new DCC sound equipped B65. To offset the cost a little, I sold my original DC version B Class and the X Class, which if you recall the V/Line X Class didn't exactly match the same time period as my newly acquired Ghan locomotive anyway. That just moved the era I model forward slightly to 2001 to 2004, and also opens the door for another locomotive to join my fleet somewhere in the future. Possibly a G or BL Class to tie everything together. So that's pretty much this layout's roster done and dusted. It's then onto the next little project, and no more looking at Victorian things to buy!

In a nice end to a tough year, my wife will have a complete NCE DCC Power Cab system under the Christmas Tree for me to open on Christmas Day! The A Class and P Class Freight Australia locos along with my Steve Irwin Ghan will remain. I'll get to deciding what to do with adding DCC decoders to them down the track given that there's a worldwide shortage of them at the moment anyway. Or maybe I'll just wire the layout so I can switch between running DC or DCC, depending on whether I'm taking it to a show, or my wife just wants some quiet while she watches TV. It's a nice problem to have!

And the operator's view of Philden Street Yard. The most enjoyable switching layout I've built!

And finally, I should really share a little of what modelling an inner-Melbourne freight yard means to me. Living in Queensland, and having modelled New South Wales outline in the past, I think people forget that I once lived in Victoria, in a little town of just over 1,000 in South Gippsland called Foster. I moved there with my parents when I was still 14 in late 1986. I finished high school there in 1989, and in that year managed to do my work experience with V/Line as a Station Assistant at Leongatha, even getting to sit in the 2nd Man seat of a P Class loco from Leongatha to Spencer Street Station and back. I started an apprenticeship with the South Gippsland Shire Council at the start of 1990, and my goals were to spend my holidays travelling across Victoria by train, and buying my own land on which to restore an old train carriage as my model railway room. Instead, I met my wife Denise in that little town while she was on holidays, and moved to Queensland with her in early 1991. The rest is history.

From those years however, so many sights, sounds and smells have stayed with me. Watching the weekly Barry Beach Oil train meander through Foster. Witnessing the last train to Yarram. Cold mornings waiting in Foster for the V/Line bus on its way to connecting with the train to Melbourne's Spencer Street Station. And what a delight the old Spencer Street station was. A sort of Soviet-era utilitarian concoction of orange-bricked madness. And beyond it, Melbourne Yard. The place where I imagined tracks headed out to every corner of the globe, when in reality they all ended up in lonely towns like Yarram.

I never fully realised the privilege I had of witnessing the slow demise of a country railway line like those four-and-a-bit years I spent in Foster, until I returned years later to see that in most places there was nothing left behind. These years whenever I visit Victoria, I find myself jumping on a train to Shepparton, or Warrnambool and back, just to take a ride and see what's there. Or stopping the car in towns like Tocumwal, Echuca or Ballarat in the hope of seeing a freight train.

Philden Street Yard for me is the last of those surviving reminders. An inner-Melbourne location that as its backdrop suggests is just years away from being demolished in the name of urban-renewal. It still handles freight by rail to some of the towns and cities I imagined visiting by train back when I was 17. Only the locomotives too are now on borrowed time. A's, B's and P's. All dinosaurs alongside more modern NR class locomotives.

It's a curtain call. And the layout is a stage. Welcome to Philden Street Yard.