2022 ~ My 200TH Post!

There's a few milestones to acknowledge in this post. Not only was my latest book Build a Bookshelf Layout featured on Will James's January edition of Australian Model Railway News, (see below), but a new sound equipped locomotive has been added to Philden Street's roster, I think I may finally be getting over an extended bout of C-O-V-I-D, and... oh, this is my 200th blog post!

Watch the January 2022 Australian Model Railway News

To see my book open the first Australian Model Railway News for 2022 was a blast! There's a lot of great model railway tutorials and reviews on YouTube, but Will's monthly roundup of what's happening in the world of model trains has quickly become a staple part of my hobby life. With almost 3,400 subscribers to the Will James: Railways YouTube channel, my book was seen by more than 2,000 viewers in the first 24 hours after the show was posted. And keep in mind that Australian Model Railway News is yet to celbrate its 1st Birthday!

To have Will reach out and enquire if he could include my book on his monthly segment was a wonderful gesture, and very much appreciated. For the month of January, I sold more copies of Build a Bookshelf Layout worldwide than my other 16 books combined over the whole of 2021. Australian Modeller are also stocking Build a Bookshelf Layout, and there have been several other hobby shops and bookshops arranging to get copies for their store as I type this. So thank you everyone, and thanks heaps Will.

As for my 200th post... It would have happened a lot earlier, if I hadn't tidied up my blog around the same time that I dismantled the original Philden layout. There were a lot of product reviews and planning processes that I openly discussed in past posts, that I deleted thinking they were no longer relevant. Strangely they would have been interesting to look back on now that I am immersed in Philden version 3, or Philden Street Yard as it is now known.

B80 is another sound equipped Auscision Models B Class loco, painted in The Murraylander scheme.

Now for another spot of good news. In January I welcomed B80 The Murraylander into Philden Street Yard's fledgling sound equipped roster. After running a fine tooth comb through my collection of locomotives, I added up how much I would be out of pocket if I converted them all to DCC. I wished I hadn't! So a few weekends ago, I rounded up anything that didn't belong on this layout, and pretty much sold them all through some Facebook groups to put the money towards getting my DC locos finally sorted out. I used some of the proceeds to buy the DCC sound equipped version of B80, and I think it cost me something like $413 delivered from Auscision Models' eBay store. I got the same great service with free postage, only with the added bonus of a 5% off eBay Plus voucher.

If you compare the cost of installing sound and DCC in an existing DC locomotive to the price I paid above, it works out much, much cheaper to just buy a sound equipped locomotive if possible. The quotes I received were all in the $250 to $275 range to have someone install DCC and sound into my existing locos. I believe there was a 20% increase from one of the decoder suppliers in January, and that's 20% in U.S. dollars. I guess that explains the sudden spate of sound equipped locomotives now showing as sold out on most websites. Anyway, I was lucky enough to purchase an 8 pin DCC Lokpilot chip for my Freight Victoria A Class from Metro Hobbies when they got some in recently. Then a week later saw that Hobbytech Toys in Perth listed the 21 pin version on eBay that I needed for my Freight Australia P Class. The DCC non-sound chips cost something like $60 each. A81 and P19 will now be my quiet pair of locomotives for me to run when Denise is watching her TV shows.

My Victorian rollingstock is more than enough to fill my staging yard. B80 will run my Western Victoria standard gauge freight trains to Horsham, Dimboola and Adelaide if needed.

So that will soon bring my working stable of locomotives on Philden Street to five... three with sound, and two without. That leaves my Ghan NR Class sitting in limbo, waiting to see what I will or won't do with it. I believe Auscision will announce this weekend that their next run of NR Class locos are in stock, which means my Indigenous NR Class locos should finally be here too. But, and this is a big but... I'm hedging my bets that there will be re-runs of some popular liveries that quickly sold out with the 1st release, i.e, NR75 in the special Steve Irwin Ghan livery. If so, I'm ready to snap up the sound equipped version, then look for a buyer for my DC version. It's by far the cheaper option than getting the locomotive sound converted with an after-market decoder, and that is if you're lucky to find one with the correct sound file.

There's a lot happening behind the scenes up my way at the moment now that I'm back working and trying to play catch up. Workwise, the C word has ensured a very lean start to 2022 after falling ill immediately after a 3 week Christmas closure for my small business. And some planned changes in our personal circumstances means that Philden Street Yard is going to be packed up and go into storage for an extended time later in the year anyway. Along with needing to get to work on my next two Philden Model Railway books, I really need to make time to clean my track so I can be ready for an operating day when my NR locomotives arrive. I may only have another 6 months to enjoy operating this layout before it gets packed up.

It's a foggy morning in Melbourne as B80, B65 and FL220 are prepared to be put to work.

I'm glad I moved a few things on to afford adding B80 to my collection. I've long liked the look of the locomotive, but never quite understood what the one-off livery was all about until I looked into it some more. It was the only other B Class loco that really fitted my 2000-2004 era. And the three locos above look great lined up alongside each other.

Until next time, stay safe, and thanks for reading my 200th blog post. I hope there's another 200 to follow!