Philden Museum


  

Since this blog first launched in May of 2015, there have been a number of variations and reincarnations of my modelling. After walking away from a fledgling career as a novelist to document my journey into the world of Australian HO scale model railways, Philden Model Railway has evolved from one modeller's ramblings into its' own brand of model railway books.

Always limited to the space available to the average apartment dweller, each of my layouts have grown in complexity and appearance thanks to the time spent in creating a model railway as an interactive piece of furniture.


PHILDEN: somewhere in outback NSW

SCALE: 1:87 HO / ERA: early 2000's / LIFESPAN: 2015-2019 / EXHIBITIONS: 8

The other half of Philden is my wife, Denise. Very early on when deciding upon that all important name for the layout, we went with Phil (the first half of Phillip) and den (the first half of Denise). Philden just so happened to be available as a blogging domain, and only 3 months later would also become the name of our cleaning business in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. To our friends and clients, we were effectively Philden whenever we walked into the room, and the name still sticks today.

The first Philden layout was built to be portable in the event of moving home, which also came in handy for transporting the layout to model train exhibitions. Together, my wife and I attended 8 model railway exhibitions in southeast Queensland with the first Philden layout, and along with seeing Philden grace the cover of the August 2018 edition of Australian Model Railway Magazine they remain some of the greatest memories a modeller could ask for.

Philden received a visit from Humphrey B. Bear at the 2016 Gold Coast Model Train Show.

The mouse-hole beneath the fake highway overpass was the entry/exit to the staging shelf.

 

 

 

 

The track plan for the original Philden layout was a total length of 2600 mm.

Prior to writing the first of my Philden Model Railway Presents books, this blog became a diary of works in progress over the life of the layout. From planning to eventual demolition, here are some bonus behind-the-scenes articles that didn't find their way into the final draft...


The Beach Extension replaced the staging shelf on my original layout Philden.

...and prior to starting down the long and winding road to Philden Beach, I converted Philden's staging shelf into a scenic Beach Extension.

The completed module was only ever exhibited attached to Philden once and was intended to be repurposed as part of the new layout. Instead, it remained on display in my study before finally venturing out at the 2023 BRMA Convention in Brisbane for its final showing.

 

 

 


After four years of blogging and eight model railway exhibitions, Philden was dismantled following the 2019 Brisbane Model Train Show. Philden then became the focus of my first model railway book, Build a Bookshelf Layout published in 2021.

While the layout may now be history, the process of building Philden is outlined from start to finish in this colour 72-page book and is a great example of what you can achieve within the confines of a small layout. After four years, the layout had served its purpose. It was fun to build, presented well and I was able to exhibit a layout for the first time since my N scale days back in 2002-2005.



The road to PHILDEN BEACH: NSW North Coast

SCALE: 1:87 HO / ERA: 2016+ / LIFESPAN: 2019-2024 / EXHIBITIONS: 2

Inspiration for Philden Beach first came while holidaying with my young family in Coffs Harbour back in March of 2005. Fast forward a couple of decades and both our children are now grown and married. I commenced building this layout in 2019 as a way of preserving the memories from those family holidays and beyond, set in a fictitious destination along the NSW North Coast Line that I perhaps daydreamed about as a young child.

The freestanding 3.3 metre long x 450 mm wide benchwork supports two layout modules that sit atop. A series of mini disasters on the original modules ultimately led to a restart, and by early 2021 a taller, single module and adjoining 5 track staging yard had been completed to sit atop the same benchwork frame. Despite initially being modelled as my inner-Melbourne layout Philden Street Yard (see below), a layout revamp in 2023 transformed the setting back to the tropical North Coast of New South Wales and remains the basis for what you see today. Yes, it's been a long road to get to Philden Beach!

 

 


 

 


Two layout configurations and two house moves later, my NSW North Coast layout was complete.

The change of scenery through means of replacing the backdrop on my former Philden Street Yard layout, became the idea for my book Model Railway Backdrop Basics.

By now I had more than enough experience from both painting and printing backdrop murals across a number of layouts, that I wanted something tangible to flip through years later rather than trying to find an old blog post! Replacing the layout's backdrop from the inner-city grit and grime of industrial Melbourne to the tranquil NSW North Coast setting of Coffs Harbour, ended up being one of the most amazing layout transformations I have ever seen. But I didn't stop there.

Over the next 12 months, my Philden Street Yard layout was totally revamped on its way to becoming Philden Beach. With its new backdrop in place, I spent the rest of the year re-signing my existing buildings, re-vegetating the scenery and creating a new signature feature on the layout, all while removing any conflicting details that tied the layout to its previous location.

They are all projects that I covered in my final book Revamp An existing Layout. Along with overhauling my layout's locomotive and rollingstock roster and clearing out any items that didn't belong on the newly revamped layout, I actually pocketed a small profit without needing to lift up a single inch of track!

Perhaps the highlight of completing this layout, was that once again the other half of Philden, my wife Denise, could join me as I took the layout on the road to some exhibitions. Although compared to exhibiting the original Philden layout, rising insurance costs and red tape, combined with the fact that we weren't getting any younger when it came to moving the layout down 3 flights of stairs, limited the number of exhibitions we attended. At home, it had to remain set-up in the lounge room of our apartment due it being too long to fit into the spare bedroom.

This photo remains one of the lasting memories of my modern NSW North Coast layout.


Philden Beach nicely captured those memories of our family holidays on the NSW North Coast. But with both our children now grown and married, my wife and I are discovering that there are plenty more adventure and holiday memories to be had together. In September 2024, we returned to Coffs Harbour for a holiday for the first time without the kids, and I got to climb to the top of the island in the backdrop photo of my layout once more. Coming back down, I knew that I'd reached a full circle moment. It was time to step out of the shadow of the layout, and into a new era.

Finally, after years of having my model railway interest take over our life (and lounge rooms), I made the call to sell the layout and reclaim our living space.


 

 

 


 

 

 

 



PHILDEN ST YARD: a slice of Melbourne

SCALE: 1:87 HO / ERA: early 2000's / LIFESPAN: 2021-2022 / EXHIBITIONS: nil

What a great layout this is, or was... I can say that, because although Philden Street Yard was set in inner Melbourne around the turn of the Millenium, building the layout with a removable backdrop turned out to be a stroke of genius.

With a new backdrop and a few subtle changes, Philden Street Yard was magically transported in early 2023 to the fictitious NSW North Coast town of Philden Beach. Before that however, Philden Street Yard had all the appeal of a non-descript gritty backlot of industrial inner Melbourne, Victoria. Not exactly the type of model that looks appealing as the centerpiece of your lounge room!

But nonetheless, it was, (and still is), a layout that has operated beautifully, and would later become the focus of my book Model Railway Trackside Tips. Built during the Covid-19 Pandemic, the layout was solely a YouTube layout, on account of the many cancelled model railway exhibitions in southeast Queensland during 2021-2022.

I built Philden Street Yard to sit atop some demountable benchwork, and that same benchwork now stands beneath Philden Beach. The new shadow box layout module measured 1720 mm x 450 mm x 450 mm and was joined to a 1580 mm x 450 mm staging shelf. In effect, this layout and Philden Beach are one and the same, with only the backdrop and a scenery overhaul being the most noticeable differences.

Philden Street Yard shortly before the layout's conversion to become Philden Beach.

Once I'd decided that the grit of an inner-Melbourne goods yard was no longer working for our happy loungeroom vibes, I was able to simply slide the backdrop out and get to work on transforming the layout into the original NSW North Coast layout I'd always wanted to build. Just like that, Philden Street Yard closed rather unceremoniously, and the long road back to Philden Beach had begun!

The Philden Street Yard diesel servicing tracks remain untouched following the layout's conversion to its current NSW North Coast setting.

 

 

 

 



PHILDEN CREEK: somewhere up the creek

SCALE: 1:87 HOn3.5 / ERA: 1990's / LIFESPAN: 2022-2023 / EXHIBITIONS: nil

Inspiration for each of my layouts comes from somewhere, and in the case of Philden Creek it was from several camping trips we made to Girraween National Park in the southwest of Queensland while our kids were growing up. Despite only being a small 3 track Inglenook layout measuring just 1400 mm x 350 mm, it was these photos that inspired me to model the rocky granite belt country south of Stanthorpe in Queensland. The Southern Railway line to the NSW border town of Wallangarra skirts the edge of Girraween National Park, and the nearest railway crossing is at the locality of Wyberba, just 8 kms from where these photos were taken in the Bald Rock Creek campgrounds.

Bald Rock Creek in Girraween National Park, Queensland was the inspiration for Philden Creek.

The layout board has a well-traveled story. Originally it was the section of layout I'd accidentally sawn in half when building the first failed module for my NSW North Coast layout. (Yes, even the best of us manage to stuff-it-up at times!). It was then rebuilt into an N scale layout board that I decided not to pursue any further due to lack of space. Finally, it was saved from a trip to the rubbish dump and rebuilt into the little Queensland 12 mm narrow gauge layout you see below.

 

 

 

 

 

The downfall of this little layout can be solely attributed to the success of my NSW North Coast Philden Beach layout that eventually followed. The little 3 track Inglenook shunting layout with its straightforward up-and-back DC operation just couldn't compete with its larger DCC sound equipped counterpart.

Sometimes you have to be honest with yourself once you lose interest with a project and the layout lies dormant for 12 months. With a friend eagerly enquiring about Philden Creek throughout 2023, and my modelling interests already being pulled in another direction, it made sense to send it his way to complete. Some of the images of the creek scene (below), you may even recognize from my book Model Railway Scenery Secrets.

Philden Creek in its almost finished guise.

BACK IN THE DAY: My earlier layouts


SCALE: 1:160 N / ERA: 1990's / LIFESPAN: 1993-2012 / EXHIBITIONS: 2

So, there you have it... that's a walk through all things Philden since the birth of this model railway blog back in 2015. Of course, there were other layouts of mine that preceded all of the above in the days before the internet. I made a blog post back in 2016 to recap those earlier layouts in a little more detail. At some point in life, they all meant something to me. The time I spent building each one, the care I took with each one when moving house, and the money invested over quite a few years... It all accounts to nothing, unless someone takes the time to read about it here.

 

Over four decades of being involved in the hobby, I've modelled in N Scale, HO Scale, HOn3.5 Scale and more recently OO9 Scale, in an assortment of German, Australian, North American and British outline. Perhaps after all those years my hobby has found a happy medium of modelling narrow gauge railways in OO-9 scale, which is effectively OO 1:76 scale modelling on 9 mm track and has proven to be the perfect size for the smallest of spaces.

Time, money, age and health all conspire against the best of us, and layouts eventually come and go from our possession as we change our minds on things like the eras and settings that we like to model. Even the cleaning business I once operated alongside my wife Denise that was named after the layout has come and gone. So, as I step away from a decade of writing and sharing all things model railways, I only hope I've left behind some of the skills I've learnt for the next generation to discover. Be that though my Philden Model Railway books or right here on the pages of this blog... in the Philden Museum.

Thanks for reading, and all the best with your own modelling adventures!


In memory of Philden Cleaning, 2015-2022.

There's plenty more to see

Just have a click around through the many past articles that will keep you coming back for plenty of free tips and tricks!

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