The Last Philden Xplorer

Just as rail enthusiasts have witnessed the passing of the famous 'name trains' of yesteryear, it seems that the daily Xplorer service from Philden to Sydney has departed for the final time. Without any fanfare or notice of a final run afforded to past trains such as the Southern Aurora, Spirit of Progress or the Brisbane Limited, the Philden Xplorer simply departed Philden station for the final time, and disappeared into the night.

The last train from Philden to Sydney stands ready at the platform on Saturday 20th January, 2016.

Just as is the case in real life when explanations are given for winding up passenger train services to far flung country towns, the Philden Xplorer was a victim of financial cutbacks. At a time when I was busy building my new layout, a short-lived financial crisis due to the sale of an overseas property had me looking for the money for a quick airfare to get the papers signed in time. Along with the set of NOFF wagons I wasn't happy with and the brand new 421 class locomotive I'd only just received for Christmas, they reluctantly went on eBay and sold within days.

Going, going, gone. The final Philden Xplorer has left the station.

While the resale value of Australian model trains is to be applauded, the silly thing in this whole exercise was that once the sale of the property had gone through, I was suddenly in the position to replace it with whatever I wanted. Unfortunately, the above liveried Southern Rail Models 2 car Xplorer has already sold out.

Into the sunset. By Sunday morning on the 21st January 2016, the Xplorer will have arrived at Sydney's Central Station.

Keeping in mind that this is a small bookshelf layout, it goes without saying that it has to be a small train to handle the passenger service. So it has become a case of replacing the 2 car Xplorer with another model, or hoping to find a second hand Xplorer or Endeavour set in a different livery. Stay tuned, I'm sure something positive will develop.

See also; The Inaugural Philden Xplorer and Review: Southern Rail Models Xplorer

The Station Master's Desk

After months of not being able to find my desk while working towards completing the scenery on my model railway layout, my daughter came to my rescue with a reason to tidy up for Christmas with a gift of some antique-style leather bound desk organizer trays. This soon got me thinking. Wouldn't they make a great display for my antique railway memorabilia? With the layout that straddles above my desk now coming along nicely, my daughter's thoughtful gift transformed my writing desk into 'the Station Master's desk' in the blink of an eye.

My newly organized desk now contains railway timetables and pamphlets from around the world.

I still have a lot of work to do to complete my bookshelf-style layout's overall presentation, but the black leather bound organizers match not only the leather-style insert on my desktop, but also the black legs and under frame of my layout. The underneath of my layout will soon be completed with black curtains, meaning the overall result should be visually stunning. But enough about the tidy desk. I finally had somewhere to store my collection of antique timetables.

The antique-style desk organizers transformed my writing desk into the Station Master's desk.

Being an apartment based modeler doesn't mean you can't expand your hobby beyond the confines of a small layout. I discovered long ago that I enjoy collecting old railway timetables. Best of all, they don't require a lot of room. To all those people who lost auctions on eBay for vintage railway timetables, I make no apologies. But you can rest assure that they have found their way to a good home. I now have a display tray filled with railway pamphlets and timetables from Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle, Alaska, Germany, France, London and Spain, that make my desk look like a railway station waiting room gone wrong. While inside my felt-lined sliding drawers are the real gems, complete country railway timetables for New South Wales and Victoria from 1981, 1980, 1972, 1964 and 1956, and suburban Sydney-Gosford-Newcastle timetables for 1996, 1984, 1979 and 1976. Add to that a growing pile of neatly organised railway ticket stubs sorted in chronological order, and it's a veritable stash of train porn.

Knowing what you have both the space and budget for when collecting railway memorabilia is the safest way to grow your interest beyond the confines of your model railway. Now, thanks to my daughter's Christmas gift, I have my own Station Master's desk. Next time I operate the Philden Xplorer, I'll be able to do so while perusing through actual CountryLink Timetables from September 2003. Gosh, I can almost feel all that power rushing to my head. So to offset the ego from my newly created position of prestige, I think I'll indulge in a little light reading over the holiday period, with a book called Rules and Regulations, Victorian Railways, as amended to April 1966. No wonder my wife calls me a nerd!

See also; Memorabilia makes modelling better!

The Inaugural Philden Xplorer

After 10 months of sitting forlornly in it's box, my CountryLink Xplorer train made its inaugural run from Sydney's Central Station to Philden on Thursday 3rd September, 2015. And to commemorate the occasion, the townsfolk of Philden arranged for the return train to Sydney to break through a special banner.

The 2 car CountryLink Xplorer was the whole reason I switched to modelling Australian HO to begin with. After months of going through the whole should I, shouldn't I process, what seemed like an eternity saving for the model and 10 months of extreme patience while waiting for the railway station platform to be constructed on Philden, my Xplorer finally arrived in style.

The inaugural Philden Xplorer prepares to depart my layout for the return trip to Sydney.

With Philden essentially being a small, narrow book shelf layout, Southern Rail Models 2 car Countrylink Xplorer train is a perfect fit. For those who don't know much about Australian trains, the Xplorer is a diesel passenger train with a driving compartment at both ends of the 2 or 3 car sets, capable of being lashed up together and divided en-route to what are some fairly remote locations in the far south and north-west of New South Wales. As such, all the design for Philden Railway Station has centred around having a 2 car train arriving and departing from my layout without the need to turn the train around.

2522/2502 Xplorer set about to break through a special banner on the inaugural Philden Xplorer.

It took me about 2 minutes to design and print the special CountryLink banner to commemorate the first run of the Philden Xplorer. I borrowed some of my wife Denise's pins from her sewing kit, threaded them through the printed paper and stuck them into the track ballast. As a precaution, I partly cut the banner with a pair of scissors to enable the train to neatly break through the middle, and sat back with the camera and my smartphone to record the occasion.

Black and white photos are a great way to enforce a historic occasion, such as a new CountryLink service.

I know this probably qualifies me for a Nerd-of-the-Week Award somewhere, but I don't care. Model railways are meant to be fun, so why shouldn't we modelers have a little bit of fun along the way? Adding some black and white photos of the occasion is another way that we can lend a little bit of history and nostalgia to our modelling endeavours. So with the first run of the Philden Xplorer now recorded in history, and with the wine and cheese after-party now consigned to a headache from yesterday, I'm sure there will be many more photos of the Xplorer train arriving at Philden Railway Station in the months ahead. But as usual, that's a story for another day.

That first operating session

Satisfied with how my track-work performed after a week of running my locomotive up and down in Philden yard, I turned my thoughts towards what this bookshelf-style layout was built for; operating. Even without my removable staging in place, this layout was designed to be a fun switching challenge designed to provide a guy like myself an hour and a half of model railway action.

The first train arrives in Philden on the No 1 road, ready to test my layout design with some simple shunting maneuvers.

The premise for my first test session was simple; within the confines of the layout, a 4 car train arrives to transfer some wagons from 'beyond the mouse-hole'. In future, when the mirrored mouse-hole door is open and my removable staging is in place, the train will pull up in the yard on the No 1 road as shown above.

Sounds simple huh? But the 82 class loco leaves only enough room for 1 wagon at a time to be shoved into the goods sidings.

What follows is a series of 32 different moves to break the train up, shove the wagons into place for loading and unloading, and finally reassemble the train so that it is facing in the opposite direction. Once my removable staging is complete, I will also have an arriving Countrylink Xplorer passenger service to contend with that will need to moved to and from the platform to the carriage siding for storage overnight while the yard is shunted, (an Aussie term for switching cars).

8243 runs around a VLCX wagon after already pushing a similar wagon into place in the goods siding.

The No 2 road will not only be shared by a goods shed at the dead-end of the layout, and the cement works at the mouse-hole end, but will need to be used as the run-around point for the locomotive as shown above. Once the removable staging is added, I will have the added benefit of a longer run-around point beyond the mouse-hole. But for now, 2 wagons combined with the 82 class loco foul the points at either end of the No 2 road, so only 1 wagon at a time can be shoved into place making it more of a challenge.

8243 sits in the platform on the No 1 road, ready to head back out of Philden through the mouse-hole.

In future, wagons will be left behind and empties rotated in and out of the yard through the mouse-hole using a train order slip. But while I prowl through eBay for an authentic NSW SRA blank train order sheet that I can scan, copy and have fun filling out just like the real thing, I think its safe to say that for a small layout Philden safely passed the first operating test session.

For the record, the first train that operated into Philden on Friday July 24, 2015 consisted of: 8243 hauling VLCX 586-F, VLCX 9-C, NPRY 12067-G and NPRY 12154-B.

See also; Hand painting PECO track