Completing the Beach Extension

The lights are on, the beach extension is finished. Inside the wide spaces of the Phills Harbour Travel Centre, the cleaners are seeing to the finishing touches ahead of the grand opening celebrations this weekend for the arrival of the first Countrylink Xplorer service from Sydney's Central Station. The glass is fingerprint free, the platform clean and the toilets smell lemony-fresh. The air-conditioning is keeping the waiting room at a refreshing 22 degrees Celcius while outside the humidity lingers in a sticky evening that still lurks around 30 degrees. Its the peak of summer in Australia, and soon holidaymakers will be arriving on the New South Wales North Coast by the train load.

I test-fit and sanded the edges of the perspex smooth before removing the protective wrap.

A year ago to the day, I posted my first blog entry regarding the start of construction on my new Beach Extension. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days later, I'm ready to run my first train. The past week has seen a flurry of activity take place on Philden, as I made sure I had everything finished ahead of this May's Brisbane Model Train Show. I began with getting the 3 mm perspex panels cut from ASAP Plastics here in Caloundra. The perspex for this little project cost me only $15. The main front panel will be removable the same as the main body of the layout. This will enable me to slide it out when operating, but also slide the perspex back in place once finished so that my layout stays undisturbed and dust-free until I next use it. The side or corner panel however, I glued in semi-permanently. While I built the extension to allow for a further extension, I don't see any more space magically becoming available in the next few years. By gluing it in place with some shower screen silicone sealant, it can stop my trains from running over the edge for as long as is needed.

I semi-permanently affixed the corner perspex panel with some all-purpose silicone sealant.

The thin panel will stop trains taking a dive from off the layout, but also allows the possibility to expand in the future.

The removable perspex front matches the rest of the layout and will ensure it stays dust-free when not being used.

With the cabinetry of the layout now looking complete, I had to turn my attention to what I find is the most dreaded part or this hobby. Wiring! Fortunately, while simultaneously working on my slightly smaller N scale layout over the summer, it is something that I am beginning to conquer. Armed with a new soldering iron, I just decided to get stuck into it, and ended up giving the underside of my layout an overhaul from end-to-end, complete with new LED's where a couple had stopped working, and of course installing the new lighting on the Beach Extension.

I next removed the perspex panel and backdrop to work on adding lighting to the modern station scene...

...and gave the entire wiring beneath my layout a good tidy-up including adding these self-adhesive wiring clips.

While adding lights to Phills Harbour, I also removed some from Philden and covered the holes with some grass tufts.

Before flicking on the Beach Extension's new lights, there were a few repairs to make on Philden courtesy of taking my layout on the road four times and moving house over the course of 2018. Despite being extra careful each time the layout is taken apart, there's always the risk of a hand catching on one of those tiny wires when loading it in and out of a hatchback. There was also one area where one of the lamp posts beside the signal box shone too brightly on my newly installed backdrop. So the lamp post came out to replace another which had stopped working on the platform at Philden. Another lamp post beside the goods shed had a wire broken from the layout's last outing, so I just took the sucker out altogether and patched the holes in the layout with clumps of stick-on grass tufts I had left over. Problem solved.

The photo above also shows the area between the signal box and the gum tree where I have something else planned for after Philden comes back from this year's Brisbane Model Train Show. By keeping some small projects in mind for the future, I'm finding my layout still feels fresh and exciting two years after it first went on public display. I won't say too much about what will go here, other than it will involve one of Craig Mackie's famous Hills Hoist clotheslines and another of Stu Walker's model train buildings kits, so stay tuned.

Lights on at an empty station, but all that is about to change this weekend once the first train arrives so stay tuned!

Finally I plugged in the accessories lead and stood back to admire the end result. From the warm white LED's inside the Travel Centre to the cool white LED's on the platform lamp posts, the scene was bathed in the kind of atmosphere I was aiming for. Only with no-one hanging around the station to witness it. Take a good look at the above and top photos of the Travel Centre. It will be the last time you see it empty. Arriving in the post last week were 100 scale figurines, all of whom will soon be standing at the platform and inside the Travel Centre waiting to board the train to Sydney. I may have to take a few more shots of the empty platform and waiting room for future references. They might help paint a story in pictures of some timetable nights I plan to run.

So this weekend is shaping as an important milestone. Not only will I populate Phills Harbour with a throng of waiting passengers, but I should also complete the final wiring for the N scale layout which is taking shape beneath it, and get the first train running!

The as yet unnamed and undocumented N scale layout is proving to be a great accompaniment to what has begun as a fantastic 2019. I should have the N scale layout finished by year's end to replace Philden on the exhibition circuit in South East Queensland for 2020.

Also causing a growing sense of excitement, is the pending arrival of Auscision Model's 442 Class locos that I've been looking forward to since.... well, probably not long after I started building this layout. The CFCLA JL Class and the Northern Rivers 422 Class which should follow not long behind it will probably be it for me. Very soon I will sit down to finalize some kind of operating sequence for Philden & Phills Harbour, and my only fear is that I may have too many wagons to operate freely without having to rotate rollingstock on and off the layout, (which is about as much fun as packing up after a model train show). If that ends up being the case, I think I'd be happy to let some items go on eBay to free up some money for my next QR 12mm gauge project.

But if I had to say that there is one more NSW HO scale item that has tempted me from day dot, it has been the Auscision XPT. I know, I know, it is a 7 car set counting the XP power cars which is waaayyy too long for my layout. But my favourite train to photograph is about to be retired in the coming years, and to have a model of one to remember it by, even if it is more nostalgic than practical for a 9 foot long bookshelf layout, is still an enticing proposition. But $1200 for a model that I'd only be able to run up and back as a 4 car set at most.... that's a big ask. The kind of when I win lotto scenario. Still, both Countrylink State Rail era sets are still available, and if I indeed do move on some other items, and perhaps a few of the XPT carriages that I won't need as well, then anything's possible. It would make for one helluva last addition to my layout!

I guess that's the thing about model railways. Like the trains themselves they're always coming and going and somehow managing to stay fresh and interesting. I suppose the next thing is to see how Phills Harbour copes with opening day. I'd better get those tweezers and the super glue ready!

See also: Beach Extension Part One: When paint doesn't match

Signed Copies now available

  

   

2019 promises to be a much quieter year. Aside from the pending (and long overdue) release of Last Train to Bunbury, (the third such book in my photographic railway bush poetry series will be out sometime in mid 2019), I've been taking some time out for me. Even to the point of cancelling my planned book appearance on Saturday 9th March at Clifton's 150th Railway Anniversary in South West Queensland. For reasons both personal and logistical, the time and money I would have had to expend to make my being there possible, was going to be another example of the moment asking for a whole lot more than what it was prepared to give in return. Someone once told me that you will reach a point in life where you will know your worth, and after a 2018 that seemed to ask so much of me, I'm enjoying more of the time that I would otherwise have put towards one endless project after another. It's taken me a long time to realise that my books aren't the be-all and end-all of me.

So with a few hundred dollars worth of signed books that were stockpiled for Clifton now at my disposal, I have listed them on eBay for readers wishing to add some of these to their railroad library. There are only half dozen of each title, and the Train Tripping Around Melbourne and Sydney titles always seem to sell out every time I list them on eBay. So first it, first served!

Which brings me to a spot of good news. After much procrastinating, gnashing of teeth and general frustration at how slow these books have been selling, I have now reviewed enough material and photographs taken from my last sojourn south to the Victorian border to decide that a fourth and final installment will follow in 2020. Why 2020? Well, the bad news is that while making my way across outback New South Wales in 2018 to photograph some obscure and out-of-the-way relics from our railway past, I failed to obtain even one suitable photo with yours truly wearing the trusted black hat that has become a staple of my railway adventures so far. So you guessed it, I now have to plan another sojourn south to the Murray River to capture the photo for the cover, and that journey won't happen before mid 2020. Last Train to Sydney will be my fourth and final railway bush poetry book, so expect to see me taking a bow on the cover.

One of the highlights of last year was seeing my HO scale Australian model railway layout featured on the cover of the Australian Model Railway Magazine, all while taking it to no less than four model train shows in South East Queensland. 2019 will see me attend just one exhibition at the Brisbane Model Train Show on the 4th & 5th May at the Brisbane Showgrounds as I construct a new model train layout in 160:1 N scale, with no blogging, no Facebook, no Twitter or Instagram. Just the pure enjoyment of building a model railroad of the Pacific Northwest of the United States for my own satisfaction. Why? Simply because I like the scenery and hope to travel to that part of the world one day to see it in person. For once, my books and everything else that life demands can simply take a back seat to my hobby.

Instead of planning more books for the future, it seems I'm doing the opposite. My first two novels The Long Way Home, and A Walk Before Sunrise will soon disappear from sale. Temporarily of course. In order to plan a way to re-release my first two novels in print sometime in 2020, I want to first be sure that they will have disappeared from every possible sales channel. Through Smashwords.com, the eBooks both filter down through almost every sales channel bar Amazon.com. Making them disappear is anything but an instant click of the mouse, and can take upwards of months at a time for each online sales channel to reprise their listings. Best to get the ball rolling now while things are quiet.

Then there is.... or was, my most recent railway photo book Behind the yellow line. Just four months after release it has already disappeared from sale. Why? Because of an opportunity to create an epic railway book project to take its place in the near future. It's more advantageous to remove the book from sale now, rather than later. We're talking a hardcover, 200 page plus lifetime volume of work that won't come easy, and won't come cheap! It gets back to that whole 'you will know your worth' mantra that I seem to have embraced this year. All I can say is that the book will be out sometime in mid 2021.

Yes, it's still coming. Last Train to Bunbury will be out mid-year!

Which brings me back to Last Train to Bunbury. A book much talked about and long promised since my Western Australia trip back in 2017, that you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a model train pre-order! The thing I've loved about writing these books, is being able to have complete control of the production process. I've captured that sense of nostalgia with each of them that I set out to achieve, and without rushing my latest project, Last Train to Bunbury has only gained an even greater sense of nostalgia in my writing as time has passed since trekking through South West Western Australia. The four collections, for being self-financed and produced, will live on long after I have finished writing them. As will my 10th and final railway book that will cap-off this era of my writing in 2021. For those who haven't yet discovered my writing career, a trip over to phillipoverton.blogspot.com will set you in the right direction, and probably amaze you with the 100 free posts I have compiled over the course of my railway reminiscing years Down Under.

After that? Well who knows. Perhaps by then I would have saved up for that dream holiday to Canada, the US Pacific Northwest and Hawaii. Now wouldn't that be nice. I only have to sell a few thousand more books!

Capturing memories in miniature

Model railways are really just about re-creating memories in miniature. Whether its childhood memories of trips on trains, a working recreation of a railroad's good-old-days, or in the case of my beach extension, simply capturing the look and feel of era you remember fondly. So fresh back from my Christmas holiday break down south in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, its time to unveil the final stage of my year-long project to turn my two track staging yard... into a two track stand alone scene.

Grafton Railway Station on the NSW North Coast line was the inspiration for the brickwork on my new station.

The far North Coast of New South Wales can be a lonely place for train watching. Most of the steel and intermodal trains either arrive or depart from Brisbane at night, leaving only the Brisbane XPT as the sole train to make a regular appearance in daylight between Coffs Harbour and the border. The Murwillumbah Line is largely overgrown since last seeing a train in 2004, and the Pacific Highway now bypasses many of the towns you once slowed down to drive through. Grafton was always the one railway town you could rely on to spot a train south of the Queensland border while making a highway stop at McDonalds. Not anymore. My last two stops at Grafton have yielded no sight of a train at the sugar silo or station, and once the next 155 km Pacific Highway upgrade between Ballina and Woolgoolga opens in 2020, Grafton will lay well off the highway and Maccas stops will become a thing of the past. So the station building became the first point of inspiration on my station scene. Those memories become part of the scene thanks to my copying the brickwork pattern on the modern railway station.

A flat roof needs something to add some detail, so I added this row of air-conditioner units and a skylight.

With the brickwork and station interior finished, (right down to copying Grafton Station's two strips of dark coloured brick), I found some catalogue pictures of some Daikin roof-mounted air-conditioner units, printed them out, covered them with some clear adhesive film and glued them to a strip of styrene. The mounting brackets are simply unpainted 1/16" styrene rod. I also added a skylight using a painted window frame I salvaged from leftovers from my cement plant I built 3 years ago, proving it pays not to throw anything out.

I next cut and glued the clear styrene windows into place where I'd intentionally left the grey spaces unpainted.

Before giving the roof its final treatment, I sealed the edges so that no glue would ruin the inside detail.

The inspiration for my roof came from our holiday accommodation at Pacific Cove Resort, Coffs Harbour.

I went with something different for the roof of the Travel Centre. Referring to some previous holiday photos from our family trips to Coffs Harbour, I wanted to copy the stone roof effect that is used on the Wyndham Terraces apartments in the Pacific Cove Resort at Coffs Harbour. This was our fifth family holiday to Coffs Harbour and our first one was back in.... you guessed it, 2005. Perhaps this is another reason I chose to set my layout in the 2002-2005 period, and it become the second point of inspiration for my station scene.

The roof stones on the Travel Centre are the same Woodlands Scenics coarse light grey ballast I used on my mainline.

I quite like the finished result. It makes you stop and think, 'where have I seen that before?'

Coffs Harbour Railway Station's large sign, flat roof and air-conditioning structures were my next point of inspiration.

A lot changes in a decade without you realising. Although Coffs Harbour Railway Station on the NSW North Coast Line still looked pretty much the same when I called in over my Christmas 2018 holiday break, the giant Countrylink station sign out the front that I'd photographed above just 4 years earlier in 2014 was gone, replaced by an orange sign with a simple 'T' for train, (as if we didn't already know). It shows how the things we take for granted today can become interesting modelling points for tomorrow. The sign became my third point of inspiration. I simply had to model the blue Countrylink sign on my beach extension.

I made the signs following my own instructions on my post Adding Railway Station signs from back in 2015.

I also added some MIND THE GAP stencilling alongside where the doors of my 2 car Xplorer will pull up.

There is just enough room for me to add a model of a Countrylink road coach when someone decides to release one.

The finished Phills Harbour Countrylink Travel Centre complete with platform and signage.

Trying to photograph the now complete station and platform quickly showed up something I didn't like. Where the backdrop of Coffs Harbour meets the painted blue sky at the end of the line seemed to detract from the overall scene. Revisiting my own post adding the layout backdrop from 2018, I figured I could extend the backdrop scene by matching the mountain line of the photo I'd used as the backdrop on my beach extension. Fortunately, I had a lot of photos I'd taken of Coffs Harbour on that same day, and decided to use one that featured a scene of the Coffs Harbour Marina in the foreground. Returning to Officeworks, this time it cost me only $6.50 to print my re-sized photo on the EZ-Tac adhesive.

The EZ-Tac print was measured, cut and test fit before removing the adhesive backing and pressing it into place.

The extended backdrop instantly improved the scene, but something need to be done about that corner join!

I used these hops plants that I'd purchased from Modellers Warehouse at a model train show.

Gluing them to the height of the tree on either side of the square channel that holds the backdrop in place worked.

The lower waterline on the backdrop makes the railway line look like it ends on a wharf above the marina.

Looking back towards the mouse-hole. I've now turned what was a plain staging shelf into this nice little scene.

So the cleverly named Phills Harbour (coughs) is now complete. The only thing remaining to be done is to add a few lights, to the station building, platform and subway tunnel leading to the beach, and some passengers waiting on the platform and inside the air-conditioned coolness of the Travel Centre for the next train to Sydney. Compare the scene above to the view below of what these two staging tracks once looked like. The two tracks essentially do the same thing they've always done, provide a staging area for trains while I operate the main area of the layout.

Flashback to when these two tracks were simply just staging for my bookshelf layout.

The finished beach extension, ready for opening day!

If model railroading is really just about capturing a memory in miniature, the only person who can really judge the end result is the modeller themselves. Although there was really nothing wrong with the original two track staging shelf, what rebuilding this end of my layout has done is provide my small layout with a lot more memories. Memories of chasing trains along the north coast on the way to our holiday.

See also; Phills Harbour Travel Centre and Adding the layout backdrop