Exhibition #8 Brisbane Finale

Four years after first venturing to the Brisbane Model Train Show to buy the stuff necessary to start building Philden, the layout has just made its final public appearance. From May 2015 to May 2019, this layout has spawned its own blog, made the cover of Australian Model Railway Magazine and has now completed it's eighth and final exhibition. What a four years it has been!

AV's 42103 in QR National colours spent most of Saturday running short trip trains from Phills Harbour to Philden...

The 2019 Brisbane Model Train Show held in a new venue for the first time at The Exhibition Building in Bowen Hills, should have been an exciting enough thought on its own. However, having only found out a fortnight ago that the lease on our lovely ocean view apartment in Caloundra wasn't being renewed, and with plans for a new QR narrow gauge layout at a dead-end on account of not having enough space to proceed, I made the snap decision to put Philden up for sale. The Brisbane Show appeared to be the golden opportunity to have someone make an offer to move the layout onto a new home. If I could sell it, that would be one less thing I would have to worry about packing and storing come moving day.

With a good friend of mine Anthony Veness volunteering to come down for the Saturday to help run the layout, I was pleased that my wife Denise could have the day to rest at home and just come down for the Sunday to help run the layout and pack up. So Friday afternoon, Denise and I headed down the Bruce Highway from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane to set the layout up in the new venue. A new venue always has its bugs, and we soon discovered that the only ramp in and out of the building soon led to a Friday arvo traffic crush of cars, vans and trailers all trying to drive into the building to set up their layouts or shops. Despite having a map and knowing what layout number I was, I managed to strike the one very unhelpful member who simply stayed behind his little table near the entrance, gave me an envelope and said "your over there," before pointing me to the wrong corner of the hall. No sooner had I stepped out of the car, I realized I was in the wrong place and was quickly parked in three vehicles deep.

Thankfully helpful folks do exist, and I was soon able to find where we were to set up, lug everything by hand from one side of the venue to the other and begin setting up the layout. Only for the PA system to call out my license plate and ask me to move the vehicle as I was about the join the final track section in place. Despite downing tools, reversing the car out and having to drive three times around the venue before risking a parking fine by parking in a loading bay, we had the majority of the work done and the layout set up in under an hour before hightailing it in Friday night peak hour traffic out of the city and all the way back up to the Sunshine Coast, a round trip exercise that was a little shy of a six hour affair.

Saturday morning was a lot more chilled, with Anthony meeting at my place for a 7 am start to the day. After a coffee stop on the highway at Wild Horse Mountain, we pulled into the parking station across the road from the venue with less than half an hour before the 2019 Show opened, but with the track cleaning and final details that Denise and I had left from the night before still needing to be seen to. I think we only put his 421 Class loco on the rails the moment they announced the doors were opened!

...only for me to return from a quick shopping stroll to find 4914 working an out-of-era goods train!

I love the opening moments of a train show, and this years' Brisbane Show had a special buzz about it that I'd not felt since the days I exhibited my Chicago & North Western N Scale layout back in 2002 in the poultry pavilion of the Brisbane Showgrounds. (I don't think that building is going to be there much longer judging from the look of it). However, with my layout for sale, I had that sinking feeling in my gut. One that I didn't know whether to be happy or excited about. Most of my rollingstock and locomotives were already accumulating bids on eBay, and the 'layout for sale sign' took away a lot of the excitement I'd anticipated in showing off the Beach Extension for the first time.

With a colour-coded prioritised shopping list of all that I needed to get for my new layout in hand, I left AV at the controls and headed off to do a quick sweep of all the traders in the hall. I bought the NQIX container wagons and a pack of 40' foot refrigerated RACE containers from SDS Models, only to find out that the yellow Banana Growers Federation containers were all sold out. Anything else on the list was coded a different colour, not to buy until Philden had sold!

Having felt good that I'd made a start with what I needed for my next project, I took over the controls from Anthony so he could head off on his own shopping quest, and began fielding questions from the public as they filed in. I met Phill from Grafton who'd traveled up to see the show and my layout for the final time, (hi Phill, hope you're still enjoying the loco you bought from me on eBay), and another blog reader from Melbourne who remembered seeing my layout on its first showing two years ago. Anthony excitedly returned with a pack of the yellow Banana containers he'd found after talking with Matt from Col's Australian Railway Books, and I later found that Alco-World from Sydney were selling individual wagons from four packs of Auscision Models NLJX louvered vans. There's no way I wanted to buy a four pack of these, but I did need at least one to handle banana traffic for my next project, so I also crossed a single weathered grey NLJX from my shopping list.

Speaking of Auscision, 2019 made four straight years of not seeing them north of the border. Neither was Eureka Models come to think of it, and a lot of the vendors and hobby shops had only a smattering of anything New South Wales related for that matter. To understand the impact that has on the marketplace, Stu Walker's Model Train Buildings shop display layout Oldetown and Philden were the only NSW layouts on show. Compare that to the Brisbane Model Train Show ten years ago!

Philden went from being sold on the Saturday afternoon, to unsold when the layout couldn't be collected until October

Settling back to run some trains for the remainder of the day, I very quickly had some serious inquiries from potential buyers. After spending a good half hour talking with two potential buyers, I had a handshake and an agreed price of $1,400 which would have enable me to go to the next colour on my shopping list requiring a trip across the hall to Wuiske Models to purchase a 1720 class loco, and some QLX and Tautliner vans.... Only to have the buyer return an hour later and say that he couldn't get back up from Sydney until October to collect it. That and a few other issues saw the deal fall through, and the layout was unsold. Just like that.

A second potential buyer returned, agreed to the price only I had to throw in everything that was running on the layout as well. I don't think Anthony would have liked me selling his train I was running at time. I wouldn't budge, he wouldn't budge and the buyer walked. After that it was just a procession of people wanting to make silly offers on my Xplorer and locomotives.

By 2.30 pm on the Saturday, all I wanted was for the weekend to be over! If someone had given me $800 cash then and there, I would have taken it and said they could come back tomorrow and run it themselves.

The only thing that cheered me up on the Saturday afternoon was closing time, and watching the procession of exhibitors who had parked in the undercover parking station across the road from the venue trying to get out. Forgetting that you had to pay at the pay station BEFORE exiting the car park, the place was gridlocked from cars parked at the boom gates while the driver ran back to the pay station to join an already long queue of frustrated exhibitors trying to figure out how to use the machine and forgetting their own rego number that they needed to type in before the payment could be processed. It was a very poorly signed and designed set-up to begin with, only made more comical by the same scene repeating itself over and over again whenever the boom gate when back down. At one point, a group of four model train club members were trying to reef the boom gate up by sheer force. I timed it, and it took me 35 minutes to get out of the parking lot after I had pre-paid before exiting. It was like watching a flock of chickens trying to teach each other sign language!

The stupidest thing about trying to get out, was that as soon as we did, Anthony and I spotted the Bavarian Bierhaus a few doors down, and parked only 50 metres or so from the parking station exit. What a pair of geese. If we'd known, we would have left the car in there and had dinner first! We had dinner, some drinks and a real good laugh about the whole shenanigans. I wouldn't have been surprised to turn up the next morning to find that the boom gates had been dismantled by a bunch of angry model railroaders.

I was set-up for the weekend alongside the Logan District Model Railway Club's Walloon layout.

Walloon in HOn 3.5 was superb, and would have been my selection for best-in-show!

Disappointment behind me, Sunday morning came around and I headed south on the Bruce one last time with my wife riding shotgun. Whenever we travel in the car together, we play only two types of music. Country & Western. Sale or no sale, I was going to enjoy operating Philden for the last time. We stopped at Wild Horse Mountain for breakfast and were at the venue well before opening time.

I tried to make the most of the rest of the weekend by taking a good look at the layouts that interested me. Fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be set up alongside the superb and extremely popular Walloon layout for the weekend, gave me the chance to observe how the staging yard operated behind the scenes. I was given a break down of how the layout uh... breaks down when it comes time to packing up, and at least got some ideas how I could build better wiring connectors between layout sections for my next layout/layouts.

Two other layouts caught my attention for completely different reasons. Irgendwo was a nicely presented N scale layout running European trains that got me thinking some more about my Puget Sound & Pacific N scale layout that is currently under construction. The composition of buildings both modern and historic was quite pleasing and probably would be one of the better N scale layouts I've seen in recent years. You only improve by studying other modelers' work, but the layout also reminded me of why I built the channels to hold my perspex hidden in place rather than they had (and I had done on my old C&NW layout), attached in sections that were screwed to the fascia.

Irgendwo was a nicely presented N scale layout running German & Swiss trains.

What was listed in the program to be alongside me on the other side of Philden but ended up being shuffled a little down the aisle, was a great little Queensland Railways layout making its first appearance called Comoyba, a similar sized layout to Philden but built to Sn3.5 scale.

The Sn3.5 scale layout Comoyba was another gem of a layout not much smaller than Philden.

I would have liked to have spent more time studying how Comoyba works before starting my own QR layout.

I tried several times to spirit myself away to talk to the operator about how it operates, only to find him too busy with interested onlookers. When I finally got the chance to speak to the owner shortly before pack-up on Sunday to ask how his first show had gone, I found out someone had made him an offer to buy it and so he'd sold it. Talk about all the luck!

So with the looming bedlam of packing-up fast approaching, I made several trips to our car which was parked in the parking station across the street, taking anything loose that I could carry out of the venue and leaving Denise to run the Xplorer to entertain any 3 pm stragglers in the crowd. By the time I returned from my last trip, she had turned off the lights and was busy unplugging power cords and rolling up curtains. I'd missed seeing the last train to run on my own layout.

With only one vehicle ramp into and out of the building, we decided to unbolt the layout and carry it out of the venue like a coffin. It only took two trips for us to have the layout packed safely in the car in less than 20 minutes after the show had finished.

Just down from The Exhibition Building, the Brisbane Showgrounds have been re-purposed into trendy eateries.

Following my own lead from the night before, I took Denise two doors down the street to the Bavarian Bierhaus for some drinks and dinner, leaving the other show-goers to their shenanigans as they exited the venue. Over the noise of the crowd and music, Denise half-shouted "why don't you just keep the Beach Extension as a display case, and see what you can re-use from the rest of your layout?"

It wasn't until we went to leave a little after half-past six that I stopped to take the final photo above. The trendy dining area opposite Rydges Hotel that has sprung up where the heart of Brisbane's Ekka once lay dormant for 50 weeks of the year gave me an idea. Leaving behind the pink neon lights to pay homage to the building's past as a snack bar in the middle of the meat & dairy pavilion, we drove back to the Sunshine Coast with me talking about how I could preserve the timber fascia of Philden to be built into the staging decking that I'll need to construct for the new double-deck layout. It's a bit like incorporating some of my own model railway history into the new layout, and the Beach Extension can fit nicely on top of our bookcase with the LED lighting illuminating whichever model I choose to place on display.

So that is it. Over. Finito. Another of my model railway layouts now just a memory for whoever enjoyed seeing it these past two years as I lugged it around the South East Queensland model train show circuit. A fellow modeler consoled me on Saturday that the hardest thing to sell was a completed layout. I can now vouch that its true. Some sell. Some don't. All for different reasons.

I came home to find that the locos, Xplorer and rollingstock I had listed on eBay had sold for more that what I was asking for the layout. So I'm fairly happy with that. Monday morning was spent unpacking the car and the rest of the week will be spent packing up eBay items for the post. Come next weekend, I'm going to pry what I can from Philden, pack what I'd like to keep away and take a jigsaw to the timber work that I'd like to salvage. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

Till my final post, happy modeling and take care.
Phillip O

A full XPT schedule

What a week it has been! Hot on the heels of adding an XPT set to Philden was the news of Auscision Models' arrival of their long awaited 442 Class loco. So after a Friday afternoon of running XPT's to and from Philden and Phills Harbour, I thought I should explain how I transform running a train back-and-forth on a 9 foot bookshelf layout into something so much more, before this blog gets overrun with pictures of the new locos which are headed my way.

Actual timetables from the era you are modelling can be so much more than just a reference tool.

Just as I do with my 2 car Xplorer train, I begin by selecting a random Countrylink timetable, in this case from September 2003. Collecting timetables from the era I model is another extension of the hobby that I enjoy, and in this instance I've grabbed the North Coast timetable. As my operating session is taking place on a Friday afternoon, I scan through the timetable to find a starting point and time for my simulated 7 day sequence. Sure enough, back in 2003 the next departure time is for Countrylink's service 004 The Murwillumbah XPT departing Murwillumbah at 9.50 pm. From this point I now have 7 days to have this XPT set returned to Murwillumbah in time for next Friday's departure at the same time. All while making as many trips as I possibly can without overlapping any arrival and departure times. The challenge is to maximize the amount of trips and station stops the XPT set can make and minimize the amount of down-time the set will accumulate between runs, all while making the scheduled stops listed on the timetable. Its a challenge that can yield different results every time I try this.

Stations were designed to be more than viewing platforms for passing trains, so enjoy making your trains actually stop.

Phills Harbour momentarily becomes Murwillumbah and Philden at the other end of the layout becomes the next stop, Mullumbimby, as I work the train back-and-forth while making all the stops listed on the timetable on the up service to Sydney's Central Station. Train 004's arrival is at 11.38 am the next day. The next Saturday service the train can realistically be serviced and turned around to work is Train 001, the 4.24 pm overnight Brisbane XPT. So its back up the North Coast we go, with Philden and Phills Harbour once more filling in for each station shown on the timetable before arriving in Brisbane on Sunday morning at 6.35 am. Here the train is refueled and returns south as Train 002, departing at 7.30 am and arriving in Sydney at 9.51 pm Sunday evening.

One of my highlights is making the trains slow to a smooth stop at the platform.

Monday morning sees the same set head west, this time on Train 427, the Dubbo XPT. Departure from Sydney is at 7.10 am with arrival in Dubbo at 1.40 pm. The same XPT set returns as Train 428, departing Dubbo at 2.10 pm and arriving back in Sydney at 8.48 pm Monday night. Tuesday morning 7.43 am, and the XPT forms Train 603, the 'Daylight' Melbourne XPT, arriving in the Victorian capital at 6.15 pm that same evening before returning at 7.45 pm as Train 602, the 'Overnight' Melbourne XPT arriving back in Sydney Wednesday morning at 6.25 am.

A physical timetable to hold in your hand lends a sense of attachment to the model train you are running.

About this time, my wife interrupts to ask if I'd like a cup of coffee while I'm 'playing trains'. I consult the on-board services section of my timetable and inform her that coffee is available from the buffet car which happens to be Car D on my XPT set. She returns minutes later and tries to charge me $4 for it. Anyways, Train 005 is now ready for departure from Sydney, the 11.35 am Grafton XPT arriving in the north of the state at 10.00 pm Wednesday evening. After an overnight layover in Grafton, it departs at 6.30 am the next morning as Train 006 arriving back in Sydney Thursday afternoon at 4.34 pm. Friday morning and you guessed it, 7.15 am sees the departure of Train 003, the Murwillumbah XPT which will arrive back where we started at 9.00 pm that evening, bringing to an end my 7 day schedule.

Crew changes, refueling and overnight lay-overs between services all add to the realism of running passenger trains.

By now, more than an hour has passed without my having to worry about a fast-clock or timing the departures of each train. From my laptop, I'll play a station announcement prior to the departure of each new service, and randomly play an XPT sound clip featuring the train's twin air-horns and passing diesel rumble to add to the scene. By the time I've finished my $4 cup of coffee, I'm ready to call it a day from running the passenger train. The next time I power up the layout, I'll pull a different Countrylink timetable from my collection, an depending on the time and day, end up with a completely different sequence as I try to coordinate a schedule without any pre-planning.

Operating is probably the most enjoyable aspect of a model railway once the layout is complete, and adding some form of realistic attachment between your layout and the way it is operated becomes just as important as the scenery. I've found with a point-to-point layout that I prefer running my passenger trains in the manner I've outlined above, rather than the more traditional approach of drawing my own chart that would effectively only shows arrivals and departures of trains running between Philden and Phills Harbour. But I suppose it is a case of each to their own. If you find something that works, and makes operating your layout more enjoyable than simply making your trains move, then you're onto a winner!

See also; Running some Countrylink Timetables and Snacks for operating sessions

Phills Harbour Opening Celebrations

The 1st train to Phills Harbour breaks through the commemorative banner on my new Beach Extension.

The Champagne has been popped, (all 3 bottles of it), and the first train has rolled into Phills Harbour Railway Station on Australia's New South Wales North Coast. Wine time and model trains have never been such good friends as what they were on Sunday 24th February, 2019.


A year after rebuilding the staging shelf that was an important part of Philden, the new Beach Extension has proven to be a far worthier addition than the two stub-ended tracks it replaced. While still performing exactly as a two track staging yard should, this new section of my layout now gives me a greater sense of operating pleasure. It now feels like my trains go somewhere, even if it is just 9 feet down the line from Philden to Phills Harbour. So to mark the occasion, I once more created a banner for the first train to run through.

But first the waiting room needed to be populated with waiting passengers.

First I needed to populate the Travel Centre's waiting room with passengers, and while I had bought 100 of them off eBay for something like 10 cents each including postage, more than half fell into the category of looking rather bodgy. Fortunately it only took 35 of the tiny figurines to make the platform and waiting room look busy without over-doing the scene. So I simply placed the better figures in the more visible areas and glued the less detailed figures toward the back of the waiting room.

There are 25 passengers spread out in the waiting room inside my Countrylink Travel Centre.

While there are a further 10 passengers on the platform and the ramp leading up to the station.

The HO scale figurines, (although by no means from the top level of painted figurines that are available), really enhance the station scene. Along with some wheelie bins and painted blue Countrylink benches that I glued on the platform, the station scene captures a little of that modern New South Wales railway look I was after.

The anticipation builds as evening falls at Phills Harbour. The first train is less than an hour away.

Returning our attention to the encroaching evening, with the lights on at the station I was reminded of my own memories of train watching in New South Wales whenever I'm holidaying that way. Apart from the morning XPT from Brisbane to Sydney, most of the passenger trains that call at stations along the North Coast do so at night, and Phills Harbour when lit up seems to evoke that sense of overnight train travel that now seems almost forgotten to travelers whom board flights expecting to get there that same day or evening. Night operating sessions are going to be something that I indulge in more often now that my layout extension is complete. In my opinion it only conveys a stronger sense of atmosphere than if I had left the lights on.

A sole visitor checks out the beach from the subway beneath the station, oblivious to the history about to unfold above.

Speaking of atmosphere, I wanted to include some figures standing by the entrance to the subway tunnel that leads to the beach beneath the railway tracks, but by the time I remembered I only had one suitable figurine left that wasn't already glued in place. Under lights however, a sole figure standing alone at the end of a subway tunnel draws more attention than in daylight. So I'm leaving her be. I've named her Jenny from the block, and her presence raises more questions than it adds detail. Who is she? Why is she walking alone after dark? Is she safe? Or is she a ghost?

Sometimes the best mini-scenes that emerge on a model railway aren't necessarily the ones we set out to create. As a writer, I find it fascinating to see this tiny figurine appear in my photos, like in the one below.

A moment in history as an Xplorer service becomes the first train to arrive at Phills Harbour Station, 24 February, 2019.

So with the first train having already been and gone, the bottles of bubbles long empty by 10.30 pm, and the Ohio State Marching Band on their flight back to the U.S.A., calmness has once more descended over the seaside city of Phills Harbour. I want to thank my wife Denise for being the train driver for the evening as I filmed the historic occasion, and also my son Brandon for being the sound guy and cuing the station announcements and marching band music under much duress, (sorry Champ). I now have two nice railway stations to run my trains between and nothing for me to have to worry about ahead of this years Brisbane Model Train Show....

....All except for Jenny on the block.

See also; Completing the Beach Extension