Favourite Australian Railway Scenes

60 page premium colour 8" x 10" Hard/Softcover/eBook

Here's the first of many surprise announcements to fill my readers in with what I've been up to during the course of a very busy year. Available as of today, 1st October, 2021, is Favourite Australian Railway Scenes, the follow up book to last year's well received Favourite Australian Railway Stations. Once again, I've tried to keep the cost of a premium full colour 8" x 10" book attractive, and at roughly $40 AUD for the softcover paperback version (plus postage), this 60 page collection features 80 uninterrupted images of a wide array of railway scenes from across Australia.

Both hard and softcover copies are available now to order for immediate shipment directly from Blurb in Melbourne, as well as in eBook format from just $4.99 AUD or .PDF at $6.99 for reading on your PC. As part of a huge push in the second half of 2021 to increase my library of available work, this book marks my 11th title now in print. With a career spanning back to the release of my first novel The Long Way Home in 2006, now more than ever, I'm really needing to lean on my writing as a main income source, rather than just a side project. While I next turn my attention to the re-release of my library of novels, there may just be another railway surprise in order to close out the year.

I also would like to express my appreciation to all my loyal readers for their past support in spreading the word. Getting physical copies onto bookstore shelves has become financially near impossible and riddled with political minefields to negotiate. Mastering the art of doing everything yourself is now as important as having an idea for a book in the first place, and if Favourite Scenes is as well received as Favourite Stations has been, then there will definitely be a third instalment to follow in 2022! I've already received a number of requests for a book on Australian locomotives, and it is just a matter of again wading through more than 10,000 of my own images to collate a book of the standout images.

So please, tell a friend. Give it a like on Facebook, or just satisfy your curiosity by clicking the link below to preview the first 15 pages. Apple readers will soon be able to find the title on Apple's iStore, and I'll have a special offer of signed copies available through my eBay store in the coming months.

  

I really appreciate your support!

Phill O

The Philden Road Finale

...or the one about whatever became of that Queensland narrow guage and NSW North Coast layout you said you were building?

Its exactly 4 months to the day since I last posted on where I was up to with my Philden Road layout, and a little under 2 years since I first mentioned my new North Coast layout's plans, way back in October of 2019. So I guess the question is, what has happened to Philden Road?

Well... a lot. Or maybe nothing. Or maybe you can just put this all down to life as we know it in 2021, but...

With 3 different layout projects underway in various stages of construction, and with all the structures still needing to be completed for Philden Road, I'd reached the point where I had to ask myself just how much time I had to invest into completing the rest of this layout versus completing everthing else.

Before I could answer, life dictated what would follow. My wife had already been off work with a back injury since the end of March, and despite downsizing my model train collection earlier in the year to help us through the medical costs and associated physio sessions, a second Doctor's opinion and MRI scan in May brought the bad news that she wouldn't be able to resume any form of physical work, ever! From the end of March I'd been perservering with running our cleaning business on my own in the hope she'd eventually return in some capacity. By June the long days, sometimes 3 am to 8 pm, were proving too much, and I had to downsize the business to a one person operation, which we did at the End of Financial Year.

The extra time required to run the business on my own coupled with a downturn in income wasn't very conducive to starting any new layout projects, and here I was with 3 layouts in various states of construction when I barely had the time to work on one!

The last standard guage departure leaves the Harbour back in April 2021.

In the meanwhile, I had fellow modeller and good friend Anthony Veness visit for a short operating session and catch-up, and we soon got talking about all of the would-of, should-have and could-have missed opportunities when it came to my new bookshelf layout. Though the layout was running nicely, there were just one too many nuances with operating it, (namely the Queensland line) that were begging for a partial rebuild in order to fix the issues. I had to agree with him in that opening up the ends of this layout and building it as a continual run loop was the best way to realise the layout's operating potential when it came to siding length, industries etc. The problem was that I didn't have that amount of space available, nor was likely to in the next ten years. It was all just wishful thinking. I also didn't feel like committing the precious little time I now had left into reconfiguring Philden Road again.

I finally reached that 'shut it down' moment. Time-wise, money-wise and for my own sanity, something had to give. I chose to scale back, sell-off and not sink anymore time into Philden Road.

So a deal was struck. Philden Road would pass into Anthony's more than capable hands to incorporate the two modules into his own plans. We'd always talked about doing a layout project together, and this was just a matter of lifting the two modules off the framework above my desk, and taking them for a car ride a little farther north up the Sunshine Coast. In return, Anthony at some point in the future would help me with work on a little micro layout as a replacement for my Queensland line.

I then packed up all my HOn3.5 scale Wuiske Models locomotives and rollingstock ready for when I get the new Queensland micro up and running, and put almost everything else aside to sell on eBay or through Facebook groups.

It is also Adios to my N scale layout which has sat incomplete beneath Philden Road.

The next 'shut it down' call came with my stalled N scale layout that sat beneath Philden Road. After 12 months had lapsed without a blog update or any progress on a project that had already changed settings more than once, it actually felt like a relief to pull the plug on it. I originally sold the layout through a Facebook group, only for the Greater Brisbane and Sunshine Coast areas go into COVID enforced lockdown. After sitting in my garage for seven weeks, the sale ultimately fell through. I then re-listed it and just 3 days later the same thing happened, Brisbane went into lockdown again meaning no-one could come pick it up anyway. I'm so over the all these COVID-19 restrictions and snap lockdowns, and I guess it showed. The next day I stuck the layout on the garage floor and cut it all up!

While I couldn't save much of the N scale KATO unitrack, with a week at home at the insistance of the Queensland Government, I cut the layout length ways down the middle, added a new L-girder to the front and a coat of paint, and soon had a new 4' foot 10" long blank Queensland layout board to show for my time. The rest went into the wheelie bin. At 1490 mm x 350 mm it simply slotted back into place where the N scale layout previously stood beneath Philden Road. Problem solved!

That's the re-purposed N scale layout (below), and the new HO replacement for Philden Road (above).

That left the 'other project' I had been planning for when Philden Road was finished. Despite it consisting only of a couple of sheets of plywood leaning against the wall in the garage, and a few models tucked away in my wardrobe, in the light of everything that was unfolding around me, it was the one idea that I was most keen to pursue. But given how 2021 was playing out, I had to first cost the whole exercise in my head when it came to the time and money it would require.

Timewise; it was certainly doable, if I refrained from blogging its step-by-step progress and simply put any precious spare time into building it. Costwise; I'd come out thousands of dollars in front, by the time I sold-off the no longer required locomotives and rollingstock from both Philden Road and my now obselete N scale plans. Operations-wise; abandoning the idea of including passenger operations and a station scene, and instead building a freight-only layout with a proper staging yard, would fix all the operational shortfalls I'd encountered due to limited space with the previous Philden layouts. A small freight-only bookshelf layout would also only require a minimum sized locomotive and rollingstock fleet, which in the long-term would provide more bang-for-my-buck.

The sell-off allowed me to purchase the missing track, timber and paint I needed to build the new project, add a few new locomotives from which to base the new layout around, and still be able to put a few thousand dollars back into our bank account which has helped us greatly. Knowing that this may also be the last new layout I afford to start for quite some time, I've taken extra care to ensure I build Philden Road's replacement with both interest levels and operational longevity in mind. It needs to still be interesting and reliable to operate in 4, 5 or 6 years from now.

The control shelf was amongst the final improvements made to Philden Road.

The Harbour scene was left incomplete as it will be redeveloped by its new owner.

As you're reading this, the new layout has already taken Philden Road's place atop the framework over my desk area. Its been built to the same width and length as my existing stand alone frame, only this time the shadow-box style layout's backdrop is a more pleasing 450 mm high. Trains are already running on the scenic section, the scenery is almost 100% complete and there are only the building structures and designated staging yard to finish. In a sense the new layout has advanced to where Philden Road was back in March, which is surprising given all that I've had to do for these past 4 months in the precious little spare time I've had to do it.

Like so many others, my weekends have been spent locked away from the world, working in the garage on the layout, and only taking a break to watch the footy or Olympic Games. I suppose 2020/21 will go down as the most constructive era for new model railway layouts being built in Australia. When this whole Pandemic thingy is over, I sure there will be a multitude of new layouts on display if we ever get back to a regular model railway exhibition calendar. For now, the exhibitions only seem to be getting cancelled, which makes trying to plan time away from my business, and affording the cost of accommodation and travel near impossible in my current position. So even though I'm building everything to be able to be packed up and transported to a show in our car, it's simply for my own pleasure and not with the goal of an exhibition in mind at this stage.

So this post makes for one final hurrah for Philden Road under my ownership. The layout will live-on in a new guise, one which I'll still get the chance to be involved with behind the scenes and share updates on further down the track. It will be interesting to see how Anthony works the two modules into his own plans, and of course I'll still get to run some stuff on it whenever we get together. In the meanwhile, here's a few of Anthony's own locomotives he brought down for a short running session.

1460 shunting the Bald Rock Creek Siding and apple shed.

A 442 class SSR loco on a light engine movement across Bald Rock Creek.

Double NR Class locos returning to the Harbour.

I hope people have enjoyed following the ups and downs of my blogging this little layout's progress over the past 2 years. Through bad knees and bad storms, the layout had its share of downs more than ups, but still came close-enough to saying it was finished all the same. I guess that's all a part of modelling isn't it? There's some great people in this hobby who have kept in touch, either by phone, email or through Facebook groups, and that makes for a wonderful network to exchange research information with, or help you hunt down a long sold-out model when you really, absolutely need it. I guess it goes to show that you don't need a dedicated train room or a museum collection full of model trains to still enjoy being in this hobby. And lastly, thanks for helping this blog crack the Quarter Million views mark recently. What an achievement that has been!

The final parting shot of Philden Road, long after the last train has departed.

Now that the replacement layout for Philden Road is in place and running, I'm hoping I may even find the time needed to finish the two book projects I had started at the beginning of the year. I've also become a little more mindful of not letting myself burn-out. So if I go a few weeks without making any progress on the new layout, that's fine. I'll at least have some model trains I can shunt around the layout when I feel like it while I wait for the world to return to normal.

Whenever that may be.

Cheers! Phill O

Philden Road Part Nineteen

 ...or the one about completing the overpass and setting the scene for the rest of the layout.

It's time for an update of how Philden Road is progressing. With a new layout rule in effect which states that neither line shall be placed out of service for more than 12 hours at a time, I've made considerable progress since my last update in November, all while still being able to fiddle-fart about with some small operating sessions to test that everything works as I'd envisioned. It's a case of so far so good.

One thing that I'm beginning to admire about my approach with this layout, is that I've become less afraid to rip out a scene or redo a feature if it doesn't turn out as well as I'd expected. Case-in-point was the namesake overpass that divides the two modules of the layout. After not being happy with how the first incarnation turned out, and taking onboard a fellow modellers advice, I removed the unloved span above the NSW North Coast line and scratchbuilt a new span to blend in with the Rix highway kit section I'd used to cross the QLD narrow gauge line.

Inspiration comes from somewhere, even for a fictious layout such as this. In this instance, I wanted to replicate the rock-proof screen gaurds fixed to the ballustrade of bridge overpasses from about the mid to late 1990's to stop vandals from throwing rocks at passing trains. I'd photographed the road overpass immediately to the south of the railway station at Coffs Harbour with such a screen in place, so used this image as inspiration for my Phills Harbour scene. It is only fashioned from some strip styrene and bits and pieces from my modeller's scrap box, but the end result is something that helps set the mood for the location and era I am trying to model.

Departing south from Coffs Harbour station, this XPT is ducking beneath the Campbelltown St bridge.

I rebuilt the left side of Philden Road overpass to blend in with the Rix highway overpass kit at right.

The rock-proof fence helps set the time period and establish a focal point for this scene.

Once the ballustrade was in place, I turned my attention to the roadway. To give the road a well-worn and patched up appearance, I masked off different squares at a time with blue painter's tape, and painted several different shades of grey. Next I weathered the surface with a few passes of the airbrush using three different mixtures of thinned-down acrylic paint; Model Master reefer grey, Vallejo black wash and Vallejo engine grime wash.

The road surface is going to be prominently visible, so I put a lot of time into making it a feature.

I masked of random squares of the roadway, and painted it in different shades of asphalt.

When dry, I removed the tape, weathered the road and added a concrete sidewalk.

The effect on the roadway is amongst the best finish I have achieved to date on a road surface, and left me glad that I pried my first earlier bridge section from above the NSW North Coast line and binned it. The completed Philden Road overpass instantly set the scene for how the rest of this... err, scene, would look.

A few locomotives soon to be retired from my layout pass beneath the new look overpass.

The next area on the layout I revised was my locomotive roster, and this is one area that has since been revised further after taking these few photos! Initially I wanted to capture the changing 90's era of operations on the New South Wales North Coast line. But 1991 to 2000 is a pretty broad time period to be modelling considering that National Rail was established smack in the middle of that. Even with the locomotives that I'd collected, it soon became obvious that you can't model everything. Keeping early 1990's NSW Government owned locos such as 442 and 80 class diesels on the roster meant creating a separate rollingstock roster of appropriately lettered goods wagons to run with them. Given the scaled back nature of this project, 8 locomotives seemed totally unnecessary for a 3 to 4 track Inglenook yard. I eventually decided upon a 1997 to 2001 era, and ruled a line through any locomotive or rollingstock item that didn't belong.

That leaves me with a fleet of 3 x NR locomotives and my 2 x Northern Rivers Railroad locomotives to cover my late 1990's era, (more on these in a later post), all of which are well suited to run alongside my Countrylink XPT set. For me, my whole NSW North Coast roster is about having some of the locomotives I remembered from when I was a young lad, still working alongside some of the newer Australian horsepower of the time. As for those NR class locomotives? They marked the beginning of a new era when they burst onto the scene in 1996, around the same time that I became a Dad. The NR's, (and my kids) are now around 25 years old! Where has the time gone?

I've just found that modelling an entire decade with this layout would have drained more money from my bank account than I was comfortable with. By moving on any item that doesn't belong between 1997 and the turn of the Millenium, I can now send some money back the other way.

Deciding to leave the cement plant off was a big dilemna... I'll miss this guy's face.

After returning from my summer holiday break with a pair of fresh eyes, the next scene-changer I decided to omit was the cement plant that I'd long planned to recycle from my old layout. As much as I like the familiarity of this structure, it really overpowered the beachside scene. I had to ask myself what mood was I trying to portray with this layout. Was it the industrial seaside scene we'd just seen at Gladstone? Or did I want to capture the fun beachside vibes from past family holidays? The cement plant made it a touch difficult to reach the ground throw beside the signal box anyway. So in the end the good vibes won out. I'll now pack the cement plant carefully away once more in a box, just in case I should use it on another small project in the future.

I guess these two photos can now reside in the Phills Harbour Museum. They can serve as a flashback to the Old Days before the Phills Harbour Foreshore redevelopment of the early 1990's, in much the same way as Coffs Harbour Foreshore was redeveloped following the closure of the railway jetty.

And gone! The final photo before the big foreshore redvelopment of the 1990's.

In its place a Fish n' Chips shop and a Fishing Tackle charter company are already erecting a new two story building. While the council has just completed a concrete esplanade linking the beachfront to the jetty and railway station. The whole project involved hours of marking out paper templates and cutting and gluing 6 mm cork floor tiles to create a seamless transition along the harbour wall. And ignore the foreign Victorian loco that seems to have popped up in the above photo. It was on loan while I measured train lengths and clearances for another top secret micro-project that I have in the pipeline.

I started on the Walker Models Fish n' Chips shop and drew a paper template for the foundations.

I used the template to cut a cork floor tile, and fixed it in place with white caulk, (No More Gaps).

The cork tile needed to be pinned in place while the caulk dried overnight.

The Walker Models Fish n' Chip shop can then be built alongside the beach.

So there you have it. The overpass is essentially complete and the scene is now set for how I will build the rest of the layout. Although I've glued the sub-structures together on some of the buildings, they're not fixed in place so that I can take them off the layout and work on them at a later date, (perhaps on a table in front of the TV when footy season kicks off again). I'm building a footprint that the structures will drop into so that I can keep progressing with the scenery.

I know folks often say stuff like 'next up I'm going to start work on... (insert whatever project here),' but with this layout I'm finding I can wake up on a Saturday morning, go to the beach for a swim and a coffee, and come back not knowing what I'm in the mood to do next. I just know that as long as I do a little something each week, the layout gets that little closer to being finished.