Friday 30 March 2018

Ice Ice Baby!

Well the camera battery issue is now resolved. The Trax NSW MRC is now ready for traffic:



So as you can see the model has been coded VRC. So what does the VRC stand for? Well it could be Victorian Railway Club but no, it stands for Victorian Refrigerated Car.  Not bad for something that used leftover bogies, some spare roofs and spare brake details for previous kit builds. I now have 2 white vans to break up all the VR wagon red stock in my goods rollingstock fleet. In fact the way I have painted this one reminds me a bit of the NT wagon that ran on the Victorian Railways Narrow Gauge.

Those wishing to get a closer look at this model plus some of the other builds I have in progress can see them this Easter weekend at the Bendigo Exhibition. Details in the previous post.

Tuesday 27 March 2018

Blowing someone elses trumpet

C'mon, get your mind out of the gutter. This blog is for model railway topics, not that. 😛

I was hoping to have a picture today of a completed project.....but the camera batteries died on me and I'm likely up for a new set anyway. So I thought I would champion the work of somebody else who is a real talent at what they do.

I am talking of the YouTuber 'Luke Towan' who has been making tutorial videos on model railway scenery subjects since 2013. This guy has nearly 430,000 subscribers to his channel and there is a very good reason for this; the dioramas he makes for his videos are simply stunning. There are also tuorials on DIY photo etching, 3D Printing and scratchbuilding in styrene:



You can check out Luke's Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRkUtHQ774mTg1vrQ6uA5A/featured

Another update will happen later in the week on that project I've finished. Camera battery situation should be sorted by then lol.


Sunday 25 March 2018

Ready to rock on and a plug for Easter

With the Grand Prix on over the weekend (which Vettel won BTW) and a few projects in for painting and possible completion before Easter, I thought it was a good time to get another project up to the same stage for painting after Easter:

This kit was one of the purchases from Stawell last year. It has been out of the packet at least half a dozen times to study how it all goes together. Lyndons Trains kits are fairly simple to put together and I have built at least one before which was the HZB brake block transport wagon (see http://mattsvicrailmodelling.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/taking-brakeand-blocking-up.html). I decided I could tackle this one between watching the Supercars and the F1 cars race around Albert Park on the TV. Well the build is now finished and it is awaiting a spot in the paint shop after Easter:
And what number will it be? Well this is another wagon in the Victorian Goldfields Railway fleet so it will be finished off as VZMA40-L and will have the odd spoke wheelset on one bogie with the other 3 axles being fitted with disc wheels:
Photo from Norm Bray's Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/60901191@N08/

For those who are going to be in Bendigo on the Easter Weekend, the Bendigo Model Railroaders will be holding their bi-annual exhibition. Here are some details:
All going to plan I may have some of my completed and in the works projects displayed on the layout 'Town and Country' which was last displayed in Bendigo on debut in 2014. If not I may be up for a chat depending on how busy I am as I am actively involved with running the exhibition with other club members. So I may see some of you this weekend. 😀




Friday 23 March 2018

A top up of supplies, plus that D van finally finished

With some of my basic modelling supplies getting low or exhausted a trip to the local shop was in order to right the situation:
So I now have plenty of gloss black, wagon red and 'dullcote' for a few projects. The couplers have already been raided to go on one wagon.

The gloss black was a separate purchase from the local Toy World (which moved premises some years ago but this was the first time I have been there!). It is also the first tinlet I have purchased with the current labelling. Humbrol paints for a long time had the type and number stamped into the lid. I know, it is a bit sad to be paying so much attention to a paint tinlet but for those who have been buying Humbrol paints for many years, you will know the tinlets have been the only consistent thing produced...unlike the contents 😐

Now onto an actual model. Back in 2015 I put up a post about a BGB van I decided to re-purpose (see http://mattsvicrailmodelling.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/da-d-van.html). At the end of that post I hinted that the van would not be going back to orange. It has been in it's base colour for a couple of years and only recently I have added the lining:
Looks pretty smart doesn't it? I based the idea on the VR blue D van that is currently in storage at the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre. It was painted blue to match their 'Blue Train' of mainly ex-Spirit of Progress S cars but does not have the lining. You will also note the top band is thinner than the bottom one which matches the original application of the blue and gold (rather gold leaf) to the original Spirit of Progress back in 1937.

This van can now be operated with my other blue stock and blend in with the consist. It would have been so easy to paint it wagon red and code it as a BP van but I wanted variety. Now I just need more blue cars...hmmmm 😉



Sunday 4 March 2018

Another Way and Works van

The lack of decent TV in the evenings is proving a bonus for getting things done in the workshop (nothing got touched during the day over the weekend while watching the Supercars race in Adelaide on TV however). This is another wagon that was part built, then left for a couple of years to gather dust. So with the aim of clearing this backlog it has come forward in the queue and is almost ready for some paint:

This is a HD wagon built using a Steam Era Models standard I wagon kit with the doors removed and a VR Casts HD conversion kit added along with Steam Era handbrake and buffers as well as some Model Etch ladders chopped up to make some side steps. The long couplings are spares that came with my Auscision N-set and will be replaced with the proper Kadee equivalent when the wagon enters service. I have modelled this wagon on HD193 which is preserved by the Victorian Golfields Railway and it will be lettered with the stencil it carries over from when it was used to transport way and works items between Jolimont and the workshops at North Ballarat and Bendigo:

Meanwhile I have finished the second set of sides/ends for those 3 L wagons so that leaves one more to go.

Friday 2 March 2018

Nothing on the TV again...sooooo

There wasn't much on TV last night, a good excuse to do some more kit construction before I have to go and get more supplies (used my last bit of dullcote on the container flat and almost out of VR wagon red in the paint stocks).

I decided to tackle building the sides and ends up for 3 Steam Era Models L type sheep wagons. Long time followers of my blog will recall I also did a batch of 3 L wagons back in 2014 so there is some consistency here. The most tedious bit of these kits is the brass etchings that have to be attached to the sides and ends that make up the barwork. While I'm realistically a little way off actually building these wagons, I can at least build up the sides and ends so that when I am ready to construct the actual wagons, these parts will be ready to go in the same way as a standard SEM kit.

The photo below is to show the work that goes into putting these etchings on. The sides have 8 separate etches and the doors combined add another 4. So you have to separately fit 12 etchings to each side. The ends have 6 each. That is 36 separate etchings just in the barwork. The balance will be 3 bar etchings that go inside (1 dividing the top deck, another 2 dividing the bottom deck because of the waste chute from the top deck). Have I put anyone off building one yet?
Since this photo was taken I have put the doors onto the sides as well as putting the side and end braces on. With that done these parts will go back in the bag and I can then do the same thing for the next 2 wagons.