August 2012 Volume 3, Issue 9

OUR AUGUST MEETING

13 turned up for today’s meeting at Rob Anderson’s, including two unexpected arrivals.

Having mislaid his email address list, Peter Dinham was unable to submit his excuse for being absent, so he had to come along to deliver it in person. Huh? Never mind, he’s here now so he gets counted.

Graeme Hodges the First had bravely escaped his kidnappers especially so he could front up today and gripe about us being too mean to raise the ransom money to secure his release. Unfair criticism! We DID contribute generously and raised eight pence. For younger readers that's 7 cents. Hardly our fault if Graeme believed he was worth more.

Ross Balderson and Stephe Jitts had sought leave of absence to attend an ‘Early Day’ Convention. Fair enough. Our meeting doesn’t start until 2pm, which is definitely not ‘Early Day’. Accordingly Ross and Stephe were generously granted the whole morning off. But oh no, that wasn’t good enough. They claimed their Early Day Convention wouldn’t finish until about 5pm and reckoned they’d need a Tardis to make it to Rob’s by 2pm. No problem. Our All-Powerful Leader helpfully advised them of a used Tardis available for hire from the BBC which should arrive the day before they ordered it. But they haven’t shown up at the meeting today. They probably don’t know how to drive the Tardis properly and have finished up in Roman Britain searching for a historic railway station to model. Luckily for them, every Tardis comes equipped with a universal phrase book. Quaeso ubi stationium Paddingtonisticum in Magno Occidentalia Ferroviarica est? Announcements

Our Fearless Leader expressed disappointment that we were unable to exhibit at Malkara earlier this month. We hope for better luck next year.

The meeting decided that our Christmas dinner this year would be on Thursday 6 December at the China Tea Club in North Lyneham.

Our Intrepid Leader warned us that there has been a major change in our planning for next year’s NMRA Convention which is to be held in Canberra. Our convention coordinator John Prattis is moving to Adelaide this Christmas. A new coordinator is needed. Any volunteers? Stricken silence. Furtive glances dart all around the room from corners of narrowed eyes. Aw, c’mon now! How about it? Not a move. Mouths remain closed, faces remain grimly wooden and hands remain

firmly sat on. Well we have to have a convention committee. Who will go on the committee? Better luck this time. Jess Brisbane, John Gillies, Rob Nesbitt, Stephe Jitts, Graeme Hodges I and Sylvia Brice are willing to go on the committee, with Sylvia attending to the Ladies’ programme. And John Prattis will be assisting while he’s in Canberra.

But what about the convention venue? The meeting discussed various possibilities. Too early right now to make any decision on the venue for 2013, but the committee will be looking at this.

Convention date is simpler however and is to be the weekend of 21-22 September 2013 which is a week after Floriade has started and is not in school holidays. NSW wives at the 2012 NMRA Convention expressed keen interest in visiting Canberra for Floriade in

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The Flimsy The Newsletter of Division 2 of the NMRA AR

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September 2013. And if their uncultured husbands don’t happen to like flowers and would rather go play trains, then everyone’s happy. There were sufficient Div 2 members present at the 2012 NMRA Convention to form a quorum for an ad hoc Div 2 meeting which agreed unanimously on the 2013 Convention date.

John Bullen mentioned that some of the web links in the latest issue of The Flimsy (Vol 3, Issue 8, July 2012) don’t work as they should. If anyone has difficulty with any of them, then they should get in touch with John Bullen, advising him of the topic of interest. John will then send a web link by email which will work. Our Charismatic Leader muttered something which drew Peter Dinham’s quick comment that it was a pretty ‘flimsy’ excuse. The meeting collectively winced. Thank you Peter. Now let’s move on, shall we? Show & Tell

John Bullen described Smuggler’s Cove, the latest creation of Geoff Nott and Michael Flack. Smuggler’s Cove was the highlight of the Märklin Exhibitors’ model railway show at Beecroft on 11-12 August and is the subject of a separate article in The Flimsy. (Editors Note: This layout was also on show at the recent NMRA Convention)

Jess Brisbane drew attention to the Vitrea 160 range of clear glass paints produced by Pēbēo. They exist in 30 colours and are available at Eckersley’s art supply

shops. They are ideal for colouring light bulbs and before curing, they mix with water. See http://en.pebeo.com/Creative-leisure/Decorate-surfaces/Vitrea-160 Jess also displayed her recently purchased Ixion On30 (1:48) ‘Coffeepot’ loco, now down to the more acceptable price of $170. See http://www.ixionmodels.com/news.htm To see one of these running, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhPw66JPKSc

The prototype for this 2-2-0WT curiosity was originally built in Leeds by Kitson in 1906. It runs today on the

Pichi-Richi Railway in South Australia. See http://www.prr.org.au/cms/gallery2/?g2_itemId=627

Jess then wowed us all with a sneak preview of this season’s spring fashions by donning a baseball cap. No ordinary cap this one. Under the peak it is fitted with two miniature floodlights and two miniature spotlights firing straight ahead, right where the wearer is looking. Definitely wouldn’t work for the likes of Lleyton Hewitt, but it’s just perfect for illumination of fine modelling work. And where do we rush to get one? Gucci? Dior? Yves Saint Laurent? Givenchy? Vuitton? Versace? Well, you could try, but you’d be wrong every time. On sale at Bunnings, not normally known for its fashion accessories! Not only looks chic, but it really works.

Rob Nesbitt displayed his Model Of The Month, this time a NSW 30 Class 4-6-4T Sydney suburban loco in HO scale. Rob assembled it from various sources, namely a Protype body, a Footplate chassis kit and a Mashima can motor. Rob’s model currently has gold decals for the loco number 3137 due to the great difficulty in procuring them in the correct white.

David Mitchell spoke briefly on his recent overseas visit. More to follow when he hosts our October meeting.

Graeme Hodges 1 produced his recently acquired copy of the official book on the Cairns to Kuranda railway, together with maps available to passengers. This hardback book is ‘Tracks of Triumph’, by A Hudson and published by the Kuranda Scenic Railway in 2003. Costing about $30, it is copiously illustrated with black & white photos, especially of its construction in the 1880s.

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See http://www.ksr.com.au/Merchandise/Pages/Catalogue.aspx

Graeme also drew our attention to the latest issue (Vol 63, Issue 898, August 2012) of Australian Railway History, currently on sale for $7.50 in newsagencies. It contains an excellent and well illustrated article on boiler explosions in NSW locomotives, examining eight such accidents in detail. One of them is the 1907 steam tram accident in a Concord street where major damage was also inflicted on a second steam tram loco on the adjacent track in the passing loop.

If you go to buy this issue, don’t bother with the volume and issue numbers in fine print. Just look for the eye-catching front cover photo of an 0-6-0 loco with the middle ring of its boiler plating blown right out. This accident happened at Wentworth Falls in 1881 and the loco steam dome was never seen again.

In addition to giving details of these boiler explosions, this article also explains why and how such accidents occur. Recommended for both the technically minded and the morbidly curious. The Main Show

Rob Anderson had kept us in suspense, wondering which of his enthusiasms would be today’s subject – the Louisville & Nashville RR? Or the Victorian Railways eastward line from Melbourne along the never quite completed coastal railway to Sydney?

Then he sprang his surprise on us. Rob had hoped to proudly present to us the pinnacle of his model collecting experience, most recently promised for July 2012. But alas, it hadn’t been delivered on time, so, empty handed, he would now have to tell us about it instead. But there’s only so much that you can say about a model you haven’t got, so Rob had decided to speak of its prototype instead – the Victorian Railways 4-6-4 R Class steam locomotive.

Rob had paid for his HO scale Eureka Models R Class oil burner way back in June 2006. He knew he’d have to wait a few months for it, and that was OK. However the delivery date kept hopping out of reach. After over six years of frustrated fretting, Rob still hasn’t caught up with it, but ever the optimist, he remains hopeful. His latest hope is for 2013.

In the meantime a framed colour photo of a VR R Class loco will have to do instead. Placing the picture beneath the TV screen, Rob led us through a PowerPoint presentation on the fleet of 70 R Class locos which came to the VR in the early 1950s.

Rob started by putting us through a crash course in loco design, pointing out the design compromises and trade-offs involved in producing a loco to perform a

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specific task. Then we looked at the history of the R Class.

Sadly these locos came 20 years too late. In the 1930s they would have been invaluable (and they might well have been built better then), but by the time they were delivered in the 1950s, B Class diesel locos were already on order for the VR.

The original plan was for the entire R Class loco series to be built locally in the Newport workshops, but industrial disputes in 1946-47 put paid to that. In 1948 the new plan was for North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow to build 50 locos and for a further 40 to be built in NSW by Clyde Engineering. The NSW part of the plan fell through and ultimately North British supplied 70 locomotives.

To unload these 94-ton locos a special crane had to be built at Nelson Pier at Williamstown. This 250-ton crane was designed, built and delivered in only 4 months. At least this part of the whole project was successful.

Between May 1951 and February 1952 all 70 locomotives were delivered, having travelled to Australia in pairs as deck cargo. Machined surfaces (in ungreased axle boxes, for example) suffered severely from the ocean voyage and this was just the start. The locos were beset with problems, some of them quite serious, arising from poor design and shoddy manufacture. An average of 105 days in workshops per loco had to be spent just to get them ready for operation, thus losing a total of over 7000 locomotive-days before they could even begin to provide service.

In service they were successful as express passenger locomotives, earning them something of an image of glamour in the public eye, but they proved unsuitable for other duties. With diesels being progressively introduced, the R Class locos were steadily withdrawn. By 1970 there were only 7 left in service. Altogether they were in service for 17 years altogether with an average length of service of only 12 years per loco.

In summary they were 20 years too late and they were poorly made. The British ancestry of our Noble Leader

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was heavily rubbished on this latter aspect, but he was quick to point out that they were Scottish and therefore nothing to do with him. The sad truth is that, considered altogether, the VR’s much vaunted R Class locos represented a poor return on a big investment.

To those of us who knew little about the R Class beyond their glamour image, the extent and nature of their many problems came as quite a revelation. In Rob’s PowerPoint show, the grim facts were neatly interspersed with many photos, together adding up to a most interesting and highly informative talk.

Rob was not greatly cheered by the suggestion from his audience that, faithful to the prototype, his precious HO scale model R Class loco was probably somewhere on the high seas as deck cargo. We hope we all live long enough to participate in the joyful celebrations when Rob’s model finally arrives.

Then on to a delightful afternoon tea which was very well received, as can be seen from the empty platters in the group photo below.

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From L to R: Wal Pywell, Mal Risby (thankfully recovered from crew fatigue), Stephen O’Brien, John Gillies, Julie Anderson, Rob’s head, Peter Dinham, John Bullen, Dave Mitchell’s head, Rob Anderson and Jess Brisbane

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Smuggler’s Cove By John Bullen

Smuggler’s Cove is a superb O scale creation of a

typical North Atlantic coastal village in the New England

region of USA, built by Geoff Nott and Michael Flack. Smuggler’s Cove is right up to the incredibly high

standard of Leigh Creek, the Red Stag Lumber Company and Muskrat Ramble. The construction team members

have varied from layout to layout, but Michael Flack has been in the team for all but Leigh Creek in its original

form as a layout in Geoff Nott’s home. Geoff himself has

been the driving force in all four. Geoff deservedly came to international attention when Leigh Creek was featured

in the Kalmbach publication Great Model Railroads 2000

with a suitable Leigh Creek photo selected for the front

cover. This honour remains unique for a layout outside USA.

Smuggler’s Cove made its first public appearance at Castle Hill in July 2012. It then appeared at Beecroft

three weeks later and again a further three weeks later at the 2012 NMRA Convention at Niagara Park.

At Niagara Park its appearance was greatly enhanced

by Geoff Nott and Michael Flack jointly giving two talks on how they planned and built this remarkable layout in

less than nine months. They began their talk in pre-dawn darkness illuminated only by a few house lights

and the intermittent flashes of the lighthouse. The sea could be heard breaking gently, sea birds anticipating

the imminent dawn and a small steam loco in the

distance. You could almost smell the seaside. Then came daylight, the sound faded, and Geoff and Michael took

over. Having visited USA last year for railway reasons, Geoff

and Michael also went on a private tourist trip up New

England way. Captivated by what they saw on the North Atlantic coast, they decided to model it. While there they

took lots of photographs and also bought postcards and art prints. Back home in November 2011 they started to

plan and scratch-build in earnest.

Their aim was to recreate in O scale a coastal village of the 1950s where the main activities are fishing and

tourism. The village is full of white and grey wooden (Continued on page 6)

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buildings. External stairs and shingled walls are in abundance and lobster floats and pots are everywhere,

especially on the waterfront. Their planning was greatly aided by Geoff Nott’s

architectural drafting skills and artistic ability. Detailed

plans for all buildings were drawn up very quickly and very accurately. At first glance they look like real building

plans, rather than model plans. Before Michael embarked on the detailed construction of buildings, mock-ups were

made to go on the layout to test the appearance and location of each building. In many instances this led to

modifications to the building design and changes in

location. This is a layout not designed to be viewed solely from front on, but to be viewed from every angle

imaginable – exactly as one would if walking around its streets.

The overall plan was slightly changed as the project

took shape. Originally, more railway track was planned, including an engine shed, but this was sacrificed to

create more space for more realistic scenery. However ample track (in two separate gauges) remains to justify

the presence of Smuggler’s Cove in a model railway show. The little steam hauled tourist tramway in the

street is a gem. To Geoff and Michael it is very important

that their railways run THROUGH the scenery and do not dominate it. There are more boats (all scratch-built) than

trains on this layout – to be expected in a seaside village.

Deciduous tree trunks and branches came from a

tough flexible seaside weed often found in windy areas. All that was needed to convert a sprig of this twiggy

weed into a realistic deciduous tree was to add

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appropriate commercial Heki foliage.

Grasses and ground covers also came from the excellent range of commercial materials available. Care

was taken to vary the size and colour of the grasses and associated weeds.

Natural sand and stone has been used, though not on a scale to make the layout too heavy to move with ease

– a lesson learnt from Leigh Creek.

The layout is supported on a frame of planks each about 15 cm wide and arranged on edge in a star shape

radiating out from a central point. This rigid structure carries the layout weight without sagging. On top goes

the baseboard on which the layout is built.

The elegant and very striking Smuggler’s Cove logo of a sailing ship in bronze was bought in a Newtown

antique shop. It cost more than the materials for all structures on the entire layout put together, but it simply

had to be bought because it was ‘just right’ for this

layout. The layout is in two modules which are joined

together for exhibition. It was a tight finish to complete Phase One for the Castle Hill exhibition in July 2012, but

they made it. Phase Two is yet to come. This will be a third module

to be added on the right hand end. This extension will

be inland from the coast and will show a different aspect of this region with more deciduous trees, some of which

will be showing the early autumn colours for which the region is renowned. Hopefully the completed layout will

appear sometime next year. Watch this space!

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18.4 x 13.6

www.nmra.org.au

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Any resemblance between characters in this newsletter and real model railroaders is purely intentional but no offence whatever is intended. Only the facts may have been altered to protect the guilty. Every reader has the right of reply and we look forward to publish-ing them!

National Model Railroaders Association

Australasian Region—Division 2—ACT

Bringing model railroading to you

From the Editor:

This month saw several Division 2 members attend the 2012 NMRA Convention at Niagara Park on the NSW Central Coast. While not everything ran as smoothly as perhaps one might have wished, the clinics were good, the vendors had a wide variety of items and the camaraderie was as good as ever. Many old friendships were renewed and new ones made. Most divisions were represented as was the Taiwan sub-district—all were made welcome.

A highlight for me was Smuggler’s Cove, yet another masterpiece from Geoff Nott and Michael Flack—see John Bullen’s article.

We now have a 2013 Convention Committee, an albeit temporary Convener, and a date, 21/22 September 2013. Well, we had to start somewhere.

Viv div2sup@nmra.org.au

News

Next meeting will be at John Gillies abode in Ly-neham on Saturday, 22 September 2012. The 2013 Convention here in the ACT will be held 21/22 September.

2 Tbfpmox # #

All’s right with the world! The newly painted Norfolk Southern GE ES44AC diesel in heritage PRR livery next to restored Pennsy E8 5711. (by Bennett Levin, owner and restorer of 5711)