The

Extra

Division Seven

Newsle er

Superintendent Gerry Hopkins MMR

Treasurer Sam Mangion MMR

Hospitality Manager John Dever

Editor David O’Hearn

Presenta on Manager Paul Morrant MMR

Welcome to this edi on of The Extra.

This issue of The Extra is our twel'h

issue meaning The Extra has now

been published for one year so Hap-

py Birthday and may there be many

more to come.

Like all editors, I am always seeking contribu ons for

The Extra so please pass contribu ons to me at

mee ngs or email them to me at:

dohearn@internode.on.net

All contribu ons will be gratefully accepted.

-by David O’Hearn

Volume2,Issue1019October2013

FromtheEditor...

LastMinuteChange—

NextMeeting

NextFewMeetingsOur next few mee ngs for 2013 and early 2014 will be:

November Mee�ng– The November Mee ng will be at

Robert Lewis's place at 33 Chisholm Crescent, Bradbury

(near Campbelltown) on 9 November 2013 commencing

at 12 noon.

December Mee�ng—The December mee ng will be the

Christmas Party on 14 December 2013 from 12 noon un-

l 3:00 pm at the Berowra Waters Waterview Restau-

rant, 199 Bay Road, Berowra Waters (02)9456 2633.

Tickets are $55 per person and they are available for pur-

chase at our monthly mee ngs from Gerry or Lauris Hop-

kins or whoever is manning the entrance table.

January Mee�ng—On 11 January 2014, Michael Flack

will host a final opportunity to view the Smugglers Cove

layout at his place at Carlingford. Due to limited parking,

this will be a “dri' in/dri' out” mee ng from 9 am to 6

pm.

OtherEvents:The Sydney Good Line Rail tour is on the weekend of 15-

16 February 2014. For details see:

www.eppingmodelrailway.org.au

Forestville Model Railway Exhibi on is on 1-2 March

2014, Cnr Warringah Rd and Starkey St, Forestville.

DivisionSevenRoles

Due to a number of people (the organisers) being in

hospital for opera ons the week before the mee ng ,

the visit to Brewongle has been postponed un l Febru-

ary 8th 2014.

Our next mee ng will be on Saturday 19 October 2013

at the Novocastrian Modellers Club Layout. The build-

er of the Brewongle layout was also involved with the

building of this layout. The layout is housed in the club

room underneath the Grandstand at the Newcastle

Showground - entry to the show ground is via Griffiths

Road. The mee ng will run from 12.00 noon to 3.00

pm.

Volume 2, Issue 10 The Extra October 2013

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

2

The September mee ng was hosted by Trevor and

Lin James at their property at Mandalong. 44 mem-

bers took advantage of the beau ful spring day to

aIend the mee ng.

Trevor models in the extremes with N scale and G

scale models on display in a purpose-built train

room.

At the mee ng, Gerry advised that Geoff NoI had

been inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Narrow

Gauge Conven on in Pasadena in August. The Janu-

ary 2014 mee ng at Michael Flack’s place will be

the last chance to see Geoff and Michael’s Smug-

glers Cove layout on display.

Gerry also displayed some samples of 3-D prin ng

that illustrated the level of detail that can now be

achieved by this manufacturing technique.

September—Trevor

James

DivisionSevenMeeting

Reports

At the appointed me, the ladies served a wonderful

a'ernoon tea that was enjoyed by all.

- David O’Hearn

Gerry conduc�ng the mee�ng formali�es

Trevor’s N scale Layout

Trevor’s �dy work bench

Listening to Gerry’s presenta�on

Volume 2, Issue 10 The Extra October 2013

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

3

A number of members of the Narrow Gauge SIG

have formed a group where they are developing

modules that are connected together for running

sessions. Already modules are being produced by

John Montgomery, Steve Chapman, Eddy Harper

and John Meredith.

If you are interested in joining this group and having

fun building modules and running trains, you will be

welcome. Just contact John Montgomery or Steve

Chapman for more details or email your request to

the editor for onforwarding to John or Steve.

- David O’Hearn

Anoddsight

This photo was recently taken in the USA showing a

new locomo ve for Tasrail being dwarfed by its US

cousins during its delivery move.

On30ModularGroup

Eddy Harper’s module

Steve Chapman’s module

MarketDayA model railway market day will be held on Saturday

30 November 2013 at the Dence Park Crea ve Cen-

tre, 26 Stanley Street Epping from 10:00am to

1:00pm.

You can sell your pre-loved models by ren ng a table

or you can just come along to do your Christmas

shopping and grab a bargain. There will also be a

sausage sizzle for those that work up an appe te.

The market day is being run by Epping Model Railway

Club. For more details, contact Ian on 0449 176 396.

Volume 2, Issue 10 The Extra October 2013

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

4

RegionalConventionThe NMRA Australasian Region Annual conven on was

hosted by Division 2 in Canberra on 20-23 September

at the Kaleen High School.

This was a well aIended and well run conven on with

layout tours on the Friday and Monday, interes ng

clinics on a wide variety of topics on the Saturday and

Sunday morning, visits to the Australian Railway His-

torical Society on the Sunday a'ernoon and an enter-

taining conven on dinner on the Saturday night with

an entertaining a'er dinner talk on how the Australian

Cons tu on stuffed up the railways!

Ken Scales and Viv Brice opening the conven�on

Some of the Conven�oneers gathering just prior to

the official opening speeches

The Conven on dinner was also the opportunity to

recognise some of the major modelling achievements

over the last twelve months with MMR plaques being

presented to Sam Mangion, Kelly Lloyd, Paul Morrant

and Stephe JiIs.

The next issue of Mainline Magazine, as the Australa-

sian Region publica on, will carry a lot more details of

the Capital Rail 2013 conven on in Canberra.

For your early planning, next year the conven on will

be held on the Gold Coast.

Below are a few pictures from a couple of the layouts

that were available for viewing and opera on during

the Conven on.

Batlow Sta�on on John Harrio ’s Kunama Line

NSWGR based Layout

A scene on Gavan Benne ’s Victorian Railways

based Pleurisy Plains layout

Volume 2, Issue 10 The Extra October 2013

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

5

AMRAExhibition—

Liverpool

A gallant team, under the direc on of Paul Morrant

MMR, set up and ran a kids scenery clinic at the recent

AMRA Exhibi on at Liverpool on the October long

weekend.

The team thoroughly enjoyed themselves and many

kids walked away proudly carrying their diorama mas-

terpieces.

The remainder of this page shows the NMRA team at

work.

Volume 2, Issue 10 The Extra October 2013

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

6

Fences o'en have lines of trees grown for windbreaks

and animal shelter. Up to the 1980’s or so windbreaks

were exo c species such as the common pine tree;

more recently Australian species are typical.

Internal fencing follows the same general structures

however the colours of the various paddocks will vary

because the pasture changes colour as stock feed. For

example a paddock stock have just le' will be more

yellow than the rich green of a fresh paddock. An inter-

es ng presenta on can be made if you try to represent

strip grazing by electric fences within a paddock and

having marked colour change either side of the electric

fence.

Because stock are more easily moved along a fence

line, gates from one paddock to another should be lo-

cated at the end of the fence line never in the middle.

Gates between paddocks are o'en preIy rough and

the famous ‘Cocky’s Gate’ is s ll found. If cropping is

part of the farm rou ne gates between paddocks will

be doubles to allow Headers etc. to pass freely. Some

very good HO scale farm gates are commercially availa-

ble.

Much of our view of the Australian rural scene is

framed by fencing – miles and miles of it! So common is

fencing it o'en escapes our aIen on. The modeler’s

presenta on of a rural scene could be lacking without

some aIempt to show property fencing and associated

gates, entrances, stock grids. It can be difficult in HO

and in [say] N scales a real challenge. However it is pos-

RuralFences—Pt2 sible to build acceptable fences and gates with some

understanding of the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the endless

miles.

A Cocky’s gate is

a bit of wire and

a couple of pick-

ets to hold it up

Most farmers

like to make a

”here I am”

statement with

their entrance gate and it provides a number of op-

portuni es to add interest to the layout. Firstly the

fencing immediately adjacent the entrance is likely to

be some form of mber railing, probably painted

white. The mber railing will be indented from the

road to allow youngsters to be safely picked up by the

school bus and for the postman to deliver mail with-

out worrying about passing trucks. Naturally a fancy

leIer-box will be a feature together with a property

name and number.

To make life easier the front gate will have a

‘stockgrid’ across the front so that cars can pass but

animals wont. Either side of the entrance the farmer

will grow some trees and these trees may extend

down the driveway forming the treed avenue so com-

mon to proper es. Because the homestead can be

some distance from the front gate you don’t need to

have the avenue of trees all the way to the home-

stead, they can always fade away over a hill or around

a bend.

For reasons that remain

a mystery, the entrance

trees and the avenue of

trees are very o'en

exo c deciduous spe-

cies which certainly

gives scope for added

colour to the layout.

- by Peter O’Rourke

Ed. Note: This is the second part of Peter’s inter-

es ng ar cle on rural fences. The first part appeared

in last month’s The Extra.