In the poo (again)

As much as I would like this blog to be devoted to model railways it seems there are other forces working against me.
Many posts have been devoted to the ferals that inhabit the shed. Well this week was going so good in that I had finally sealed across the front of the shed under the eaves. The painting is yet to come and it will then start to look half decent.
During the week I have done some more ballasting and painting the sides of the rails. Now yesterday afternoon I thought I would pop in and have a quick look and see if the ballast had dried.
But when I got inside, turned left and went to have a look at Candelo what I saw was mayhem. There were locos and carriages on their sides all over the place. I do not recall any earth tremors the night before and immediately felt my little furry friends had paid me another visit.
Maybe this was payback revenge for sealing up the hole into the shed (that they had put there) in  the corner of the roof. On the main board down the middle of the shed (Bega) the garratt had been tipped on its side. (goodness how many parts have fallen off) and random wagons on different roads were tipped over.
I could not hear any activity anywhere in the shed, maybe the little bugger was asleep planning his next raid? So all I could do was to right up the overturned and hope for the best.
So going up for dinner the door was closed then to suck a bit of sympathy from the wife. 
Today Friday after having been out most of the day, I wondered down again to the shed, turned left again towards Candelo, you guessed it the little bugger was back. Candelo suffered most.
Not being an expert in animal faeces, what I did spot was a calling card on the floor. Having seen enough of this rear end product over the years I like Sherlock Holmes deduced it was from a possum. I apologise in advance for subjecting the following shots to you, but if its not from a possum someone out there may be to identify it.

Although this first shot may be sufficient to identify the said animal, the second shot is only included for the fantastic stacking skills of the phantom layer. (made harder as the landing strip was on an angle!!)  Assumed as coming from the same creature it was probably as result of panic setting in when he was up against the window with the outside with its green trees beckoning him to join them. They actually looked like O scale black puddings. The bit I liked was that they seemed to be laid dry and not wet and sloppy which would have taken longer to clean up and would have played havoc with the vacuum cleaner. The cars were also part of the accident scene.

Above is a photo of the carnage brought upon Candelo yard. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't any further advanced here or more damage could have been done.

I'm sorry I had to share these pictures with you. The good news was that no one was hurt and all the locos and rolling stock has been righted. After cleaning up the mess I thought if I opened the roller door the phantom mangler might disappear into the night. Getting the key I opened the roller enough to let any animal up to a metre tall to make a quick evacuation while I had dinner and watched the news.
So after a few hours and darkness had come, I went out to re-close the door. Now there is one thing you must do with roller doors and that is to remove the key before pulling it up. As I look up I see a bent key and as I try to straighten it up to pull it out, yes it snaps with half key in and half key out. 
So tomorrow my project will be to Google how to remove broken keys from locks. Wish me luck.

Into Loco

Not a lot of progress inside the shed lately but finally after around 25 years I have started to  box in the eaves of the shed. This will finally stop all those pesky creatures that normally live on the outside from taking up residence inside the shed. Amongst those creatures are possums and rats. (See multiple older blogs for details) Its one of those "will do it later jobs" which you always seem to put off and never get around to doing. I must admit the visible side of the shed has had the eaves filled in and the left hand side of the shed painted. Its so long ago but the paint must have run out as only half the front was painted. Scrap bits of timber were nailed up to the opening to deter pests from entering the roof cavity. A few years ago I saw a swarm of bees who thought the shed would make a nice home. Thank goodness they didn't stay long and left.
I had some fibro sheeting put away years ago just quitely sitting along side of the shed waiting for the big day to be used. Now to put up long lengths over two metres long up a ladder on your own and be expected to nail upside down and hang on to avoid falling is a big ask. So far no falls but I had to devise a  way of not only getting up the ladder carrying a large sheet but have it stay up there so I could nail it. I put a few scraps of timber nailed to the shed which held one edge. To hold the outside edge, I drilled holes in the bargeboard and put nails in the hole. Then after carrying the board up the ladder, slipped the shed edge over the scrap bits and slowly pushed the nails through along the bargeboard to support the sheeting. Have you ever tried nailing upside down? I had to pre-drill holes to make this task easier.
Now as this sheeting had been around for quite a few years I suppose I can't blame it for snapping in half as I was carrying it up the ladder. A few choice swear words, down the ladder again, recut the sheet again and now the sheet being half its original length was so much easier to handle. Well I nearly have the front bit done and this will allow me to eventually get another coat of paint onto it.
Inside the shed I have been doing some more ballasting around the loco roads, nice and dark with dropped oil spots as you would expect in this area. A few bits of grass around the point motors to blend and hide them was also applied.

During the week I hope to get some timber about 150mm high to sit on the window sill and form the backdrop to the station. This will make it visually better and allow a backdrop to put behind the station. It will also form a good backdrop for photography. Once this is done the platform can be put into place.
When I was uploading the above shot from the camera to the computer, there was a folder dated November 2000. Quickly doing the sums this was 14 years ago, have I really been building this layout for so long?

This is a shot of the control panel for South Coast Rail. Now I'm almost sure DCC wasn't around in 2000 so this will allow me to post this shot without getting into too much trouble. It was made on a sheet of perspex. The tracklayout was drawn in reverse onto the brown paper. Then the track sections were cut out with a razor blade and painted so adjoining colours were different. Once all this had been done the remainder of the back was sprayed with black gloss paint. This then secured the track painted lines under the black paint. The front layer of protective paper was then removed. The pushbuttons were a Dick Smith product I got many years ago when they used to sell usefull things not like now. Originally an 8 gang pushbutton unit, I removed three buttons to allow 5 controllers to control each section of track. I has worked well to this day. The usual pushbuttons for the point motors were also installed. The only drawback with this style is that you have to be sure you don't want to change the trackplan once its all painted up and the holes drilled for the buttons.
Tomorrow I will be heading off to the Liverpool exhibition to catch up with a few people and hopefully enjoy the day.

The Good Stuff

Well as reported in the last blog I had spent a few weeks diving under the baseboards redoing the wiring for Candelo. So far so good and the wiring still seems to work. And my back and arms are now feeling OK.
Wiring is a thankless job we have to do to get the systems operating. No one comes to view your layout and says "Gee can I see the wiring in your control panel?" You can spend hours doing it, then we go and hide it all away.
Scenery is another matter. It is meant to be looked at and appreciated. Its what gives a layout character, some of course do it better than others and some just completely ignore it and just like running trains. Each to their own.
This week I have finally started go do some ballasting and started with Nos 1 and 2 storage roads.
When I pulled up Candelo tracks I tried to rescue as much ballast as possible. No need to buy ballast twice for the same spot. Luckily I had used the old pva glue and detergent system of laying the ballast. The spray bottle got to work over the tracks and after ten minutes the track was able to be lifted once the brads had been taken up. The spent ballast went into a container and after going through the sifter was once again ready for re-use.
Storage sidings 1 and 2 will be mainly used for holding the BCH coal hoppers as they are split up and taken to the two close by coal mines. These two roads will effectively have more dropped coal around them.

In redoing Candelo I should be working my way from the back to front so as not to be knocking poles, structures etc along the way. But I was itching to get some ballast down to see how it goes. I don't use any underlay in the yard as in real life there are no shoulders under the track, all just flat dirt. I also make sure I paint the sides of the rails as I go, you never see silver rails in real life. My preferred colour in the yard is Tamiya Khaki drab which is a muddy, dirty colour.

Looking the other direction this is the current extent of ballasting. Track is easy to do, its the ballasting around points which is tedious and slow, making sure the point blades don't get glued up along the way.

This shot shows the other side of the ridge not normally seen from the aisle. I am using florist foam, pushed into shape and glued to the plaster. The foam will make it easier to push shrubbery into this area rather than having to drill holes. I have painted this with a brown paint since which helps to blend it in with other scenery. The point motor is not seen from the other side as well and the point motor to the left will eventually be covered in with a removable flap for access.

Slowly but surely Candelo becomes reality as the scenery spreads. Compare this shot with the first shot from last posting and the microswitch has been hidden under the foam. As I have had to cut out along this existing ridge to fit in new points motors, I will work my way along redoing the scenery. Then the rest of the yard will be ballasted.

Surface, Surface

Well who could imagine that it has taken me five weeks just to get the control panel in, wired up and finally all the points operating?
I must admit that it has been the most frustrating five weeks in my modelling career. The title of this blog entry "Surface, Surface" reminds me of the order given for submarines to once again return to the surface. True I didn't need aqualungs, goggles and flippers to be there, it was towards the end that I was doing a countdown of the number of points left to wire up.
All of the point motors for Candelo are situated on top of the board. Having a sample of the "underboard life" when I was wiring up the various sections, I couldn't imagine trying to drill and screw upsidedown whilst in the squat posture trying and get the point motors into position to actually work. No it was an easy decision to place them on top.
I have used some of the newer Peco point motors that look similar to the real point motors as per the photo below. To operate the polarity of the points I used a small microswitch that was actuated by the arm of the point motor. So far this has worked well. The microswitch will eventually be covered by scenery in this area.

Another point motor will be covered by a small garage which I will rename a shed as no car will ever get in there now that the point motor takes up all the space. Some of the points have the extended throw bar extending under the tracks to the point motor. There are at least five point motors that have been built into and embankment an will be completely covered in to be invisible to the operator, but readily accessible by removing some scenery.
A few of the point motors sit in the PL 12 Peco adaptor base and I have used the PL13 Accessory switch pushed onto the Peco point motor. I have had mixed success with these PL13's where some switches were very hard to slide back and forth, they seemed to bind. So sometimes when all these assemblies were put together it was a matter of luck to get them to work. A bit of WD40 spray usually got it all moving.
So I had fun doing the wiring (not). As I tackled each point motor, I would head off for underneath looking for the telltale piece of coloured paper sticking down to locate my next target. It was like Jenolan Caves under there, the wires representing anorexic stalactites. The wires after having been soldered up to their respective push button on the panel snaked their way underneath the layout looking for their hole towards the point motor. After wiring up the button was pushed and if the point actually responded, a cheer was given and up to the house for a celebratory cuppa. Then the microswitch was duly wired in as well. It took a while to work out the logic on how these little buggers actually worked. So when the actuating arm was pushed in the end lug was energised and the middle one wasn't. Then I had to follow this out, saying OK when the point is set for the curved portion then I want the power to the frog to come from this side of the track. What made it more complicated was that I had soldered all the droppers down in the one go and used any available wire. Then I was saying "Now its the red wire from the microswitch to go to the left hand side green wire dropping down from the point." (I think) Now I am going to need the wire strippers and wire cutters so take them with me before I get under the layout. Under I go  hoping to quickly find the wires required. All good, but when I get under there I am now having a problem with my glasses in that I don't seem to be able to get my head up close enough to clearly see the ends of the wires. No problem, if I whip off my glasses I can see the ends of the wire clearly. But bugger where did I leave the wire strippers? No can't see, back on with the glasses, ah there they are now safely in hand, glasses back off again and the wire work completed.
Imagine playing this game when I needed to use the soldering iron under there. Glasses off, wheres the fricking iron, ouch just found it, ah whats another scar, my hands are getting old age wrinkles anyway. My greatest fear was after taking off my glasses was having the soldering iron have a stray wriggle and end up melting one of the lenses, luckily this didn't happen. But what happened along the same lines was when I was deep under and had knocked the iron off the shelf unbeknown. It wasn't until you got that burning smell of either paper or plastic that I had to move quick and move it.
Now I am starting to see the sense of high level baseboards. When trying to get up to bottom of the board you can't kneel because you head hits the bottom of the layout, so you have to squat, the old necks getting a workout and with some luck you finally get it wired up. I eventually reckoned that without going through the wiring logic each time, I had a 50% chance of getting it right the first time. Mostly it went the other way and that involved another trip to the surface to change over the wires.
A couple of times I got wrapped up in surplus wires just hanging down, a rotate the wrong way would result in it either getting ripped out from somewhere or wrapped around me.

Many moons ago on the main board at Bega I had a diode matrix made to route set the tracks into the mainyard from the main line.  A retired friend did all the paperwork for me I just had to follow the diagram and it actually worked. It was now my turn to repeat this for the meat and oil siding. As much as I searched  the internet and tried to decipher the diagrams, I decided to turn to my electronic guru friend Jim from the Kamilaroi Railway. Within no time he had a diagram whipped up, emailed to me and then I went searching for a piece of vero board to assemble the parts onto. Murphys law can't find it, so into the local Jaycar shop to get a piece of vero board and also some IN4004 diodes. Cheap at 50 cents for four diodes. This is the left hand matrix in the above photo. When you follow through the logic of how it all works it is quite simple.
When ever there was a hiccup during the wiring, I would down tools and finish for the day saying "will solve tomorrow with a clearer head" And usually it all worked.
In amongst all of the trackwork I also included a double slip. Then after having the frogs separately powered I realised I had to work out a matrix for it as well. I had six buttons feeding into the matrix, to end up working the two point motors. This is the right hand matrix in the above photo. Then slowly one by one the wires were fed into it and tested. No matter how carefull I was in checking and rechecking the wiring diagram, I only got a 85% mark. This resulted in trips in and out up to the panel to see if it all worked. Eventually all worked and around lunch time today success finally with all points and sections working. I wish I could have hired a small boy or a dwarf for a couple of weeks to help with the wiring. (Can you still say that?)

 As the photo above shows poor old Bodalla has copped a hammering of late. It will eventually be cleared and refurbished once Candelo is completed.
So this afternoon I got to run a few trains around Candelo to test the points and sections.

The Victorian B62 class along with the new C van recently obtained at the Caufield exhibition test some of the trackage at Candelo.
Whats next? A big cleanup of the floor and baseboards and possibly getting the passenger platform underway. Yee ha, wiring done.
 

Further Down the Track

It was the past week that made me wonder why am I doing it? On the ground on my bum with hands extended up to the bottom of the layout trying to get a wire through a hole.
I must be a masochist wanting to go through this rebuild. I was happy with the original design of Candelo, being an interesting place to terminate and shunt and also the accompanying coal mine to add to more shunting interest.
So I have done the easy part the track relaying. Up with the old and down with the new. The only "hard part" was the stretching of the body up and over the layout perched on my Aldi steps. This was for the laying of two industrial sidings, the oil and meat products. Candelo will need these to add some shunting interest.
The next part of the picture was the reconstruction of the control panel. (DDCers can stop reading now). After finishing the art work for the panel it was laminated, cut size and glued to a new piece of ply. Then the push buttons and section switches from the old panel were recycled to the new panel. Its surprising how the amount of wire multiplies when viewed underneath. A day or so spent on the stool with the radio or music in the background for company had most of the components rescrewed and rewired on the new panel. What I was trying to do was to reduce the amount of rewiring by taking sections already wired. To some extent I was trying to see if existing wiring from the old Candelo would already be in place to save re running new wires. But trying to trace out existing wires was almost impossible due to me using the closest wire to hand and with a large roll of red and white wire available it looked like a tribute to the St George Dragons underneath.
Now there was also another problem, a major one. Best described if I liken Candelo to a triangle and on the hypotenuse sat my bookshelf of rail books and reference material. And behind that out of site out of mind was a pile of boxes from all my newer railway purchases. Naturally all shapes and sizes.
I had gone now beyond the point of no return and it had to be done. Even if I had turned to DCC I would still have had to get "under" to wire in the points.
So for the time being I needed a new position for the book shelf. This was found under Bega and eventually the books were all in their new home.
Now returning to the new hole under Candelo I was able to get to the pile of empty rolling stock boxes. Also not surprising was the amount of dirt that gathers over time. I yelled to the spiders that the vacuum cleaner was due soon. This was akin to dropping leaflets over a town before the bombs were due. When removing the bookshelf I remembered the floor wasn't painted either, out of sight out of mind.
Further along the layout directly below the control panel was another "street clean up find". It was similar to a book shelf in that it provided two shelves for putting junk on. So onto this project, cleaning it all up. There were photos, plans, copies of Roundhouse magazines, black and white railway photo negatives most nearly 50 years old, some which I have never printed and probably never will due to time constraints. I wonder what those shots of Lithgow roundhouse and Cowra look like back in the mid 60's?. I think most of mankind seem to be some sort of hunters and collectors.
My intention is to eventually get right round the shed and turf out as much as possible. A good start has now happened. Under Candelo on the floor it now looks good, only trouble is the crap is all elsewhere.

With now clear access to the rear of the panel and the layout from underneath I started to run the wires out to the various sections. Soon a loco was placed on the tracks, power applied and wow it actually worked. Eventually all sections were wired, now I have to move onto wiring the points. As I have decided to make the points with a switchable frog, this will require further diving under the layout to wire every point to a switch. On reflection of this wiring work required ahead, it makes me wonder why Peco couldn't build these switches into the point already and save us all this extra work. I am doing this to ensure reliability for the future. Come on Peco put your thinking caps on.
So the rewiring is well under way and with all the work going on at Candelo poor old Bodalla has become a dumping ground for tools and bits and pieces. So after Candelo is finished Bodalla will certainly require going over again.

On another matter that is not close to my heart, I hear that DCC is celebrating its 20th birthday. Apparently Joe Fugate from Model Railroad Hobbyist is commenting on the fact that 20 years with the current technology could be getting old hat.
Maybe its time for the next revolution? They are saying that Railpro might provide the answers?
So by the time I am ready to jump onto the DCC bandwagon I might be tracks ahead??
If anyone is interested I have for sale the series Byways of Steam from issue 1 to 20 including Encore of Steam which covers the workings around Orange. Asking $295 for the 21 issues. Enquiries to Byways of Steam

Progress

Well progress has been made, slowly but surely towards rebuilding Candelo into an interchange station. But to make Candelo an interchange station will make its geography wrong if it is to go further down the coast towards Eden. A look at the map above will show that Candelo currently works as a branch line terminus with an intermediate station of Kameruka as a crossing location. It branches off from Bega which currently is the last station and heads inland.
So why would a railway engineer if he was building a line from Bega to Eden go via Candelo way inland? What I am intimating is that Candelo might have to be renamed to another name closer to the coastline. Or maybe I should just bring the line back from Candelo to the coast opening up the possibilities of having a station call Toothdale? Or maybe go via Wallagoot? or Jellat Jellat? Ah such crazy names.
So what all the above means is that Candelo might not end up being Candelo in the end. But for the time being until that decision is made it will be referred to as Candelo.
After laying out the paper points and loose track, the placing of buildings to see how it would all pan out, I have finally got all the track laid. Previously Candelo was laid with what ever track and points were available, with over 100 points on South Coast Rail savings had to be made somewhere and this was the home of old and second hand track. This has now changed and it all has been relaid into Peco code 75. I was able to source some second hand points from Shelton in Queensland. They have been stockpiled ready for future use. As outlined in my previous blog I have made a concession for DCC and wired them so it may happen in the distant future. But we are all ready to go if it happens. For the moment it will stay as a DC layout. (Is that like your mate inviting you to his place to watch a black and white TV?)

The above photo shows the coal mine junction and parts of the yard. The track configuration above was exactly the same as with the code 100 track. I thought it would be a simple direct replacement of points and track but apparently not. There must be slight differences in the two codes geometry, so a bit of track cutting and shoving was required to get it all in. None of the point motors dropped onto the new points either and all required repositioning, Now with the wiring of the points for DCC this also requires a switch to operate to change the polarity of the points. Previously I had just relied on the point blades to power the point. It worked most of the time but when it gets dirty between the blades and the stockrail it fails. As it will be electrified here in the future I certainly won't want to be trying to get my hand under the wires to clean points. It certainly makes more work but the end result will be worth it.

Looking the opposite direction from the first photo, from right to left is the Main line, then the loop, loco road, and extra afterthought with the 422 and B class and two storage sidings on the left. These storage sidings are where the coal trains will leave their wagons waiting to be loaded at one of two coal mines in the area. On the Main line can be seen two Budd cars where the platform will be built. I can see that this will be not easy as it is a window sill that needs to be converted to a platform. It is approximately the right height but when a train is at the platform even if it is too high it won't be visible as the viewing side is on the left.

Now the taller you are the better it is for reaching over the layout. As a basketball reject, I made a wooden box up that I could stand on to better reach over the layout. It worked well, but recently I noticed in the Aldi cattle dog the above set of steps. I think they were around $25-$29. Wow what a bargain. SCR has had luxury come to it. The treads are wide and it is very sturdy. I thought it would be aluminium but found out they were steel construction. As can be seen it has a top handle that prevents you toppling over. It also doubles as a seat. A great buy.

A couple of locos try out the sidings. Two locos or a garratt will fit into the siding where the B and 422 class are sitting. The dirty grubby building is a Trainorama house? that I am going to use as a Loco Chargemans office. It will take a while before the gardens are ready. The 36 and 42 are sitting on Storage road No. 1 and the vacant road is Storage road No. 2.

The big black hole is where the Candelo turntable use to be, its new position is circled to its right. A good reason for Candelo to exist in the new world is the loco depot plate for Candelo.

If you think I am installing a set of speakers in the above holes you are wrong. The new turntable hole is now ready.

Now the new position for the turntable has been cut and filled. I was wondering originally how I was going to fill the left turntable hole as you can see the track was to pass over it. After a Homer Simpson moment I realised if I have to cut another hole, this would give me a piece to fit the original hole!. Now if you have a close look at the turntable and it is not recognisable its because it is a leftover from my N scale days. Its is close enough to a 60 footer and will take a 36 or 42 class loco. I have a motor for it so I hope with a bit of work it will do the job. I don't have a spare $300 just to get a ridgy didge one. If it works all good.

Another lower shot of the loco area. Looks like some one has been shunting the locos.

A few more shots of the loco area. The station building is over on the window still awaiting conversion into a platform.

This photo shows the location of two industries shoe horned into the corner. This area in the corner has been dubbed "the far reaches" of Candelo as even with the set of new steps it is a far way to stretch. It certainly won't be super detailed in this corner. The building will become a meat processing plant which will receive TRC's and the other siding will become the fuel siding. Both only provide room for two vehicles in each. This is enough to justify the two industries and add a bit of shunting interest to this location. Way up the other end is the milk siding still in its original position. Unfortunately there is not enough room to include a goods siding, but with three industry sidings, a coal mine junction and loco changing going on this place will be busy enough.
It might be noticed that I don't use any underlay be it cork or other under the track here. As it is a yard, proto typically if you study photos most yards have no shoulder around the track, so a good enough reason for me not to have one. Out on the main line is a different matter.
So the next step is to strip out the old wiring and rewire into the new control panel. I will be using the existing panel frame and fit the new one to that space.

There was movement at the station........

Well the first two photos are self explanatory. The second one shows that I finally succombed to a Trainorama 42 class. After they had all been sold out from the shop, I managed to find one for sale recently so grabbed it for SCR.
It is seen here posed beside the VR B class at Candelo.
All I am waiting for now is some time to do it all.

What was and what will be

Well the last post was out of the blue. One minute Candelo was all OK then the bulldozers moved in.
Candelo was one of the last stations to be finished? on South Coast Rail. It was certainly end of the line stuff. It consisted of 3rd hand code 100 points of all makes and nationalities. It was partially ballasted and bare track. Some of the points were electrified and worked from a small local panel. Located at the end of the line was also a coal mine.

Candelo although never completely finished in regard to scenery, ballasting and all points wired was a great place to shunt. When a twenty wagon coal train arrived and needed to head to the mine for loading, it required a bit of thinking to get it all loaded. The run around at the mine would only take 8 wagons and a van which was mandatory in all mine shunts. So this needed three separate runs to accomplish the full loading of the train. Getting the train back together in the yard wasn't straight forward, nor was it meant to be. I purposely designed the bugger factor into the layout to make shunting interesting.
So as can be seen from the previous blog entry the bulldozers have been and gone and the yard is completely flattened ready to take the new track layout.

 Looking towards the station, coal storage siding on the left and the track to the back dock and goods yard. I was tossing up whether to put these embarrassing shots up but decided it will make a good contrast with what will end up there.

A long shot of the yard. The track on the far right is actually laid on the window sill and served the Candelo Canning Factory. Unfortunately this will disappear in the new design, but Kameruka around the other side of the room has a fruit siding that will have to take the extra loading.
One of the deciding factors to redesign Candelo was the can't wait for introduction of the Auscision 46 class. So now this station is going to take on the roll of a transfer station from steam/diesel to electric loco a sort of mini Gosford. The area is not very wide so the redesign will be fairly straightforward. Candelo mine will be as is now and is already laid in code 75 and thankfully won't need relaying. I am still incorporating a double slip in the design as a space saver.
What will be in the new Candelo? It will consist of a through main line, a loop line and a loco siding. Industries will be an oil, milk and meat siding to give a bit of shunting operation here. A turntable will be put in to enable single ended diesels or steam to turn for their respective jobs. An extra coal siding from the present one will enable the total of 20 BCH hoppers to be stored here in between shunts to the mines. An extra mine will be built nearby. This addition will then require the Candelo panel to have its own controller as mine shunting and loco change overs will make this a busy spot.
I might lose a few fans here but I am still stuck in the DC era but as a compromise when laying the new yard the points will be wired as to be able to be converted to DCC should that lottery win come my way.

So the above photo is the result of staring at a blank canvas for an hour or two wondering about the new track design. Old pieces of track and Peco track paper templates are laid out to get an idea how it will all go together. I needed a passenger platform at Candelo and only had two options of where to fit it. One was on the curve at the far end which would have eliminated the two oil and meat sidings. So where the previous Candelo Canning factory was I realised maybe that I could squeeze in a platform onto the window sill as it was almost platform height. It will take a bit of work to make it look OK. I might have to put up a small backdrop, otherwise the jungle outside the window becomes the view.

A selection of buildings has been put into place for the loco area. I have dirtied up a Trainorama house? building to use as an enginemens sign on room, along with a few other miscellaneous bits and pieces. The typical palm tree and yard yard light also make an appearance. I will need an ashpit to be built into the loco siding along with a water column for steam.
I am going to attempt to modify an old N scale turntable and get it operating. If it doesn't work it might mean a bit of light engine running to the nearest table for a turn.

This shot shows where the oil and meat siding will be tucked into the corner. The meat factory building is one I obtained at a second hand stall, cut it in half and ended up with two for the price of one buildings. What a relief!. The turntable is not in its final position as it needs to be sunken into the baseboard. The circle of board will be used to plug the existing hole.

A helicopter view of the new yard with a VR B class sitting in the loop and a 44 and 422 class in the loco road. The station building (along with the crap) is sitting where the new station will be.

This shot shows the entrance to the yard from the Kameruka end. All I am waiting for now is a box of track and the laying can commence.
One thing is for certain before any attempt to put up overhead wiring the track and scenery will need to be 100% complete.
So for the immediate future Candelo will be the flavour of the blog. So from the back of the queue to the front.

Above is the proposed new diagram for the Candelo panel. Local/Main wording indicates where the DPDT switches will be to enable this area to be completely under local control.

Hey Dad

Disturbing news has just come through regarding that nice little town of Candelo. A local reporter from the Candelo Times Jack B. Quick and his son Notso raced up to the station to check out a rumour that the last train had left Candelo and the track had been ripped up!
It is sad news indeed and we will let the following pictures tell the story:

Well it certainly looks like devastation. My advice would be either to subscribe to the Candelo Times for the latest as it happens or keep following this blog.

Luckily yesterday the last railmotor quitely departed Candelo with only the SM aware of this significant day. With a few bent light poles, a few cobwebs starting to show, no ballast in the platform road maybe this branchline station has had its time.
I'm sure there will be further news soon.

A day out...
A weather check for yesterday Wednesday said it would be fine and around 25 degrees. Not too bad for an Autumns day. Today was I finally to get to see the Weavering Model Railway.
The trip by train there co-incided with the last day of the Royal Easter Show at Homebush and although the train was eight cars it was necessary to stand as far as Strathfield where the train virtually emptied out.
Arriving at Central we spotted a second bonus for the day where waiting to depart for the Illawarra and places beyond was the Southern Aurora. The triple header train had a 44, 43 and 442 class at the front end and a train of silver carriages, 'spoilt' by just two red car in the consist.

 After watching the train head south we went over to the layout for a run. But as things go when you get a group together the chat session usually gets priority. So after an hour or so gas bagging the clock was creeping up towards lunch time and a decision was made to adjourn to the local pub for lunch.
Steaks and schnitzels were had and surprisingly washed down with non alcoholic drinks. Perhaps we all thought we were still employed by the government agency that so strongly prohibited any trace of drink getting anywhere near a set of lips.
Finally into the room and before us was a room that stretched forever it seemed. What was once a single garage of 20' x 13' had recently been extended double now at around 40' long. I guess no matter how long the space is we as modellers can soon fill the space with layout. 
Part of the layout was left from the original this being a terminal appropriately called Central.

This consisted of three platforms with a middle run round road and adjacent car storage sidings. In the photo the branch line station Wilogobung sits above the tracks. The tracks below the 73 class lead to Macdonaldtown car siding which are shoehorned under another portion of the layout. The track design is cleverly designed so the car sidings are accessible to the three terminal platforms.

The above shot taken from the opposite direction as the previous shows the junction trackwork. A 32 class is attached to an 8 car LUB set waiting to come into Central for another run. All the points are motorised which makes operation easier.
The owner has changed over to DCC operation from DC. As I am still "old school" with DC I had a few quick lessons on how to get things moving. NCE controllers were used which to my observations seem to be the predominant system in use. Ah maybe one day!
One of the things I was most impressed with was a 422 class fitted with sound. It was just like the real thing. I want one!. I liken the sale of locos without sound to selling motor cars without wheels. Sure make it an option for sound but please make it an option!.

3390 has coupled up to a LUB set and waiting for the road into Central. There are six roads here for carriage storage and all were full. Another bonus with DCC is the ability to have carriage lights on as can be seen above. I must say that it looked most realistic and would have been great to see in the dark. Although wiring and point motors hang down here in the scene, when operating it all seems irrelevant and not a big issue. Code 100 has been used for most of the layout but the branches have been laid with code 75. As the owner states that this delineates where the "big" locos can't run.

The branch line station of Wilogobung with a sound 620 class having just arrived. Basic scenery has been done.

Another branch line terminus with 4720 doing a bit of shunting a wheat train. I got to do a bit of shunting with this train putting two rakes together and hooking up to a new Austrains OHG on the rear.

 And just for a bit of fun we ran a 59 class on a Spirit of Progress train, although you can't see the blue cars behind the power van.

A 40 class sits on a HUB set ready for another run. I'm not sure that I would have bought a weathered set of these cars. They looked too dirty for my liking, not how I remember them. A coal stage is in the background. This will form part of a new loco area.
Well after a good few hours spent we headed off back to the station on our way home. Thanks to Pete our host for the day and we all really enjoyed seeing your empire.