May 2013 Volume 4, Issue 5 OUR MAY MEETING Cowed into submission by our All-Powerful Leader’s stern exhortation to attend meetings, no less than 17 turned up today at John Gillies’s place. Or maybe we’re starting to find our way around in Canberra’s Far North. But before we get settled too comfortably into the north side, we should bear in mind that the next six meetings are all in the south. Isn’t there anyone who lives in the middle? Announcements Our Convention organising committee has been hard at work and the fruit of their labours will be in the Winter 2013 issue of MainLine for all to read the details of what is planned for this year’s NMRA Convention in Canberra on 21-22 September. However, this issue of MainLine won’t be out for a while yet, so this information is also on the NMRA website, complete with registration forms and competition entry forms. Yes, you can register NOW and score the discounted Early Bird rate. See http:// www.nmra.org.au/Convention13/convention%202013.html A NMRA Australasian Region meeting of all Divisional Superintendents has been called for 27 July in Sydney, requiring the presence of our Valiant Leader. This clashes with our own Div 2 meeting in Canberra. What do we do? “You lot can run it” confidently declared our Intrepid Leader. But his proposal was greeted with such great enthusiasm together with remarks of “When the cat’s away...” that he quickly had second thoughts. The Div 2 meeting previously scheduled for 27 July will now be held at John Bullen’s place on Saturday 13 July instead. Mindful of promises heard in regard to Rob Anderson’s VR R Class locomotive, the burning question was raised – now that we are into May, is delivery now at last imminent? Not keen to be reminded of this sensitive topic, Rob submitted a brief 3-word report between tight lips, namely Nothing To Report. He muttered something else but fortunately it was not recorded. Show & Tell Jess Brisbane showed her latest structure for her On30 Innsmouth layout. This is the Bailey’s Produce building consisting of two storeys and an attic above. The light is on inside and outside the office, enabling its interior detail to be seen – filing cabinet, desk, old style typewriter, candlestick type telephone, 1940s pinup on wall, together with a wall calendar. A truly marvellous and highly detailed model. But wait on, we’ve seen this before haven’t we? Yes indeed we have. At our meeting last October, Jess did display this very same item. But it was then just a plastic bag full of bits and pieces of laser-cut wood, none of it weathered. A catalogue photo was published in The Flimsy for October 2012 to give an idea of what the finished model would look like. What! Lost your copy already? Well then, try http://www.nmra.org.au/Flimsy/Flimsy.html But Jess’s exquisitely weathered model is a vast improvement on the one shown in the Bar Mills catalogue. And that’s even before you admire the detailed interior. Viv Brice showed us “How a Steam Locomotive Works”. This book by Karen Parker, published by TLC Publishing in 2008, explains the parts and workings of steam locos in very lucid fashion. Karen is an engineer by profession and has written the book with much consultation from Bill Withuhn, currently the Smithsonian’s Rail Chief. Although this book focuses on American locomotives and uses American jargon, it is Continued on page 2) The Flimsy The Newsletter of Division 2 of the NMRA AR
Transcript
May 2013 Volume 4, Issue 5
OUR MAY MEETING
Cowed into submission by our All-Powerful Leader’s stern exhortation to attend meetings, no less than 17 turned up today at John Gillies’s place. Or maybe we’re starting to find our way around in Canberra’s Far North. But before we get settled too comfortably into the north side, we should bear in mind that the next six meetings are all in the south. Isn’t there anyone who lives in the middle?
Announcements
Our Convention organising committee has been hard at work and the fruit of their labours will be in the Winter 2013 issue of MainLine for all to read the details of what is planned for this year’s NMRA Convention in Canberra on 21-22 September. However, this issue of MainLine won’t be out for a while yet, so this information is also on the NMRA website, complete with registration forms and competition entry forms. Yes, you can register NOW and score the discounted Early Bird rate. See http://www.nmra.org.au/Convention13/convention%202013.html
A NMRA Australasian Region meeting of all Divisional Superintendents has been called for 27 July in Sydney, requiring the presence of our Valiant Leader. This clashes with our own Div 2 meeting in Canberra. What do we do? “You lot can run it” confidently declared our Intrepid Leader. But his proposal was greeted with such great enthusiasm together with remarks of “When the cat’s away...” that he quickly had second thoughts.
The Div 2 meeting previously scheduled for 27 July will now be held at John Bullen’s place on Saturday 13 July instead.
Mindful of promises heard in regard to Rob Anderson’s VR R Class locomotive, the burning question was raised – now that we are into May, is delivery now at last imminent? Not keen to be reminded of this sensitive topic, Rob submitted a brief 3-word report between tight lips, namely Nothing To Report. He muttered something else but fortunately it was not recorded.
Show & Tell
Jess Brisbane showed her latest structure for her On30 Innsmouth layout. This is the Bailey’s Produce building consisting of two storeys and an attic above. The light is on inside and outside the office, enabling its interior detail to be seen – filing cabinet, desk, old style typewriter, candlestick type telephone, 1940s pinup on wall, together
with a wall calendar. A truly marvellous and highly detailed model.
But wait on, we’ve seen this before haven’t we? Yes indeed we have. At our meeting last October, Jess did display this very same item. But it was then just a plastic bag full of bits and pieces of laser-cut wood, none of it weathered. A catalogue photo was published in The Flimsy for October 2012 to give an idea of what the finished model would look like. What! Lost your copy already? Well then, try http://www.nmra.org.au/Flimsy/Flimsy.html
But Jess’s exquisitely weathered model is a vast improvement on the one shown in the Bar Mills catalogue. And that’s even before you admire the detailed interior.
Viv Brice showed us “How a Steam Locomotive Works”. This book by Karen Parker, published by TLC Publishing in 2008, explains the parts and workings of steam locos in very lucid fashion. Karen is an engineer by profession and has written the book with much consultation from Bill Withuhn, currently the Smithsonian’s Rail Chief. Although this book focuses on American locomotives and uses American jargon, it is
Continued on page 2)
The Flimsy The Newsletter of Division 2 of the NMRA AR
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nonetheless universal in its application. See http://tinyurl.com/q2df6zg.
Viv also showed us another of his “text books”, this time one on British Railway Signalling. This is a very small book but with lots of information about past and current signalling practices in the UK, with very clear descriptions of how the systems work.
A good supplier of these and other books on railways and allied subjects is Karen’s Books in California. This is now a different Karen, by the way. See http://www.karensbooks.com/
While on the subject of steam engine workings, do you ever need to refer to a clear diagram to understand some aspect of a steam loco? Or perhaps to explain something to someone else? For a range of diagrams that may be helpful, see http://tinyurl.com/ofg5vs9
Tony Payne displayed a CTC-16 electronic control device he had built for fitting to a locomotive to enable it to receive its own unique command signals. Developed in the late 1970s, this historic item was part of one of the very first command control systems. The system worked by superimposing a signal onto a steady direct current. The signal was decoded by this circuit board – a bit too big to be called a ‘chip’ – in the loco or its tender.
Key features were (a) it was an analogue system, not digital, (b) it allowed up to 16 locos to be operated independently, (c) you could build it yourself from readily available electronic components, and (d) it was big. As an example of its large size, the item Tony displayed would only just fit into the tender of his OO scale Flying Scotsman.
Despite its obvious appeal to the Do-It-Yourself brigade, the CTC-16 system was not around for long,
being quickly superseded by rapid advancements in the application of digital electronics to model railways. See http://www.dccwiki.com/CTC-16
Adhering indefatigably to his model-a-month programme, Rob Nesbitt produced his latest – a NSWGR well wagon in HO scale. Although we haven’t actually kept a strict count and had it audited, we rather suspect that Rob is well ahead of schedule in his monthly production of models, having well and truly put to shame those doubters who reckoned at the outset a couple of years or so ago that he was biting off more than he could chew.
Hey Rob, how about slipping a quick VR R Class loco into your assembly line for poor Rob Anderson?
David Mitchell displayed an array of Australian railway photos that he has collected over a long period. These are available to anyone who might need to study them.
Ross Balderson showed us his collection of horse drawn vehicles that he has hand made in brass for his Newcastle 1899 waterfront N scale layout. These tiny vehicles are too small for their fine detail to be readily appreciated, so Ross also produced photos showing them enlarged to O scale and larger. This aroused wonderment and praise.
Using CorelDRAW on his computer, Ross created the artwork for these vehicles from plans supplied from Greg Edwards, better known to model railway exhibition goers as Mr “Data Sheets”.
Ross drew each fine spoke wheel as two full wheels held together with a folding tab. With the drawing then transferred to 0.3 mm brass, the wheel spokes were etched only half way through so that when folded and soldered together, the wheel rims realistically protrude 0.15 mm from the spokes.
Ross carved the hood for the sulky from styrene and glued it on top of the etched and assembled frame. Ross is making a master of the hood and then a cast for many additional sulkies yet to be produced. The etching contains the correct suspension for the sulky as well as
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Paperchain books of Manuka are currently
pushing Rodney Avery’s new book, Great Rail
Journeys of Australia, and are inviting people to their
store in Franklin Street, Manuka to hear Rodney
speak about this book. For details of the invitation
and a brief review of the book, see http://
tinyurl.com/ohr88nl .
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Subj: Notice to modelers from the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration)
Washington DC (April 1) - FRA OUTLAWS MOLDED-ON HANDGRABS
The Federal Railroad Administration today outlawed moulded-on plastic handgrabs on all freight and passenger cars on model railroads, citing safety concerns. "The little people employed in yard. train and engine service on these pikes are being injured when they appear to reach for a handgrab expecting it to be real wire and find out too late that it's solid plastic." a spokesperson explained. This effectively removes a lot of kit-built and "RTR" rolling stock placed in service before about 1999, and even a large swath of cars supplied more recently. Smaller scales and the more marginal pikes in all scales will be disproportionately affected and it might not even be practical for them to retrofit existing rolling stock with wire handgrabs. Owner/operators have only until 12:01 AM July 1, 2013 to comply. "What are we supposed to do?" quipped the General Manager of a well-known N-scale road, "file for abandonment? The minute we do that, the right-of-way will revert to other uses such as washers and driers; you'd never get it back." Asked how the ban might affect cars that were fur-nished with owner-applied hardware and/or may have no handgrabs at all, the spokesperson ex-plained: “Despite some vague anecdotal evidence that the process of applying wire handgrabs leads to psychiatric illness in some people — especially in HO scale and smaller — we simply cannot allow this to stand in the way of safety. Properly secured owner-applied hardware is acceptable. But we will be going after the scofflaws that are not making any attempt to apply them — even in Z-scale." He went on to explain that some figures in the scale railway
industry had been caught beneath the wheels of passing trains after losing their grip on a solid plas-tic handgrab and had suffered scrapes, scarring. and — in some instances involving the larger scales — even visible indentations that could only be addressed with topical treatments and that in most such cases an actual cure was impossible. In at least one known case, a mishap resulted in a fall about four feet to a concrete slab. The victim was immobile and had to be scraped up with a file card.
Wm. K. Walthers and other firms will be ordered to provide lists of customers who the firm had sup-plied with rolling stock that was furnished with user-applied hardware items as a kit. Effective immedi-ately, pikes will have to submit paperwork docu-menting application of wire handgrabs on every car placed in service. "We run our pike on our own time," quipped another owner. "We don't have a staff that can deal with these new regulations. And during the summer, a wheel might not turn for weeks at a time." Frodo Proto, a Walthers spokes-man was more sanguine: "Look, everyone knew this was coming. That's why we recently announced that all our cars would have factory-applied wire hand-grabs going forward."
One reporter, noting that many of these workers appear to have a condition not unlike rigor mortis and cannot visibly bend their hands or arms without assistance in the first place, was greeted with the retort that the law requires that little people with dis-abilities — including chronic severe plasticized sys-temic stiffness (CSPSS) — had a right to work just like other little people, even if they had no visible signs of any active organic functions. "The minute we start making exceptions, people will stop taking us seriously" the spokesperson said.
# # # # # Notice you only have until July 1st to comply.
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the steps for climbing up into it. As the photos show, this really is miniature modelling at its finest.
Inevitably, someone in the audience speculated about fabricating horse droppings in N scale. The deeply technical and somewhat rowdy debate that ensued was abruptly cut short by the remark “I’ve heard of a shit fight, but this is ridiculous!”
For the NMRA Convention here in September, Graeme Hodges the First is producing a history of Canberra’s local railways. It is now in
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acute frustration by having to search the floor and elsewhere for that tiny part that has flipped into places unknown while you’ve been performing a delicate adjustment on a fragile mechanism – Kadee coupler springs immediately come to mind – this article is mandatory reading.
The AMRM article suggests that delicate operations be performed inside a box that is best described as a small fish tank or a miniature Humidicrib. The idea is to do the necessary fiddly work inside this box so that any tiny item that makes a sudden bid for freedom remains trapped inside this box and is speedily and easily hunted down. The box has transparent walls and a transparent top with holes for hands to reach through. Graeme
pointed out that if you look around you can find even cheaper ways of creating your own “safe box”.
The Main Show John Gillies spoke about the compromises that need
to be made by anyone modelling a prototype railway existing in the real world. These compromises are forced upon modellers by the limitations faced by all modellers in regard to space, time, money and maintenance.
Freelance modellers have the greatest freedom and can escape many compromises. Freelance modelling based on a particular prototype must accept more
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draft form and Graeme passed a copy around the meeting, inviting comment. Surprisingly for this audience, all comment was unexpectedly polite and supportive.
Graeme also drew our attention to a useful article in the latest (April 2013, 50th anniversary issue) Australian Model Railway Magazine. For anyone who has suffered
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A blueprint that Ross created in CorelDRAW for the etching of 0.3mm thick brass plate. The etchings for the sulky can be seen
about two thirds of the way down on the right of the picture.
Just to show that Ross has not forgotten the trains of the period
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compromises. Strict prototype modellers who devoutly worship at a particular railway shrine and insist on modelling reality in faithful detail, face the toughest challenges and inevitably have to accept more compromises still.
Even such modellers as John Allen, George Sellios, Jack Burgess and Rod Stewart had to accept some limitations that enforced even the few compromises that they had to make in their modelling.
To illustrate this principle, John led us through his own model railway, showing us the compromises that he had had to accept in modelling the Burlington Northern and allied railroads in the upstairs room of his house. To do this, John treated us to a PowerPoint display on his TV screen of photos that he has taken on his periodic visits to USA from the 1970s until now.
John displayed photos of locations, structures, rolling stock – all essential background for a prototype modeller – pointing out what could be modelled accurately and what could not, due to limitations in space, time or money. John also displayed HO scale models that he had bought or assembled as a result of his USA pilgrimages to BN and BNSF country.
Finally John homed in on one limiting factor that is all too often overlooked by modellers – maintenance! It’s no good having a terrific model railway if keeping it clean, maintaining the track and maintaining the rolling stock is difficult because of the size and extent of the layout, inaccessibility of parts of the track and lack of time to perform the maintenance required. Early failure to recognise the limitations imposed by later maintenance
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Leaving us to ponder this final – and vital – point, John prepared afternoon tea while we watched his slideshow of the Milwaukee Road in the 1970s.
After afternoon tea we went upstairs to view John’s model railway layout under construction. Nothing quite like a partly built model railway to illustrate the compromises that the modeller must accept. It also gave our Fearless Leader the opportunity to whip out his trusty smart phone and use it to measure the gradient of track in the constructed helix. And we mugs had thought these things were only good for controlling DCC trains.
Altogether a most informative and enjoyable afternoon.
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18.4 x 13.6
www.nmra.org.au
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: At last, the 2013 Convention details are
settled and the information is in MainLine and on the website, Remember, this is our Convention and I expect a good turnout of Division 2 members. I also will be asking you all for some volunteers to help at the Convention. Sorry, volunteering does not get you free admission!
This Convention promises to be interesting with some clinic presenters who have not regularly appeared at previous NMRA conventions. That, plus a great dinner venue, the Ainslie Football Club, should help make it a railroading and social event to remember.
To remove a clash with the Division Supt’s meeting, John Bullen’s meeting has now been brought forward to 13 July,
