March 2012 Volume 3, Issue 3

OUR MARCH MEETING

With 21 present, today’s meeting got off to a fast start when our Illustrious Leader Viv called the meeting to order right on 4 bells, 1400 hours and 2 pm all at once. Our meeting today included no less than three women to keep the unruly in order. They didn’t succeed, but it was a brave try nonetheless.

Announcements

Our Intrepid Leader announced that he has followed up last month’s query on the Kalmbach Library by requesting that a copy of the Clinic DVDs advertised in the last NMRA magazine be procured for our library in Sydney. No response yet, but watch this space. (By Editor: I have since heard from the Librarian and he is pursuing this matter with NMRA headquarters, the managers of the Kalmbach Library.

Nothing heard from the CMRCI Exhibition organisers concerning the forthcoming exhibition at Kaleen High School. A follow up has revealed that NMRA participation has not been allowed for. With the exhibition now only a fortnight away, it is too late to make changes, so we will not be exhibiting there this year.

However things are better organised for Malkara in August. The plan is for us to exhibit a Timesaver shunting layout plus a table of magazines, business cards, etc, manned on a roster basis to answer questions and to inform the public on the NMRA. Our host displayed his own Timesaver layout. The inevitable question came – ah yes, but does it use Baker couplers? Aarh, shut up will you! Rob Nesbitt immediately offered to retrofit Baker couplers to all rolling stock. The meeting was called to order.

Howling this mob down doesn’t always seem to work. How about a postman’s whistle? Or better still, a bugle? Jess Brisbane thinks she has a bosun’s call somewhere. Our Fearless Leader eagerly seized on this as a most appropriate means of enforcing his authority.

In the division’s membership list, which is circulated periodically as changes occur, there is a Roll of Honour in remembrance of members and spouses who have passed away. Our Leader raised the question of what we should do with this Roll. Should we drop names off after a specified period of say 1 or 2 years? Or keep them there forever? Or what? Thoughts are invited. Please email them to our Redoubtable Leader.

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The Flimsy The Newsletter of Division 2 of the NMRA AR

Our March Meeting, with (from L to R) Tony Payne (with chair), David O’Hearn, John Payne, John Bullen, Wal Pywell and Stephen O’Brien

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With our Valiant Leader overseas for the next 7 weeks or so, we need an Acting Führer for the next two meetings. Jess Brisbane is happy to wield power for our

May meeting at her place but we still need someone for the April meeting at Stephe and Karina Jitts’s place. Any takers? Ultimately Stephe himself was ‘volunteered’ into grabbing power for the day. Our Burra resident John Geremin asked “Just exactly where is Stephe’s place?” “It’s in Yass” said someone helpfully. “I’ve heard of Yass” said John, not sounding greatly confident. All daring explorers

venturing into darkest NSW are advised to go straight to Yass and straight down the main drag through the town, across the river and up the hill. Take the second turn right into Mount St, then the first turn left into Glebe St and No 22 (“Linton”) is on the left, half way along the block between Mount St and Castor St. Linton is a big, rambling, old style house and it’s yellow.

The question of organising a car pool for the Yass Expedition then arose. Who has cars available? Stephe and our Magnificent Leader both unhelpfully declared that their cars would not be available that day, but despite this it seems that there are enough cars for a car pool to be simple.

Fran Thomas mentioned the O-Scale Modellers Forum in Sydney next Saturday 24 March. This is a twice yearly event held in the North Sydney Leagues Club (free parking) at Cammeray, readily accessible via M5 motorway and Harbour Bridge or Tunnel. It is an all-day show from 9 am to 4 pm. Clinics are conducted, trade stands are present, and an excellent opportunity for O-scale modellers to meet, learn and buy is offered. Cost is $25, including morning and afternoon tea. See www.aus7modellersgroup.org

John Prattis spoke on the 2013 NMRA Convention to be held in Canberra. John has accepted the nomination of himself as Convenor of the convention and will be getting a management committee together shortly.

(Continued from page 1) Show and Tell Jess Brisbane reminded us that her photos of

Innsmouth station and adjacent scenery on her On3-scale layout are readily accessible on http://www.flickr.com/photos/jess_narra/sets/72157628974061839/

Since then, Jess has built her Fenimore’s Coal and Fuel outlet from a Fos Scale kit and she brought the finished article along today. It is most impressive in its attention to detail – weathering, debris, and also the historic accuracy of its advertising signs. Gasoline cost 22 cents per gallon in those days (1925) and there is also a Calvin Coolidge election poster left over from the presidential campaign of 1924. Not so sure about that advert for Flatulene though, however it does perfectly match the livery of Jess’s scratchbuilt tanker wagon. For photos of Fenimore’s flourishing enterprise, see below and http://www.flickr.com/photos/jess_narra/sets/72157629580309679/

Jess mentioned that her layout now has a waterfall. Real wet splashing water? No, not really, but she has adopted the same modelling technique used by Geoff Nott. See http://books.google.com.au/books?id=wZpt6ldjXasC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=geoff+nott+waterfall&source=bl&ots=Zkxr_175TI&sig=JIFpO-m7RzQUsdBHVXTGaHSPbEU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1yxlT7yrCMXHmAX2poiJCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=geoff%20nott%20waterfall&f=false. For other examples of waterfall techniques, see http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24212

Rob Nesbitt, still firmly on his Model-A-Month kick, displayed his latest – a nice Hunslet narrow gauge quarry type loco at 7mm scale (1:43) running on HO scale track. Rob had picked up this partly assembled Peco white metal kit at a Narrow Gauge convention several years ago.

Wal Pywell showed his tester for DCC decoders. Wal designed and built this himself and has produced something which looks very like a commercial product. Assembled from various parts collected from his radio days, the only part he had to go out and buy was the box to house everything. With its built-in meter and its colour

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coded connections for the decoder under test, it looks very neat indeed. Not only that, but it works too! We are now trying to get Wal to write it up for MainLine.

Wal also demonstrated his wire bending hand tools. They are ideal for putting precise bends into wire and can also be used to bend angles of less than 90º. These tools are a Micromark set, catalogue number 60398. For further information and photos, see http://www.micromark.com/html_pages/instructions/60398i/60398pliers.htm

Tony Payne introduced some variety to today’s show with the three model boats he has just built – a motor

torpedo boat (1:32 scale) (pictured), a Norfolk Broads cruiser (1:15) and a RAF rescue launch (1:15). In making these boats Tony had scrounged materials from a wide variety of sources, making very good use of

(Continued from page 2) some old venetian blind slats for boat planking. The finished boats look really good on their stands but Tony tells us that the MTB is a bit too heavy and consequently floats lower in the water than it should. However when under power, it rides higher and looks good.

Graeme Hodges the First drew our attention to the possibilities that exist for adding sound to give realism to a model railway layout. In particular, the website of Fantasonics is worth a look – and a listen. See http://www.fantasonics.com/ For a list of CDs available and sound samples of each, see http://www.fantasonics.com/store/cd.html and don’t miss the Wild West Saloon. See (and hear) http://www.fantasonics.com/samples/WildWestSaloon.mp3

This inevitably raised the question – why focus just on sound? What about smell too? It would appear that coal smoke smell is already available. But what about the strongly lingering stench of a livestock train that had passed some 20 minutes ago? Or, as Viv Brice suggested in accordance with the Pennsy prototype, a few gondola wagons filled with quivering offal? Fran Thomas speculated that some of these suggestions might possibly encounter difficulty in gaining the necessary approval from the Ministry of Domestic Affairs. Hmm. Yes. The meeting was called to order—again.

Brad Hinton had brought a layout with him that he no longer wanted. Being 2.4 metres long and about half a metre wide, it was left in his car parked outside and he’s carting it to the tip afterwards. Does anyone want it? Displaying lightning reflexes, John Payne’s hand shot skyward. We all envied John’s admirable foresight in having apparently cleared this with the Ministry of Domestic Affairs before he had set out for today’s meeting.

Peter Dinham has recently obtained an electrostatic grass strewing machine – much cheaper than the standard and well-known Noch product. For the Noch grass gun, see http://www.micromark.com/noch-gras-master-static-grass-applicator,9293.html Peter hasn’t sowed any grass yet, but he will let us know if his crop proves successful. Watch this space.

John Bullen mentioned that some very realistic grass effects have been seen at recent exhibitions using grass mats. These days grass mats are vastly superior

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to what they once were. For a nice example of Noch grass matting, see http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=1050 This can be enhanced further by judicious application of weeds and the occasional shrub.

The Main Attraction

Tony Payne treated us to a cab ride from Canberra to Bungendore on the footplate of loco 3016 owned by the ACT Branch of the Australian Railway Historical Society. But first we had to rearrange the seating so everyone could see the TV screen. Things got quite cosy, except for our hapless host who finished up sitting on the tiled floor.

Tony’s nephew is a professional loco driver and also an ARHS member, so this fortuitous relationship earned Uncle Tony a well-deserved cab ride for this trip.

Loco 3016 and indeed the whole train were in immaculate condition and were gleaming. Loco 3016 was built over 100 years ago for Sydney suburban passenger work. After electrification of the suburban system 80 years ago, many of the 145 locos in this class were allocated to country branch line use until the last one was retired in 1972. Seven of them are preserved today, most of them on static display only.

It was particularly interesting to see Tony’s photos of this loco and of the local countryside – very familiar to most of this audience. But some photos produced the unexpected – for example the forward facing window temporarily obscured by all the condensation from the whistle which had just been sounded. A view of the footplate controls and gauges drew the question “where’s the DCC controller?” from someone more at home with models than the prototype.

As we approached Bungendore, there came a photo of the big security fence surrounding the Defence installation known in the Defence community as Bunnings – because it’s full of tools that nobody needs. “Is that fence to keep the animals out?” “No, it’s to keep the inmates inside.” Someone expressed the hope that Tony had cleared this security fence photo with Defence. Brian Thomas responded quickly with “Dat’s de fence dere” and then had the decency to apologise hastily before we were overwhelmed by groans. The meeting was called to order – yet again.

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A Visit to Gosford

by Peter Weller-Lewis I thought you may be interested in what Jenice and I have

been up to of late! (No more falling over!) We had to travel to the wilds of Avoca Beach for the wedding of our eldest grandson. So we drove up to Canberra, put our car in for service in Fyshwick (as you do) and overnighted with our eldest daughter who kindly put us on to the early morning train the next day. We then had an enjoyable train trip up to Sydney. On arrival at Central we had just over an hour to kill before catching our next train to Gosford. We decided to have a quick look around the ARHS Book shop but quickly found that this was not the best of ideas when one is encum-bered with baggage. So we adjourned to the cross benches to enjoy a cup of coffee and tea respectively and people watch! Fascinating!

That done, it was time to catch our train for the sunny side of Gosford. A really enjoyable and scenic trip. Sadly City rail does not believe in wasting space for passenger luggage, so, like other fellow travellers, one has to commandeer seats to put ones cases on. We felt very sorry for a young lady struggling with two very large bags and a rather large stroller. Jenice took over nursing duties as the young lass first found seats (Upstairs!) then plied back and forth with all her goods and chattels before finally arriving back to reclaim her child. (City rail, Bob Carr has gone yet you still utilise his planning ideas for transport! Come on Gladys, get a traf-fic engineer to travel on a train with cases and push chairs!)

Soon we arrived in Sunny Gosford to be met by Toni Saxon who then drove us home where we were to stay for a couple of days prior to the wedding. It was really great as always to see John and Toni again and we could not believe that, due to one thing and another with John and Toni's health problems as well as our own, it had been some two years since we had caught up with one another.

The following day, John and Toni had, unbeknownst to Jenice and I, arranged to visit some of the local model-lers. Not knowing whom we were going to see we just went along with the flow. First we visited Dennis Clarke's layout.

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Time for afternoon tea (thanks to June’s and Tony’s son who ably filled in for June, just out of hospital) and for a look at John Payne’s latest acquisition – at a bargain price too.

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idea here is to liven up night time running sessions. Once again after a very brief yet very informative visit.

We then headed back home for Toni to get dinner ready. On completing a lovely dinner as always with Toni. We (John and I) then prepared ourselves for the local Wednesday evening running session. This was hosted by David Swinfield who is still in progress of building a rather extensive layout in the basement under his home . The lay-out again is HO scale and based on an ATSF prototype using a mixture of steam and diesel loco's. We had not been there long when the operating session tried to get un-derway. I say tried as there was a gremlin in the power supplies at one end of the layout and the operators could not get anything to move. The dispatcher was Ken Scales MMR who was having a very trying time.

Then after the arrival of a few more members of the group someone located the gremlin and things started to run as they were supposed to. Sadly this euphoria did not last long as a locomotive appeared from out of the hidden staging minus its train! To compound the matter someone had also not turned off their controller properly and a steam loco complete with its train entered a siding that is a visual feature more than a true siding and so fouling the main line. After all these set backs, eventually several trains did indeed go to and from where they were supposed to with no further dramas. All too soon the session was over and it was upstairs where David had provided supper and then it was time to leave and once again out into the still pouring rain for the journey home to John's.

All in all It was a very enjoyable and informative two days with John and Toni. Much was crammed into one day but still very informative. Especially as some of the mem-bers have only been in the hobby for a few years and have made huge advances with their respective layouts. All are into DCC and interestingly one had to sign an attendance form to show that you had actually been there, apparently to comply with NMRA insurance requirements.

Incidentally the wedding was also great and the tucker was just fabulous. We also have another wedding in No-vember also up at that neck of the woods—this time the eldest grand daughter! If you are contemplating the up coming convention then I hope you will find this a brief insight as to what can be seen to be of some value.

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This is a NSWGR layout based on where he used to live near Wagga Wagga. A great layout with still much to do but showing great potential as it is. Although I could not remember him, he had also been involved with the Wagga club and the layout "Stockinbingal", which I first saw in its early stages in the Wagga club house.

Dennis had only moved from the Wagga area in recent years and started on his new layout, which incorporates a segment from his previous layout. Indeed the sea air must be doing him good as he has achieved a considerable amount of work in the short space of three years. Dennis and his wife Robyn then in-vited John, Toni, Jenice and I to go along with them to the local soccer club for lunch to meet his new found cousin and his wife. They had been living in close proximity to one another for some time without ever knowing that they were cousins.

After lunch and afternoon tea back at Dennis and Robyn's home, and after much reminiscing, we departed and after just travelling a short distance, we pulled up at the home of Sam Mangion. The first impression was of a "G" scale switching lay-out taking shape adjacent to the driveway in his front garden. Being some twenty five to thirty feet long and because of the large scale it looked like it will be a really great layout in times to come. "But wait there is more" as they say.

We were then invited into Sam's home, introduced to his good wife and then we were ushered out the back past the huge fish pond complete with enormous gold fish and around to the rail-way room under the rear of the house. One has to mind ones head in there and Sam has even provided cushioning for those who fail to heed the warning signs. This was another NSWGR layout but Sam is a fantastic modeller and it was a true delight to see first hand examples of his work in all aspects of the hobby. Jenice was really taken in with his scenic mini scenes—they all had so much detail and attention to weathering.

Sam also showed us a British style box van that he was as-sembling. He had cast the buffers, axle bearings and springs him-self. The car was half completed at that stage. Later that very same evening he brought it along to the running session and he had added his casting's, wheels and brake gear, couplers, end braces and the roof!! The speed that he works is incredible. Truly a great layout and well worth a visit. If you are attending the coming convention, both of these layouts I have described are open for visitors.

After what seemed a very brief visit we again were whisked away but not home as we thought. Instead, John drove us all around to Gerry and Lauris Hopkins's home. Most interesting to see the latest developments on Gerry's layout. He has been very busy installing lighting into many of his structures and also fit-ting working marker lights to locomotives and caboose's. The

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www.nmra.org.au

Tony Payne (right) enjoying his cabride on ex-NSWGR No. 3016 ( June Payne)

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:

Last month we excused Rob Nebitt from any further efforts under the division-imposed re-quirement for a ‘Loco-a-Month’, as we agreed he’d well and truly fulfilled the promise we had extracted out of him. Turns out that he is now so much in the groove, that he finds himself unable to stop and so continues his ‘Loco-a-Month’ schedule. Poor guy, what have we done to him?

Nice to hear a little from one of our far-flung members down on the NSW South coast, and glad to hear that Jenice is mobile again after her recent nasty fall.

In that vein, I’d like to wish June Payne a speedy and complete recovery and to praise Tony for holding a meeting in such trying cir-cumstances. Viv div2sup@nmra.org.au

News

Next meeting will be at Stephe Jitts place in Yass on 14 April 2012. Directions to his place can be found at the top of page 2 column 1.

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