Potpourri

POTPOURRI    Noun:  an unusual or interesting mixture of things:

Over the last few weeks, I have been finding time to work on models to be difficult.  My current model projects are sitting on the workbench. Progress has been slow, as the Bomen lamp room, and the replacement Tumburumba goods shed are effectively duplicates of what I have done and written about before. 

LVR 5367 leaves Wagga with a tour train in 1997.  Image from a slide

Bomen Lamp room, and Gents toilet.  Awaiting painting, windows, and doors

G1a goods shed for Tumbarumba.  I am using a new Micro-Mark magnetic glueing jig for the first time. This shed is to replace a G1b shed constructed earlier - as I goofed based on the one picture I had at the time.  The G1b though will find a new home at Humula

But I have started to clear space in my garage, for the future train room.  To start with, I fabricated a set of shelving from scrap wood, and installed it in my newly bought container.  The shelves are just the start.  I have a large wooden bench in the garage, that also has to be relocated – and the process to do this means a lot of shuffling of boxes, and plastic storage bins.

One of two frames - 1.8 x 2.4 metres in size.  The wood is a combination of cement path forming stringers, and surplus wall framing uprights

Inside the container.  Shelves are 400 mm deep.  The plywood that forms the shelves was from rejected building grade sheets. 

Some of these boxes contained interesting items, including an accumulation of photos - quite a few of Wagga. 

Whilst my early photography was slides, the cost worked out a lot more than prints, and I slowly adopted print film.  Prints had the advantage of being more visual than slides, and one could hand them around to your mates at a model train meeting.   Plus there were the negatives, that could be stored for future reprints should the images fade.     Many of these prints were stored in the plastic storage bins, and I rediscovered them during the box and plastic bin shuffle.  In addition to prints, there were also a few wooden boxes of slides, and some older stuff from deceased estates that had been given to me.

I couldn’t resist going through these.  The process is rewarding, although time consuming.   Some of the pictures will aid the Wagga layout, whilst others are nice to view.  In the last few weeks I  have spent some time scanning the images, and I would like to share a few on this Blog.

Grain unloading shed at the back of the Murrumbidgee Milling Company (c 1997)

Murrumbidgee Milling Company rear (c 1997)

X212 and shunters truck.  This picture was taken by the late Phil Sloan before 1983.  The print was  3" square on matt paper

Another Phil Sloan picture.  A 44, and 42 with open wagon (and train?) approaching the goods sidings - might be about to collect the wagons shown.  These wagons had come from sidings west of Docker Street - the CHs from the gasworks, and the BSVs from the stockyards 

A colour picture of the Docker street gatekeeper cottage.  The head shunt that I showed in my previous Blog post has gone

Wagga's Station Master Residence.

Yass Tramway - 4824 and an empty oil tanker approaches Yass Junction in the mid 1980s. Whilst I am not modelling Yass, I can appreciate the simplicity of the rural scene, an effect that I am hoping I will capture with my model of the branchline to Tumbarumba  This image is heavily retouched.  The original slide had its colour dyes turn a shade of purple, but thanks to photoshop software, I was able to adjust the colour balance.  If I had exclusively used Kodachrome, this wouldn't have been needed 

I recently had also "won" a CCTV system at auction.  There are a few spots on the layout that will be hidden from view - notably the helix, and staging yards.  The 1980s vintage Swann system was cheap,  so I thought I would test it on the kitchen bench.  Unfortunately, whilst it has 4 cameras, the mechanical switching mechanism in the monitor clicks, but fails to advance to the next camera.  Possibly an easy fix, but a task for the future

I am not sure if the quality of the Swann system would be enough to convict any criminal, but it has captured a fair image of the 48 class - and would be suitable to see a train moving inside the helix

Until next time.