Storms, Earthquakes and a complete rebuild

Hi All

Apologies for the gap in posts, so much has been going on. Either its being stranded at Petone at 2:30 in the morning with the line ahead non existent, being baby sitting a train at 5am in the morning a couple km further south after last weekends earthquakes, or even buying a house! Its all on! 



I got sick of the board connection problems with most stock derailing somewhere (Murphys law states that its always out of reach!) so the Minister Of Finance approved funding for new boards and flexi track (I HATE using cut up flexi track)

The main line is the same with a few alterations to the yards, including a brand new "Carriage Yard" which sit on the would be old ARC Sidings. I may later once i build the underground loop convert the carriage sidings into another goods siding.

The Carriage yard 

The one thing I regretted loosing was the road/tram bridge over the inner loops. This time i've put the tram on its own reserved track, and the road goes into a "tunnel" Although i did want the tram down the road, I thought it would look silly coming off its own bridge, onto the road for 500mm or so then back off to the terminus.

Albion Station on the right with the new road entering the Tunnel
 and the tram line to the left with the new Tram only Bridge crossing the inner loops.

The new tram only bridge over the inner loops


I feel i'm back to the point of where i ripped the old boards up, and it seems to be working ten times better than the previous boards.

My mind has been in overdrive with things to add. I came up with a actual use for the Albion sidings (Carriage Yard) and a Motorway (Freeway). once we've moved in and set up ill be adding roadworks with those fancy electric variable signage (and some barriers so the cars don't drive off the edge!)

The Motorway overpass showing the cars Queuing and merging for the not yet existent road work


Enjoy!

Fun With Trams And Buses

The main tram lines are down, and have been Plastered (No not drunk, Just plaster placed on them) Also the bridge over the diverging lines has been built, and tram lines are settling into the plaster too.

Note the plastic holding the lines down so they don't spring up out of the plaster

Ive got 2 trams currently. One is a Tomix Portram, and the other is a Bachmann Brill trolley.
The brill has been modified to a more Melbourne look, Something between a Y and a X1 Type

The Portram has been painted in the Yarra Trams Livery, and is now showing off its new pantogrpah from Dapol, (The old one flipped)

Before

After...Seen running on the freshly dried tram lines

I also found a new "Moving Bus System" by Tomix which is basically a affordable version of the Faller Car System. Although the Tomix system run on plastic sections of road that click together to make a loop. Me being me thought there had to be a better way, brought some magnetic tiger beading wire and was placed under my Scalescenes roading.

After a bit of trial and error (the card i printed the road on was to thick for the magnets on the bus) i now have the buses working fine.

The motorised chassis is about $40 which doesnt come with a body. but a few extra tires. you then have to spend about $45 for a 5 pack of low floor buses in different liverys. There is though... A "kit" of 4 older high floor buses (also by Tomix) that you put together and paint yourself for about $10 that also do fit on the same chassis, I brought both to show a new operator has brought the local buses and is modernizing the Fleet.

Low Floor (photo taken on old layout)

Older High Floors (photo taken on old layout)

It was tried. But the new livery doesn't look nice on the old Ones

And one that got trod on accidentally (We pretend it hit a Skip)

Enjoy!

Slowly...

I had a browse and decided on purchasing the asphalt template off Scalescenes for the low low price of 2 quid. ($4 NZ) and after some tweaking in Microsoft Word of all places i was able to produce some fairly decent roading! 

I was having a brainstorm and decided to use the leftover flexitrack to make a tramway (Melbourne isnt Melbourne without trams) where i worked out a rough draft. the tram lines will run from the "west end" of the layout. Past Albion (artistic license here) cross over the diverging lines at Albion Junction on a bridge and terminate at the depot beside the "loop" entrance. 

Albion has had a bit of work done. It now hosts a platform. With a scratchbuilt model of the current structure, a overpass (Western Highway) and a disused level crossing where the Western Highway once crossed. 

Albion Showing the test fitting of the tramway and roads, new platform, Platform building, and Western Highway overpass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first sod turned

A few pics to update. I do apologize for the crap quality on the first few pics, but these show the initial track laying

The track does look a bit dodge but as 99% of the surface lines are in place they can now be properly secured :)

Welcome welcome

Welcome to my new blog for Albion. My N Gauge layout under construction

Christ... Who writes in Times New Roman these days?

Lets try again
Welcome to my new blog for Albion. My N Gauge layout under construction

I'll try to update this as much as i can either it be rolling stock updates or layout updates. It'll all be here.

Bit of a background on Albion.


Albion is a suburban station in Melbourne's west. it Contains 3 main lines, 2 that are 5ft 3in which the whole state of Victoria runs on, and a 4ft 8in line that the interstate freights run on (Australia has 3 main gauges, 3ft 6, 4ft 8 and 5ft 3) Immediately west of the station is a road overpass and a junction where the 5ft 3 lines go west and north, and the 4ft 8 follows to the north. It also has a disused siding into the adjacent grain silos run by John Darling

Albion station is a basic island platform capable of taking 6 car trains (up to 144m long) has a pedestrian subway at the Western end.

That's one side of the layout. the other side is North Melbourne (with artistic license)

North Melbourne is a 6 Platform inner suburban station again taking 6 car Suburban and Diesel Interurban trains, at the eastern end there is portals for the city underground loop and surface lines also . adjacent there is (was) a large freight yard,

the map below shows the plans for the layout. for ease of use it will all be one gauge, which means all trains have access to the yards.
I'm planning an making this DCC but also DC compatible as i will be slowly replacing my DC Locos, it'll be my first DCC layout.
Ive included one portal for the underground loop at the western end due to space which returns to a fictional Nth Melbourne Underground station, and then onto a slide out draw, due to space constraints Nth Melbourne will be restricted to 4 platforms in total. The freight yard will have 3 through roads and 2 dead end roads for the loco shed. All in a 3.6m x 1m area! 
 
Well So i thought....

Basically i screwed this up from day one. i cut my boards upside down so the whole plan had to be mirrored. At this stage i found that installing the "underground" to be to fiddly and Will be made into a transverser storage yard for Passenger trains. The yard is a bit to Small to accommodate stabled EMU's as well as freights coming and going...

The Current Plan of action... Note the "underground" disappearing off to a transverser (Not included)

Enjoy!