New Beginnings

Hi all,

To those of you who read my previous blog on this model railway, I have had to close the account associated with the blog due to hacking issues. I have therefore opened a new account, and I am starting the blog again.

For those of you who have read the previous blog, you don't need to pay attention to this post, as it is just re-capping on what I went over on the previous one, however I will be putting more information in this than was in the other blog.

The Maldon model railway, is as suggested based on Maldon, Victoria. It is mainly based on the 1950's to 1960's period. I had previously based it in 1956, due to the Melbourne Olympic Games, however as this only allowed T class series 1 diesel locomotives, however these were only used on the line very occasionally. I have now made it 1950's-60's to allow me to use Y class, T series 2,3 and 4, and J, K, N and D3 locomotives. It is being constructed in HO scale.

All track is going to be hand-laid, and at the moment, it is at the sleeper and ballast laying stage. One of the 4 modules has had sleepers and ballast fully laid, and as soon as the other 3 are at the same stage, I will commence rail laying and weathering. Structures will mainly be Blue and Gold Models, with some scratch-built models, such as the 53' turntable, the yard crane and station platform.

Rail is code 55, and rails and associated detailing items such as dogspikes, tie plates, crossings and point blades will be from Proto87, but for HO scale, and sleepers are FastTracks. Each rail section will be soldered together where applicable, only excluding point blades. All other items, crossings and rails will be soldered in 4' sections, and wires attached every 2'. The three main modules, platform approach, platform road and locomotive roads are 4'x2' and the turntable module is 3'x2'. There has been a certain amount of selective compression, as to model the whole yard would take up a fairly large space.

Ballast is Woodlands Scenics, and is a mixture of Fine Light Gray, Fine Gray and Fine Cinders. Woodlands Scenics Scenic Cement is used for bonding the ballast. All scenery items will be Woodlands Scenics, and occasionally other brands for trees and other associated items.

I am going to scratch-build wherever possible, as I wish to improve my scratch-building techniques, so items such as buffers, platforms, turntable and yard crane will all be scratch-built.

I am hoping to have the sleepers on all but for the turntable module laid by the end of the week.

Peter