Long time between drinks!

Well where has the last 12 months gone? Unfortunately due to the Covid lockdowns my visits to the Man Cave have been few and far between, however Dad has been slowly working away on a number of projects. The biggest project on the semi-completed list is the start of the township at Rosella. This includes a servo, bakery, church, pub and a few houses, as well as an overhead bridge on one side and a level crossing on the other. The level crossing is setup with prototypical train detection thanks to an Azatrax level crossing kit, which is working quite well and easy to install. On to the photos!

Tait's taking up the passenger stabling...just pretend there's overhead!

Overview of the horseshoe curve, with the cement sidings on the right, Rosella township in the middle and yard/station to the left still under construction.

Couple of rollingstock projects on the go/complete. The first was repainting 27 VHQF hoppers from a fictional yellow livery into their proper wagon red colour scheme. This will then mean we have 2 rakes of Apex hoppers, an early 80's set and a FA/PN 2010's set. The other project is the IRA MZ. This started life as a Lima/Roco DSB MZ, and had to be heavily modified to represent the MZ's as running today in NSW. The mech was also ripped out and replaced with a custom chassis with an Auscision motor and bogies. Definitely looks the part now!

Back to some more scenery now. There are a few corners on the layout where there is not much room for scenery, but enough room to be noticeable if it was empty. The solution for one of these gaps is just a simple embankment with a highway running along side. On the other side of this horseshoe curve will be a Bunnings warehouse, with the roof flat so you can store your drink or phone somewhere that's not going to damage the scenery. 

2 extra roads added to the Apex quarry, to store locos and guards vans. 

Fuel depot starting to take shape at Rosella.

Another corner with not much room. Embankment, trees, wire fence and some cows do the trick of filling in the scene!

Rollingstock additions this year have been fairly significant considering the delays from China. New loco arrivals include the Auscision NR's, B's, 600's and Tait's, as well as Trainorama's 930's. I have fitted sound to the majority of the fleet now, with only some earlier Auscision and Austrains models not fitted. Looking forward to a few VR steamers to finish this year off for new arrivals. 

Till next time!

A tale of a branchline...

 Hi all,

Welcome to the latest instalment from the Anderson's Man Cave. What a crazy year 2020 has turned out to be, with the world falling into chaos and a lot of new model railway products delayed until everything returns back to normal. Dad has been busy of late out in the man cave, making the most of his isolation and job share leave. The branch is really starting to take shape now, with the trackwork for the entire branch approx half done. The cement sidings are nearly finished with scenery, and a level crossing with correct detection and flashing lights is about to be installed on the approach to Rosella station. Onto the pictures! The first 6 show the construction of a module designed to fit against the back wall. As this area is hard to get to, the scenery was completed before hand for the most part.  

The broad gauge SSR Kensington rake is now complete, and the siding lengthened to accomodate the full 22 car train. Just need a couple of prototypical locos now to haul it! 

A few more night shots of the cement sidings.

Dad's retaining wall which his pretty proud of, and embankments as the branch continues to rise around the sidings.

Last photo to finish off, sometimes running trains isn't all smooth sailing on the layout! 

Till next time, stay safe!

2020 Vision

G'day All,

2020 is now well and truly upon us, so its time for one of my sporadic updates to the blog! A lot more of the branch has taken shape since the last update, with the cement sidings nearly finished, and trackwork finished to the first station on the branch (which is about halfway for the total length of the branch). The station area will consist of a loop road long enough to cross 30 car grain trains, platform road, a few shed roads, a cattle siding, railmotor sidings and further around the corner, a timber and fuel siding. Onto the photos! 

On the modelling front, the SSR Kensington rake is nearly complete, with just the white roofs to go on the ex-NSW coal hoppers. 

Auscision released their 80 class and the rerun of the 422 class locos late last year. Both fantastic models and sound superb!

To finish off, some night shots of the cement sidings...

Till next time!

Scenery

Hi all,

I promised for more regular updates however that again hasn't occurred and it is now 11 months since the last one! Might just have to make this a yearly thing. There has been a fair amount of scenery done in the main room as this work needs to be completed before the branch can continue. Reason behind this is that the areas that will become underneath the branch will be very difficult to reach once the branch is installed above. The SCT depot is more or less complete, with scenery work continuing around to the LPC and Intermodal depot. I'll let the pictures do the talking!

SCT Loco depot

SCT Loco depot

3830 in the local park TBC

Road overpass already with graffiti!

KFC

Again, KFC

Looking towards the Gildan station carpark.

Closer look.

Overall look.

Looking back towards the SCT main building.

Cement siding. Branch will continue to rise to the right of these sidings. 

One of the levels installed on the back wall. Another yet to be installed above the SCT sidings. 

Latest addition, RUB set + 442 Class.

LPC slowly taking shape, factories in the background.

Have uploaded a few videos as well of our latest workings...

Until next time (or year!)