Cit-in at Easter

One aspect of our home town- Stanthorpe- that I really like, is that it attracts quite a few Vintage Car clubs that come up to our beautiful area for their rallies and get-togethers.  Once you get off the New England Highway there are some fantastic tree-lined back roads that are perfect for older cars to amble along on.


This Easter we are hosting the National Citroën Rally, appropriately called the Cit-in!!  It will be based at the main Exhibition centre in town, and various journeys will radiate out from there into the surrounding countryside.  I volunteered to put on a display of model Citroëns, although at the time I only had a few!  Fortunately, after various visits to Paris in my former occupation I was able to pick up a few more, and I hope it will be a reasonable display.  I guess logically I was also asked to put some trains on display too, although I felt that I didn't have enough French ones for it to be worthwhile.  No matter, "any trains will do",  I was told!!  So, American Standard Gauge it is then!!  A beaut opportunity to try them out in a temporary display, and perhaps show to some degree what visitors to the Trainbarn can expect to see.


Because of the display table size it will just be a simple oval of track, but I had also planned to include a set of points and a siding to store another train.  One of the 'trains' that I plan to run is my Lionel Summer Trolley, seen below.

Although I've had this for a while I've never had the opportunity to run it before.  So, I decided to give everything a good oiling, and a test run before the exhibition.  I'm glad I did!!  Yes it ran superbly, but not through the points!  Why is this so?  Oh, I see- the main gear that drives the Trolley is mounted right on the wheel and is the same size as the flange, so as it goes through the points it rides up over the point-frog, and off we go onto the ground.  Therefore the points and siding were quickly eliminated from the display.

This also has a longer term implication.  One of the layouts that I'm planning for the Trainbarn is specially for all these older models (although this one is an authentic reproduction).  The circuit of Standard Gauge on it was planned to have two points and what's called a passing loop, so that one train could be running and another waiting in the loop.  Plainly this was not going to work if I wanted to continue to run the Summer Trolley on it, so I quickly decided to eliminate the points and passing loop, to ensure reliability of running and simplicity.  Now that I look at photos of other people's layouts running trains from this era, that's precisely what they did too!

Above: Citroën Traction Avante at Marylands (photo by Lynne McPhee)

I'm looking forward to doing this display- both the cars and trains.  Not to mention seeing all the real Citroëns on display, and driving around.  One of my real hopes for Whistlestop in general is that it will be interesting and attractive enough eventually to be a place which some of these old car rallies will want to visit.  Lots to do before then, though!!

Soggy progress

It rained heavily today at home, so no further progress.  The internal walls were supposed to go up.  Anyway, my wife took some photos of yesterday's progress, and I'm really happy with how it's going.  Plenty of space for a train layout!!  No, let's not go there.....................

Above: This is the front, the door will be in the centre. It will have a nice verandah, too!!

Above:  This is the back, which will also have a wide verandah where we expect to eat most of our meals.  It overlooks Girraween National Park.

Above: Taken from inside, from in the bathroom.  Walls to come!!

Above:  From our bedroom (THE bedroom), looking towards the kitchen and eating area.

Cottage progress

Our Cottage is progressing well now, with the Hebel block walls being erected and windows installed.  As I'm sure happens with any building there have been a couple of 'that window's in the wrong place' moments, but I think we've sorted that out.  I'm still away, and not being on site is incredibly frustrating, but there's nothing I can do about that.  At least we can communicate well with our builder.

The Hebel blocks are thicker than expected- 250mm vs 200mm (10" vs 8") which means we lose a bit of space, but it will certainly be strong!!  Someone made the comment that it looks like Stonehenge, so maybe it'll still be there in 1000 years time too!!  

Great to see progress, even if I'm not actually a part of it.

Lionel City

Readers of this blog will by now realise that I have a definite enthusiasm for Toy Tain Accessories, and their use on layouts, and so I'm excited to report the imminent arrival of another Tinplate Station!!  For me this one- the Lionel #134 Lionel City Station- is perhaps the most iconic of all the stations that Lionel produced.  The one that I've been able to purchase is a Lionel Corporation 'reproduction' of the 1930's original, like most of the items that I like to buy.

I'm not sure which of the three layouts in the Trainbarn that this station will go on, but it's suitable for any of them.  Eventually, I'm sure, it will find a permanent place on the Standard Gauge layout, serving as the main station for the innermost loop of track, which will represent a commuter/trolley line.  I hope you find it as charming as I do!!

"The Train now arriving......"

There's been little or no progress at Whistlestop since the last post, for various reasons unfortunately, as other demands are attended to.  The cottage is progressing, but at an agonisingly slow pace at the moment.


Rather than dwell on what's not happening, I'd much rather focus on positive things like, well............ new train arrivals!!  About two years ago Lionel introduced a 'new' line of trains in their catalogue, called Conventional Classics.  These are the extremely popular and well-loved trains of the 1950's, for which Lionel still have most of the original tooling.  Instead of incorporating all the latest electronic 'bells and whistles' they also have original motors and drive-train (read 'noisy'!!), except that the reversing unit is now electronic instead of mechanical.  Effectively they are a continuation of what was made in the 50's, rather than being reproductions.  And to Lionel's credit they have chosen to price them very realistically.



Here's a copy of the catalogue page showing the set, originally released in 1957.  The set that is now on it's way to the Trainbarn is the 3 car set, Lionel #2276W.  In Australia we called these trains 'Railmotors', and most States used them to upgrade passenger service on lightly patronised routes.


This set, and others in the Conventional Classics series, will be ideal for the layout planned for phase II of the Trainbarn, which will focus on what is called the Postwar era.  Initially though, I'll run it on the 0 gauge layout that I already have for phase 1, which was primarily intended to run the Prewar trains that are the main feature of this part of the Trainbarn.  My collection of Postwar Lionel trains is growing very nicely, and will certainly be a very exciting part of Whistlestop!!  The layout planned for this section will be enormous fun to build!


In the meantime though, I'm looking forward to getting back into the enjoyably hard work of constructing the Trainbarn building, which I guess will happen soon enough..............

It did rain, and we did pour a Slab!!

We hoped and prayed for rain to damp down our extremely dusty Cottage site, and we were amply rewarded!!  Somewhat annoyingly I'm away at the moment, but my wife arrived home on Friday night to find a very substantial slab where there had just been levelled dust before we left earlier in the week.  

It seems to be a Universal Law of construction that the slab always looks too small, and that is the case here too.  Ok, it is a small cottage, but I think it will look 'right' when the walls start going up this week.

This is the Bathroom corner looking towards the kitchen and eating area.  I'm please to see some water sitting on it so it doesn't dry out too quickly.  The back verandah, where we expect to spend a lot of time, needs to be built up with blocks before the slab is poured for it.  The recess around the slab is for the Hebel block walls.  Aaaagh, I wish I was there, although I'm not away for too long this time!!

Log-in for a Trainbarn Garden

On Saturday- traditionaly time for working on something 'train'- I placed a log at the end of the garden outside the Trainbarn.  Not very exciting in itself, although any progress is good!  This then led to thinking about how to finish off the garden adjacent to the Trainbarn entrance, which led to some hard work with a mattock, which led to.........................  I was able to clearly define the rear edge of the Trainbarn garden,  and since the Trainbarn building will run exactly parallel to this and 10 feet away, I was able for the first time to draw a line in the dirt and say "this is where the Trainbarn wall will be, and here are the steps, and here is the door etc etc".  All of which I found very exciting and very encouraging!!  Ok, I admit there is a lot more work to do before it actually happens, but I feel it is definitely a big step closer!

This is an overall photo of the Trainbarn carpark and garden.  I love how it is looking!!