King of the Rails

As mentioned yesterday a new locomotive has arrived for the Trainbarn.  It's an MTH Railking Gauge 1 Santa Fe F-7a diesel locomotive.  This is a little different to the 'normal' items that I seek out for my Toy Train collection, but long-term readers of this blog will recall that one of the displays that I'm planning is to have the same loco (Santa Fe F-7) in all the common model railroading scales.  This will hopefully help to unravel the mysteries of scale and gauge for visitors.


Interestingly, this idea was also adopted by the fantastic California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.  Not that it matters, but I'm claiming to be the originator of this concept, although that's a long story!!

They're missing two sizes which I have- TT, between N and HO, and now Gauge 1, between O and G, however I'm still missing the two common sizes O and S.  It's a wonderful display, and I'm sure it's very popular.


Anyway, my new Gauge 1 loco is absolutely amazing.  It's the first loco that I've ever had with modern electronics and sound.  I obviously bought it just for static display, but it is so much fun to operate!!  It runs on 45mm/1.75" gauge track and is the correct scale for this gauge at 1/32.  The photo below shows this new loco (front) next to my LGB G scale F-7 which very confusingly runs on the same gauge track (45mm/1.75") but is much bigger, being an incorrect scale for the gauge.  It's designed for operation in the garden and is sized to match other garden trains.  G scale (again very confusingly ) can be anything between 1/20.3 to 1/29 scale, and the LGB loco is about 1/26.

So, that was really exciting- discovering what this Gauge 1 loco can do, although I haven't got enough track to really give it a good run.  At the moment it's set up on our lounge-room floor!

Fired Up

It was a seriously cold and unpleasant day on the Granite Belt today, as it was also on most of the east coast.  Fortunately the icy wind dropped by about lunchtime allowing some progress at Whistlestop.  To combat the cold I decided to light a small campfire, burning some of the rubbish which would otherwise go to the dump.  What a good idea that was!  Not only was it nice and warm, it really added some 'atmosphere' to the day.  The light smokiness somehow made the day more pleasant- perhaps bringing back memories of other campfires.

So, some good progress again, as well as the general enjoyment of working in the Aussie bush.  Two more boxes arrived for the Trainbarn also, one of which is probably the most awesome model train I've ever had!  More about them tomorrow!

I claim this corner in the name of.................

Another small step for mankind today, with the northwest corner of the Trainbarn clear, and pegged out!  Now it's 'just' a matter of heading southeast, ie back into the Trainbarn site, which, unfortunately, is no small job.

We had about 11mm of rain over the weekend which has settled the dust nicely.  As well as putting in this post at the corner I put a stringline on it to get a rough idea of the fall of the site.  I always find slopes to be deceptive, and this one is no exception.  The fall turned out to be about 3' 7".

I plan to build concrete block walls to support the slab, to cope with this change in levels.  Until then, lots more clearing......................

Leptolanche

I reckon that if it's ok for other industries- such as IT- to create new words, then I can too.


My submission is 'leptolanche'.  Meaning:- If you spend all day loading assorted scrub- but mostly Leptospermum tea-tree- onto your trailer, getting scratched to pieces in the process, then, just before you are able to tie it down it all comes cascading off the trailer back onto the ground. A leptolanche.  If the leptolanche happens at the end of the day (almost by definition it will) when, combined with the scratches there is a general feeling of fatigue, well, a leptolanche is not a happy occurrence.


I hasten to add that when working alone in the bush every day digging tea-tree, one's mind tends to wander in strange directions.


Good progress again today, although it was extremely hard.  A lot of today's scrub was old/damaged/dead/hard tea-tree, and it was very hard to remove, or even handle.  But it's now at our local green waste collection centre (aka the dump), and I am now 12 metres (yes, metric) along the northwest wall.  The width of the Trainbarn will be 14m, and another couple of metres clearance, which all adds up to the fact that I'm getting very close to finishing the preparation of this side.


I think I'm going to have to do something completely different once I've finished the preparation of this site!!  Which I guess will be required anyway.  Something like building a toy train layout!!

A Winter Wonderland,.............or just cold!!

The weather recording station for the Granite Belt recorded a low temperature of -6.4°C this morning, but I think it was even lower in some other parts of the district.  That's seriously cold!!  It caused a few problems- not just frozen pipes and no water, but a couple of burst joints............ and no water.  Also, instead of just a light frosty coating on our cars, there was serious ice!!  Had to scrape it off (not easy), whereas we would just normally throw some water on it.  Driving through Ballandean everything was white, almost like a light snow covering- hence the title of this post.  It looked very pretty!  From inside a heated car!!


I arrived at Whistlestop about 8.30am, and the temperature was still -1°.  It did warm up quickly though, and I could easily have just worn T shirt and shorts at lunchtime.  It was a truly magnificent day- the bluest of blue skies, and no wind at all.


The plumbers have placed all the pipes in our cottage, and have done a very nice job.  We're just waiting for the electrician now to change a couple of wires, and switch positions, then we can render the bricks- both inside and out.  This will be a very big milestone!  It's getting close to the point where we can start to think about living in it!  Oh won't that be nice.


Preparation of the Trainbarn site is progressing well, too.  And perhaps just as important as the result is that I'm really enjoying the process!  The site is very dry and dusty, but there's a chance of some rain later in the week which would be quite nice, as long as it doesn't hang around.

It's all about the Trains!

While there is a lot happening at Whistlestop as seen in recent posts, there hasn't been a lot happening as far as trains arriving for the Trainbarn.  A different 'season', I guess.  So I thought I'd take a photo of the latest Standard Gauge item to arrive- a 500 series Tank Car from the Lionel Corporation.  This was shown in the 2009 Lionel Corporation catalogue, and I wanted to buy the whole set pictured, however this is the only piece I've been able to obtain, so far.

The 500 series cars are slightly smaller than the 200 series, and in their heyday were slightly cheaper, but retain the same level of detail as the 200 series.


So, the hunt is still on for the rest of the cars in this set, and the superb 390 steam locomotive that pulls it!

A trailer-load of.................

It was a really cold, windy day again today, and really not very pleasant outside, but I still managed to get a lot done.  The main achievement was to get the Trainbarn garden mostly covered in fresh tea-tree mulch, to limit weed growth, and retain whatever moisture is in the soil.  It looks good too!   Previously I had been buying this mulch in small bags, which obviously wasn't very economical, but I discovered that our local landscape supplier sells a similar product by the trailerfull.  Way more economical.

I really like doing this sort of work, perhaps just as much as I enjoy my trains!  My aim with Whistlestop is to create a total environment which people can enjoy, and nice gardens are very much a part of this.  Like everything else at the moment, there's a long way to go, but it's certainly getting there!

The new mulch will eventually weather to a grey colour, and blend in better with the existing mulch.  It will also get a good covering of leaves and twigs, which will be the on-going mulch.


I've put HPM Garden Lights in this garden (even though there's no power here at the moment), anticipating visitors to the Trainbarn at night.  I felt it was better to put them in at this stage, rather than have to disturb the plants at a later stage.  I really like these lights, they're a quality product.


I'm mostly planting new native plants in this garden, however wherever possible I've kept original plants here too.  Not sure what sort this one is exactly, but it's a very attractive, healthy native.

Now it'd be really good to have just a small shower of rain to settle all this in, and put some moisture into the soil!

A Metrestone

A cold, windy day today, but some good progress at Whistlestop none-the-less.  Not quite a Milestone, and I'm trying to use the 'wonderful' metric system for building the Trainbarn, hence the title of today's blog.


Anyway, after some productive time clearing part of the Trainbarn site, today I pegged out the position of the front wall, and the verandah.  I find being able to mark my progress in these small ways very encouraging, and of course it helps to keep me heading in the right direction.  I don't want to clear any more than necessary!

You can't read the markings on the (metric) tape of course, but it's 21.6 metres long, which includes the 3 metre (10ft) verandah at the other end.


There's still a lot more to go, but I'm very happy with how it's going!