A narrow gauge railway between the mines, the sawmill and the explosives factory

Updated track plan



After a visit to a model train shop the mining railway has procured some rails and one more set of points. As a result of this the track plan has been updated to include a track along the warehouse. The Big Nugget Mine may be without road access (!) and the train will have to bring staff and all equipment to and from the mine.

Up the Wombat Creek – part 1





The creek bed is down – made from toilet paper and diluted PVA glue. Next step will be painting an appropriate colour.

Needs a few paddles.

Nigel

[user=1632]BCDR[/user] wrote:

Needs a few paddles.

Nigel

 :doublethumb

Up the Wombat Creek – part 2

I pass the local creek every day to and from work and keep an eye out for the colour of the water. After a rainy day the water resembles 'coffee latte', but mostly the colour is brown with a hint of green. Along the banks the water is almost black. For Wombat Creek I have gone for a non-rainy day.

I'm going to enjoy watching this develop Claus.   :thumbs

Up the Wombat Creek – part 3

As I mentioned in a reply to 'Gwiwer' (post 773), I have tried an alternative to resin for the Wombat Creek. If I have succeed, is still up for questioning!

Instead of resin I have used clear PVC sold as 'table cover' at the local hardware store (They get enough advertising, so I will not name the store!). The PVC comes in different thickness. I went for 0.75 mm with the idea of a double layer for additional 'depth'. It is very easy to cut into any shape. I did two cuts along the template for the creek allowing an extra 5 mm of both sides.



Putting the two layers on top of each other makes them 'cling' together but only partially. The result looked like the creek had an oil slick or partly frozen over. So I had to go with one layer, but I think it will be fine in the end. The banks and adjoining land will be made from foam-board. Like the PVC easy to cut into desired shape and no mess!

Not cutting corners

The whole area around the explosives factory, the sawmill and the loco shed has been raised 6 mm to get above the surface of the creek. As seen on the photos the factory has been set into the ground to partly cover up it's very high concrete foundation.

  

The track plan has the three points joining each other, but as can be seen from the first photo the track will hit the corner of the factory. Moving the points away from the factory will clear the corner but leave a too short shunt in front of the sawmill. Instead the first and second points will be separated by a slight curve as seen in the second photo.

A too close fit



The narrow gauge railway and the creek both run under the tramway loop. No problem with the creek but the clearance for the steam locomotive is very tight with 1 mm between the the top of the funnel and the underside of the loop. This is too tight so something has to be done. Lowering the railway is not an option because of the risk of the creek flooding the line. Instead I will go for a thinner board under the tramway. Probably not quite right from an engineering perspective but it will not be visible once the sides of the future bridge are in place.

Hi Claus. You are making great progress there.

For the locomotive clearance problem, it reminded me of a friend who had a similar very tight clearance below tracks. Most of his locomotives just cleared under it, but one had a brass whistle on the cab roof, and for a long tome emerged from the underpass with sawdust on its roof. It eventually cleared its own path under the low point.

I'm not suggesting you do that, but what you could try is marking the path of the locomotives chimney underneath, then use a large-ish drill to create a half-circle clearance along that path, without the need to remove the track bed above. You would need to hold the drill fairly steady, and attack it from both sides, but that should give all the clearance you need.

[user=321]SRman[/user] wrote:

Hi Claus. You are making great progress there.

For the locomotive clearance problem, it reminded me of a friend who had a similar very tight clearance below tracks. Most of his locomotives just cleared under it, but one had a brass whistle on the cab roof, and for a long tome emerged from the underpass with sawdust on its roof. It eventually cleared its own path under the low point.

I'm not suggesting you do that, but what you could try is marking the path of the locomotives chimney underneath, then use a large-ish drill to create a half-circle clearance along that path, without the need to remove the track bed above. You would need to hold the drill fairly steady, and attack it from both sides, but that should give all the clearance you need.

Hi Jeff,

I like your idea with the drill, but it is not easy to do. The railway track is curved! The trackbed above isn't fastened yet and I will replace a segment with 3 mm mdf instead of 6 mm.

Being that close, the smoke can't get out………. :roll:

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

Being that close, the smoke can't get out………. :roll:

Blow-back through the firebox - could be dangerous!  :hmm

[user=321]SRman[/user] wrote:

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

Being that close, the smoke can't get out………. :roll:

Blow-back through the firebox - could be dangerous!  :hmm

I certainly can't risk a blow-back! 

I can increase the distance between the chimney and the bridge/viaduct to 4 mm. I could also minimise the width of the bridge. That would be a challenge to my track laying skills, but also add a nice 'obstacle' running the trams. Worth a thought  :hmm

A bridge over Wombat Creek

The narrow gauge railway will cross the Creek twice. The first bridge is a short skeleton bridge inspireed by drawings from Victorian Railways – Way and Works Branch. Thr bridge is situated close to the backdrop, which is a challenge. How to hide the fact the creek is coming straight out of the sky? Hopefully some well-placed treeferns will do the trick!

Updated track plan - again





The mining railway is slowly coming along but not without changes to the latest track plan The white circle represents a small turntable. The pit for the turntable is currently sitting on the shelf under the baseboard. It is a cap for a 90 mm storm-water drain. Also on the bench a trusted transformer given to me as a Christmas present in 1973. Plenty of power to run the railway. The yellow tramcar in the background is a sentimental anachronism being a typical Copenhagen tram. 

A day to remember in Wombat Creek

Part of  The Mining Railway is up and running! The control panel (version 2. Version 1 was relocated to the bin) is in place and wired to the tracks around the explosives factory, sawmill and goods shed.



The entire fleet of locomotives, carriages and wagons has tested the tracks without issues apart from some bad connections in a couple of the points. The turntable is still missing making shunting quite difficult.





The temporay buffer stop is to prevent the trains from doing a major drop to the floor!

Finding the right order – part 2

The bluestone retaining wall along the creek has been erected. Only the capping stones at the top are missing. The photo shows the purpose of a relative long wall. It sits along and hides the control panels.

Next step would be the second wall/pier supporting the bridge, but..

To get easy access to the dirt road along the creek, it better wait, but…

The dirt road will cross the railway on the other side, but…

The tracks will have to be put down before the road, but…

The tracks will cross the creek, so a small bridge has do be built first!

Complicated? Not really if you get the order right.


The above text is from a previous post. The bridge has been adapted from a drawing of Victorian Railways' 'Superstructure for Plated “I” Beam Bridge'. Not a huge project.

Extending the fleet

The chief engineer of the mining railway was advised a steam locomotive was up for auction. The description said 'used, but in running condition'. Until now the fleet of locomotives has consisted of a small 0-6-0T and a larger 0-6-2T. The smaller locomotive is fine for shunting around the main rail yard, but it will struggle with larger trains up to the mines. Therefore the chief engineer put a small offer in for a second 0-6-2T and to his surprise he won the auction. 

The locomotive has arrived. Put on the tracks it would not move an inch! An electrical connection had to be re-adjusted. Further work has to be done. The locomotive has a bad habit of stalling at the points. The photo shows the recent arrival between the two older locomotives.