The year is 1963 somewhere in Victoria, Australia

  

Nice bandstand Claus.

Are you going to have a band playing in there ?

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

Nice bandstand Claus.

Are you going to have a band playing in there ?

Maybe on Australia Day 😉

Diesel locomotive 56 and Scrubber no. 1

Most tramways will have scrubber cars and Wombat Creek Tramways is no different. 'Real' tramways will convert old trams into scrubber cars but Wombat Creek has no surplus of old cars, so I came up with another solution – a diesel locomotive and a tank wagon. I know it is not a solution, you will find at an Australian tramway, but it will serve the purpose here in Wombat Creek. The tracks will be cleared of dust!

      The tanker is an old Jouef track cleaner. The decals on both the locomotive and scrubber are home-made and printed on an ink-jet printer. The first attempt didn't do too good. I chose to print without a background colour (transparent) which made the decals very visible. The second attempt with a blue background is far better but not perfect. The colours could have been a bit brighter, but perhaps they have faded in the Aussie sun! Another 'issue' was the white print in 'Scrubber no. 1'. Of course 'white' on a printer is 'no ink', so it turned up transparent. Well, that was sorted with white paint before the decals were attached.

Christmas in Wombat Creek
 
 Everybody in Wombat Creek is busy getting ready for Christmas, but the council workers have managed to plant some mature bottle-brushes along the back of the Memorial Park.


 
 A closer inspection reveals the shrubs are made from sisal rope, brown paint and Woodland Scenics foliage and flowers.
 
 On behalf of all the people – young and old – in Wombat Creek: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And the same to you too Claus - hope you have a great Christmas and that 2020 is kind to you.

Oh yes, nearly forgot - the bottle brushes look great - nice idea using the sisal.
 

Looks great. I love the band stand, can imagine a brass band playing there. 
Chris

The Wombat Creek Tramways' controller

I haven't done a proper drawing of the lay-out, as it stands at the moment. Since all tracks are down there is no real purpose for a drawing, so I'll give you a photo of the control panel instead.



Obviously the black lines are the tracks. The reason for three tracks going right to the left edge is the tramways will eventually be extended depending on time and room. The necessary points and crossing are in storage.
The red push buttons control the points. Three points are still not connected and one points is unfortunately very unsteady.
The black push buttons control the power to the tram-stops. The tracks are under constant power and the trams will come to a stop, unless the black buttons are activated.
The slide switches are normally on, but they make it possible to stop a tram between stops.

Thought is worse than reality

Around six months a finished the two fibrohouses. Well, almost finished the green one. The roof over the entrance didn't get its supports,which are set on angles. I considered that to bee too 'tricky', so the project ended up in the 'too-hard-basket'. But the fact is – thought is worse than reality.

Over the summer holidays I have done quite a bit around Wombat Creek and couldn't no longer avoid the green fibrohouse. And of course – the job was done in about 30 minutes. A length of balsa wood, six pieces of green stem wire, super-glue and some Woodland Scenic for the flowers did the trick. It is a little difficult to photograph the house in situ, but I think it came out all right.

Garden news from Wombat Creek

During summer holidays quite a bit of work was done on the lay-out of Wombat Creek. Most of the 'projects' still needs the finishing touch, but the photo shows one being almost finished.



The garden around the blue fibro house deliberately looks somewhat un-kept because the family has other interests. The newest addition to the garden are the two tall gum-trees. They are made from florist wire, 'no-more-gaps' filler, some paint and Woodland Scenic material. They came up all-right even though the canopy is a bit wide. The cubby house is made from gum-tree bark and a piece of corrugated iron (plastic). The bark has the right texture and colour, so no weathering was needed. The rope ladder hanging from the cubby house is a very thin slice of corflute panel. A dive into my wife's sewing supplies gave me the materials for the hammock. To finish the scene I only need to find a person for the hammock and a child to climb up the ladder.

Ray Knott's Joinery getting ready for business

Life in Wombat Creek is going on nice and quiet. Not of new-build for the time being. Only to more 'major' structures are planned – a water tower behind the old tram shed and probably Leaky's plumbing will get a building on a vacant spot next to the Mug Punter Hotel.

Ray Knott's Joinery is housed in a building which once was part of the Brewery. The building resembles the Brewery building. In fact the walls and windows are left-overs from the Heljan brewery kit. A wood storage (partly visible in the centre of the photo) is made from  balsa wood and a small piece of corrugated iron (well, corrugated plastic). The wood on the top is small strips of balsa. The hardwood at the lower shelf is strips of bark from a gumtree.

The parking lot is a bit uneven because of tree roots (read 'bad glueing') and appears worse on the photos than in real life.

The second photo shows more of the area near the tram shed. Concrete still needs to be poured between the rails, and the lamppost should be adjusted to a more vertical position. I will give the council workers a call!

The Water Tower Erected

The water tower next to the tram barn in Elwood was a prominent feature. It is somewhat unusual with a water tower at an electric tramway, but a fire in 1907 destroyed the barn and the entire fleet. Perhaps the water tower was later installed in case a new fire should break out. Anyway – Wombat Creek Tramways now have their own water tower. The first photo shows the tower under construction. The tower itself is made from wooden I-beams from 'North-eastern Scale Lumber Co.' The beams come in 11'' lengths and are easily cut with a sharp knife. The base for the water tank is a square of balsa wood. The tank consists of two caps from juice containers. The black top is another left-over from the Heljan Brewery kit.



After additional details like reinforcements at the joints, water pipes and a ladder the towers is painted 'metal grey' before the water tank is added. Like the water tower in Elwood the tank is clad in an advert for Peters Ice cream.



The third photo shows the view from the front of the tram barn. Road numbers have been added to the barn and 'speed restriction' (5 mph) is in place at the entrance. A while ago I ask for help regarding road signs from the 1960's. Trevor (Xford) was the man to help me out. He dug out his old book of 1970 Road Rules and emailed me copies of the relevant pages. Thank you very much, Trevor. More signs will be put up in the near future.

That's looking great Claus.  :thumbs

I love the water tower - very "American" and, as far as I'm aware, such a structure didn't exist in UK but it really does look the part there.

I am slightly surprised there's a water tower at a tramway depot - water and electricity don't make good bed-fellows ……………. :roll:

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

That's looking great Claus.  :thumbs

I love the water tower - very "American" and, as far as I'm aware, such a structure didn't exist in UK but it really does look the part there.

I am slightly surprised there's a water tower at a tramway depot - water and electricity don't make good bed-fellows ……………. :roll:

 Thank you very. I was inspired by a few photos. This is the link to one from the Public Record Office Victoria:

https://prov.vic.gov.au/search_journey/select?keywords=rs/0820

Horse stables for the Racecourse
  Being on school holidays usually means at least a few days of travelling but not this year. Thanks to COVID-19 I am confined to the house and garden. Which of course gives me time to read books, to mow the lawn, to repot a lot of plants etc. Fortunately I also have time to work on Wombat Creek Tramways. A few minor tasks have been accomplished. Among them some constructions at the Racecourse.

An odd-shaped, walled-in area between the entrance to the Racecourse and Racecourse Road has been a bit of ‘problem’. From the street-side it looks fine but sitting at the edge of the lay-out the area itself needed some attention. The solution was the construction of a few stables for the racehorses.  

The stables are made from cardboard with corrugated roofing from leftover plastic card. The horses come from my childhood train layout, so they will be around 45 years old. Probably too old for racing. To give them a bit of shade during the hot summer months a cheap tree has been planted after being improved with extra foliage and colouring to reduce the bright green.

 

The little scenes like that make a railway/tramway Claus.

Woody's is open for business
 Woody’s timberyard has been completed for quite some time – except for the crane used to haul in and out large pieces of timber. The timberyard sits right at the back of the layout, so the buildings are only a couple of centimetres deep.

  The figures on the fence come from a similar fence around a timberyard in the Danish town of Svendborg. I am not sure it is still around. I caught the image from Google Streetview and put it through Photoshop. In real life the board was a real piece of wood, but being at the back of the layout I decided a ‘flat’ print will do (The 3 foot rule?).

My third project during my stay-at-home holidays dealt – like the horse stables – with an odd shaped area. This time it is next to the ‘Mug Punter Hotel’. I often search the internet for images I can use as inspiration for future buildings. I came across a few photos of a South Australian blacksmith shop advertising horseshoeing. They gave me the idea to construct this small building. Due to the size of the spot the proportions of the building is much smaller the original, but the features are pretty much right.  

  The corrugated iron cladding is vertical on the front and back, but horizontal on the sides. One of out-buildings to the side is with stonewalls re-enforced with steel beams. The very vigorous plant near the front is also found at the original building. I haven’t worked out how to write/paint ‘Blacksmith’ and ‘Horseshoeing’ on the corrugated front, so I may end up with a sign above the door. Another challenge is the interior. The building was design to have the front towards the street and you wouldn’t be able to see inside, but it works better being turned 90 degrees.

  The fence looks a bit worn down, but what else would you expect after the business was taken over by ‘Oscar Leaky’s Plumbing Service’! Oscar is so slack he hasn’t bothered to put up his business sign. To be true the signage is delayed because of COVID-19. I get my signs etc. printed at Officeworks on high-quality paper, but I don’t think a trip to Officeworks will qualify as ‘essential travel’.

Claus,  
If you have a colour printer, you can get sticky label paper in A4 size with 1 Peel off strip.  The trick is to build up enough signs to put onto one sheet to run it through the printer!  That would only involve 1 trip to Office Jerks to get a pack of about 20 sheets for around $12.20 - just checked the website

https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/quirkii-a4-adhesive-paper-20-pack-aumsa420p

I used this stuff to make the building sides shown on

http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=9679&forum_id=14

and fill in the spaces with other signs or loco number boards, 

Hope this helps

Regards

Trevor 

[user=374]xdford[/user] wrote:

Claus,  
If you have a colour printer, you can get sticky label paper in A4 size with 1 Peel off strip.  The trick is to build up enough signs to put onto one sheet to run it through the printer!  That would only involve 1 trip to Office Jerks to get a pack of about 20 sheets for around $12.20 - just checked the website

https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/quirkii-a4-adhesive-paper-20-pack-aumsa420p

I used this stuff to make the building sides shown on

http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=9679&forum_id=14

and fill in the spaces with other signs or loco number boards, 

Hope this helps

Regards

Trevor 

Hi Trevor

Thank you very much for your reply. I have some self-adhesive  transparent sheets, I can put through my printer. It works quite well. I have used them for my 'scrubber car'. The challenge will be the corrugated surfaces of the building. How to get the sticker to follow the actual surface so it looks like it is painted directly on the walls and not stuck on. I will test it out and let you all know, how it goes.