The Eye Of The Beholder

I got back from the AMRA’s Liverpool (Sydney) exhibition this afternoon after driving for 900km over two days. Long gone are the days when I could do a 10 hour drive in one go. I spent Sunday night in a motel in Taree about 4 hours north of Sydney and decided that it was about time I dropped down and investigated the Taree industrial branch that runs across the north of town. I took a few minutes to drive to the other side of the abandoned rail line that runs to a diary siding and took a few photos of the derelict building and loading docks.

I had to duck through a hole in the fence to get to this spot a take a few photos. Only after this did I walk along the fence line and discover that the old gate that used to allow rail access was wide open. This type of rail industrial archaeology is just about my favourite part of the prototype aspect of the railways. I find it far more interesting than locomotives and rolling stock.

I’ve driven over the road over bridge that crosses this part of the rail line quite a few times, especially before the Taree bypass came into use, and have often looked down at this building. There are more buildings further down the line and driving down there I found an extensive collection of old, rail served industrial structures. Some of these buildings were signed as being a fishermans’ co-op and they sit down near the Manning river. I didn’t have time to photograph these buildings but I’m certainly going to go back and photograph and investigate further. I think one of the things I find frustrating about period photos of railway subjects is how little of this type of infrastructure made it into photos. I realise that the vast majority of railway photographers were first and foremost interested in the objects that ran on the rails and this is why most photos are filled with trains. However as a railway modeller I spend at least as much time on the buildings and many other objects that sat beside the line and all too often a decent view of a fascinating structure, especially one I wouldn’t mind modelling, has a dirty, great locomotive or a line of rolling stock in front of it blocking the view 🙂

This view shows the rest of the building looking north. The rails run along the fence, just in front of the camera. The gate to allow access to the dairy building is to the left and wagons would have been shunted back into the yard on the line that ran along the front of the building to the docks.

In spite of this side trip down a long abandoned NSWR branch line the reason I was travelling over the last few days was to attend the Liverpool exhibition. I always enjoy catching up with friends and giving the plastic a bit of a workout over the Oct long weekend. I spent some time on the Aus7 stand on Saturday working on an O-Aust CV wagon kit and the rest of my time seemed to be devoted to talking and shopping. I really should thank Chris for organising the stand this year and thank all those members who dropped in and did a stint. I should also mention that Arakoola received an exhibitors choice award and Model O-kits received an award for best commercial stand.These awards were well deserved and recognise all the hard work those responsible put into their exhibits.

A shot of Paul Chisholm making some running repairs to a model out the back of Arakoola. He must be enjoying himself because he’s smiling. Paul doubles up in his free time as the editor of the Aus7 magazine 7th Heaven.

The Aus7 stand was squeezed between these two stands but we didn’t win anything, that is if you don’t count signing up the GOG’s Australian representative for a years membership as a win 🙂

Just as I was about to hit the road I got into a deep discussion with a friend and long time member of the Aus7 Modellers Group. I’ll call him “Trendy” to disguise his identity. He’ll understand the reference. As is Trendy’s habit he tended to get into my ear about the state of O-scale modelling in NSW and he made some valid points about the somewhat small numbers of modellers who take up the scale and who attend the Forums we regularly hold at North Sydney Leagues Club twice a year. One of which is coming up in a couple of weeks.

A view down the “O-scale Arcade” with Model O kits in the foreground and Arakoola in the distance. The Aus7 stand was squeezed in between. “Squeezed” being the operative word, hey guys? 🙂

Now I share Trendy’s concern about the numbers in this scale and the relatively low attendance at our Forums. We would always want more people rather than less. However I had to dispute any conclusion that this meant O-scale was in some sort of crisis or decline. As we were having this discussion we were standing on pretty much the same spot that the photo above was taken from. I can remember the AMRA Liverpool exhibitions of the early 2000’s when there was virtually no SG, O-scale representation at all. As we were discussing the state of the scale we were standing in front of approximately 35m of O-scale “content” and this was certainly not the only part of the exhibition that was devoted to O. The Berg’s stand had a small O-scale layout at one end of there stand and of course there was also “mild-mannered” Pete Krause in his O-Aust “phone booth” having money thrown at him all weekend 🙂

O-scale may not attract a huge number of modellers to its ranks but I think it is now a “mainstream” scale. Let’s face it, it is still very expensive to take up modelling in this scale. However it remains an extremely attractive scale to work in and while it may not have “arrived”, it is going somewhere. I’m not sure where that “somewhere” might be, but then I’m too busy having a good time modelling to do too much worrying about it. Just like beauty, I suppose success and growth are all in the eye of the beholder.

Chris Lord and Kim Mihaly taking a short break to allow me to photogrpah them in front of the Aus7 stand.

Ideas

My partner and I had a long talk about the plans for our new home this afternoon: well to be entirely honest we talked about her plans for a house and my plans for a train room with some sort of dwelling attached. I’ve managed to convinced her that “yes, I really do need all that space”. Afterall, any ground not covered by building is just more lawn for her to mow! 🙂

I’ve been doing some thinking about a post on Trevor Marshall’s Port Rowan blog a couple of days ago where he talks about keeping a layout simple and achievable. I might have a couple of years up my sleeve before I need to start making decisions about the type of layout that will end up in my new train room but that doesn’t stop me putting some thought into the topic. Now I’m a fairly confirmed believer in the idea of keeping layouts simple and achievable, however I’m also willing to admit that I’m as subject to “visions of grandeur” as anyone else.

In planning the layout that would have been built in my current train room I had settled on a simple connecting line that would join up my two pre-existing portable layouts; Queens Wharf and Morpeth. I would like Trevor to believe that the main reason for choosing to keep it simple was his sage influence on my track planning but I’ve got to admit that this only really played a minor role. Just as Ray Pilgrim demonstrates in his blog Bylong, when mentions his daughter coming back to live with he and his wife with two ankle biters in tow, life can’t be planned. The primary reason I kept my layout plans simple had far more to do with my mother’s health than it did with any high-minded layout design ideals. I made the decision to get the room lined and painted a few months ago after many years of procrastinating and made a start on building the layout. I had made the assumption that I’d get a few years out of the layout room – surely enough time to get a few metres of rack laid and some trains running – until the two women in my life did things that surprised the hell out of me. A month ago I was making pleasing progress on my new layout but within the last two weeks my personal circumstances have done a 180 degree about-face and I’ve decided to sell my home. Normally I would refuse to say “such is life” (mainly because I’m no fan of Ned Kelly) but the problem is that occasionally it’s true! 🙂

So I face the prospect of a larger layout room: what am I going to do with it? Well perhaps it might pay to remember the name of this blog is Morpeth in O-scale. While 8.5mX5.5m might sound like a lot of space, in O-scale it’s really not that much acreage. It’s way too early to plan anything in detail but this space does offer me the possibility of one thing that I couldn’t fit into my previous space and that is a “tear-drop” peninsula down the centre of the room. This feature on its own would offer the possibility of trains actually going somewhere, as opposed to the present situation where the locomotive almost arrives in one yard before the brake-van has left the previous one. In spite of such a feature pushing the Morpeth line out of the “simple and achievable” category of layout design it is a very tempting prospect and quite high up the list of desirable inclusions.

Possibly the most appealing feature of being faced with more space is the possibility of two scenic features that I was struggling to cram into my current layout room’s plan. What I would have liked to get into the plan that would have been built, prior to the change of circumstances, was at least one large bridge. I won’t try to define what constitutes a large bridge because they are pretty much all large in this scale however I will say that I would like it to be bigger than a drainage culvert and smaller than the Sydney Harbour Bridge. A steel truss design has a certain appeal. The other feature I would really like to find space for is a substantial pier scene.

It may be that meat is being loaded (or unloaded) in this photo but if those boxes in the left foreground aren’t butter boxes (probably Norco) I’ll eat my hat.

There are a couple of photos of ships being unloaded (or loaded) at NSW ports that I have in a folder on my computer that inspire my ideas about what I’d like to achieve with the modelling of a pier scene. Even though the “Meat Loading Newcastle” photo above depicts a scene that in O would be well outside of my available space, I could do a small slice of this type of scene, afterall Morpeth was a port! The photo of Dalgety’s pier at Darling Harbour below is far too substantial to offer any real prospect of it being modelled however it is the detail and atmosphere that keeps drawing me back to this photo. Absolute waterfront magic!

I find this photo absolutely fascinating. The jumble of detail, the buildings and the ships are just crying out to be modelled.

Even at this stage I can foresee that I probably won’t be able to have both a central peninsula and a wharf/pier scene on my next layout + a substantial bridge. The choice of what to leave out is going to be excruciating 🙂

The Green Frog

You just gotta love something as ugly as this haven’t you?

The Mill At Morpeth

This photo shows a general view of the mill as it sat on the banks of the Hunter River at Morpeth.

Morpeth’s Second Station

This photo of the 2nd Morpeth station was taken shortly before the closure of the line.

The Rear View

In this photo you can see the rear of the weigh-bridge at Dunedoo and what I’m trying to reproduce in my model.

Prototype Inspiration

This photo shows the weigh-bridge at Dunedoo in all its high tech glory. The hut is not of the same type as the kit I’m building but that doesn’t matter. I took this photo in 2009. I’ve found that there is always something to see and photograph in visits to prototype locations.