Ravenser, Well if you have never built a whitemetal loco kit then help is at hand in the form of 3 DvD's. Tony Wright of BRM fame did 3 dvd's called the The Right Track. Two are on loco building anf one on painting and lining. The first two take you through the building of three kits a DJH BR/LNER A-2, a Southeastern Finecast GWR 61xx and an Alan Gibson LMS 4F. The first two are whitemetal and etched brass and the last all etched brass. They are very informative and if you follow Tony's instructions you should be able to build any of the kits with no problems.
Ohh go on be tempted
A NSW steam layout needn't take up much room and you could use the likes of 30class tender engines and 50 class engines and remember the 50 class model will navigate fairly tight curves due to it's blind center drivers a la the prototype. A few diesels are now available from Trainorama 44class in few guises, 47 class which has just been released, 49 class which is due in a month or so, 42 class maybe by christmas and best of all a steam loco. They are doing a 32 class which will have a cast metal boiler for weight and possibly a QSI sound system which should operate on DC or DCC. dEpending on the success of the 32 a 50 class is also planned.
Unfortunately Trainorama products are limited run, what isn't these days, so if not in the shop when they arrive you generally miss out. They like to do things by the preorder method which I must admit I hate with a passion. I generally only get things if I happen to be in Sydney and I'm heading in the direction of Toms
http://www.tomshobbies.com.au/ This is the link to the Trainorama website so I'm tempting you a litle further
Ozzie21
QUOTE (Ravenser @ 16 Feb 2007, 23:41)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Ozzie21:
Some very fine work there - and a lot of hard graft as well.
This is dangerous stuff . I'm starting to get tempted. No space whatsover for a NSW layout (I've got a couple of things on the go already) and living in a flat AD60s, D57s and the like are going to be perminently out of reach
However I did manage a couple trips of over the Main Western as far as Lithgow (mainly in a V set double deck interurban I'm afraid, and one of those is a bit more than I can contemplate scratchbuilding , especially without anything in the way of drawings etc ).
The non-air hoppers look rather nice . The thought of a layout featuring a few strings of these being exchanged by D50 s and RODs amidst low green hills is appealing - though I haven't tackled a full whitemetal loco kit with chassis , so this is out of my league again (A whitemetal kit ROD in OO would be a big challenge for me - and an HO version would need to be scratchbuilt)
The brake van is another matter .
Descending to earth with a terrible bump, Hornby have announced a reissue of the ex Lima NSWGR 422 class , which it might well be possible to source in the UK . What drive is inside and whether it will pull the skin off a rice pudden is open to question - the replacement motor bogie in the ex Lima cl 59 is apparently not man enough for a large loco , and I have a dreadful suspicion the same unit may be going in the 422 class
But the thought of trying to gather a few bits of stock for a minor branch terminus one day maybe , perhaps on the edge of the Blue Mountains with a railmotor and a diesel for some freight (I know the 422 class were main line locos but...)
At which point a bogie brake becomes an essential item. UInforunately my detailed knowledge of NSWGR stock runs out around this point - is the Trainorama brake still available , and is it even vaguely appropriate for 70s- 80s minor operations?
Relocating the whole concept to the Hunter Valley would at least save making an awful lot of gum trees and rockfaces
