Do you model the transition?


Very nice...I don't mind the trestle either ...Just lovely work all round . A few weeks ago while I was attending (probably for the 1,000th time) our local museum I met a chap called Simon who was best friends with the owner and curator of Cranks and Tinkerers . This man happened to be a master scratch build railway modeler who has exhibited all over Australia and won many awards . Ian Summers , the curator is also a fantastic modeler on mostly ships and aircraft. None of Simon's stuff is kit . Everything including the locomotive shells are hand made . One of his more recent depictions is of our local branch line just as the transition period was happening . He chose to model the very early diesels this time from the very early 1950's. This snippet is of this layout at the Launceston annual Train Show from 2017 I think . The featured loco is a Y Class that followed on from the original transition X Class . They were about 800 hp from memory .At least one of TASRAIL's cement train loco's is a Y Class (Y7) called DV 1 still working to this day at the Devonport Yard. The locomotives were built here in Tasmania and the Railway Workshops in Launceston did major maintenance on both the steam and diesels that were jointly used well into the 1960's. I thought you might enjoy an accurate rendition our transition and early post transition diesels in this clip although you might need to click on the underscored "Watch this on You Tube" link that appears after the 'video unavailable' message once you click on the arrow on the clip itself . That works alright to still view it that way.

...and in the 1960's about a decade later these dear old H2's were still running the cement trains too ....
...Cheers Rod..
 
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Mark, read your opening post, and the question is, is the transition era the most popular era to model? I just don't know! What I do model though is the transition era! My favorite engine is the GM FT demonstrator #103. My next favorite will be the Athearn demonstrator A-B set 1950 when it comes out and it's in my hot little hands! I like the style of the covered wagons. A style you just don't see today! You can guess what railroad I model,(hint hint, look to the left,) I have several FT & F7 A-B sets with several GP 7's GP 9's & Alco RS 1's & 2's, (throw in a demonstrator GP7 in there,) and no steam! I just don't care for steam. I have 1, two truck Heisler for my logging railroad and that's it for steam. Also, you will not find a passenger car on my layout because I don't own one. Passenger operations don't do a thing for me. I like the trans. era vs modern for the smaller cars and the details they have like roof walks. I like cabeese! I don't care for vandals! There are some talented people out there, too bad it shows up on the side of a freight car! But hey, things change, I didn't know that I liked switching ops until I got my layout powered up and did some switching in the yard, and now I want to expand my yard for more switching. So, maybe later on I might at least do steam, I doubt I'll do the modern era...…….
 
Rod, I'm a sailor, also and in fact the reason I don't do much model RR in the summer is because I am busy sailing. Anyway, some sailing friends of mine chartered a sailboat in New Zealand a couple years ago. While there, one of my friends happened on a book of Bagnall Locomotives which he bought for me. Do you there in Tasmania have any recollection of Bagnall Locomotives? They built both Steam and Diesel locos and I think mostly if not all are Narrow Gauge. Bagnall was a manufacturer in Great Britain and shipped their products overseas. Rod, great Videos!!

Thanks for the kind words on my Steamers and Trestle.
 
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Jerry, My favorite diesels are covered wagons, also! My guess is that you model the Great Northern.
 
Mark , This is a bit more of our history via Wikipedia but I reckon that Bagnells sure does have a link with us because they ended up as English Electric and a large part of our fleet were EE's for a long time . Matter of fact they were great workhorses for decades . A famous steam loco that we had here were the Garrett. They were our heavy haulers . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Government_Railways ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Standard_Garratt ....These were running in the transition era into the very late 1950's like this preserved one and during transition times . We had a nice few of them at one time ....
.....Cheers Rod...
 
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G'day Mark and all... Back directly on topic ...Re Modeling the Transition Era ...Eureka Models (Australian model manufacturer) did make a model of the Beyer -Garratt locomotive . The 60 series I think . Look at this for a machine ..Maybe more Aussie or Brit manufacturers make them too . I didn't look yet . This is a NSW Railways ,one of our State Government owned rail services.. running on a U.S. layout for evaluation apparently hence the different scenery . Eureka Models is one of several model manufacturers that make items for those wanting to model our rail history . Modeling Aussie stuff can be a bit more expensive though , I guess because it wouldn't be big volume sales.
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Here's a review and look at this sort of stuff and a short vid at the bottom of the page of a QR (Queensland Rail) AD 60 on a trip in 1995.. Our Big Boy for sure..just not as well known .

http://www.rcgrabbag.com/archives/eureka-models-ad60-beyer-garratt . ... Cheers Rod.
 
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The AD60 looks wickedly cool. Did the cabless leader share the steam from the main boiler? I haven't found any decent side photos of the thing.
 
The AD60 looks wickedly cool. Did the cabless leader share the steam from the main boiler? I haven't found any decent side photos of the thing.
G'day Patrick..I'm not totally up on the running and engineering aspects of this ol' girl but I imagine it would . Here's a little bit I found on 6029...she's our 4014 I suppose...Fully restored by 2015 and does trips like 844 , 4449, 3985 used to and 4014 will be soon ...and others of course . If I read it right the last run was in 1972 on 6029 but later restored obviously now . .

Here's a little more info on 6029 .... https://www.steamfest.com.au/trains/locomotive-6029/ .Built in 1954. The first 6000's built in 1952.
and here's more general Garratt info from good old Wikipedia on the AD60's

.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_AD60_class_locomotive ..This might shed more light on the design aspects for you too..

The Australian Government ordered Garratt locomotives for the war effort..I'm glad model manufacturers have modeled it too because it ran well and was even built into the transition period . By the way the Garratts had several different locomotives and ran back to 1906 I think here in Tasmania .
 
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The AD60 looks wickedly cool. Did the cabless leader share the steam from the main boiler? I haven't found any decent side photos of the thi
The front unit carries the water to supply the boiler, the rear, is the fuel tender. Steam is carried via insulated piping (probably Asbestos cloth originally) to the cylinders. Some had a 3rd cylinder set in the middle, which complicated things a bit (a lot). New Zealand had a number of them as well, but that complication (a result of the British company thinking it knew better than the Kiwi Railways engineers, who only wanted the outside ones) was the reason they were all converted to conventional locos ("G" class). This was not the first time the Brits had done this. It was also the reason that NZ bought several Rogers 2-4-2 locos to replace the engines they shipped out which were 10 tons over the specified maximum weight for any of the bridges on the main line. They all were shipped back again for rectification.
A video (bit grainy) of the first two Rogers NZR "K" class (restored, a story in itself). I believe there may now be a 3rd. The video continues on to excerpts from a trip in NZ's north island, featuring 2 of the 1930's "Ka" class locos.
 
Cool vid Toot.... Got to be happy to see some of the old boilers and I mean that with affection on the rails and in keeping with this topic it's good to know crowds like Eureka Models did make versions for us modelers if we chose or could afford to buy .
 
I was just looking for Flat Cars at ModelTrainStuff. I would like a couple to put lumber loads on. Of course I would like Kits (because I love to build freight car kits) and I don't want them to cost an arm & leg. Kits for transition era flat cars are non-existent, excepting Central Valley Model Works which are Northern Pacific MOW cars, I could find nothing in 50-60 foot Flat Car Kits! There are a few Transition Era Flat Cars in Ready to Run and Expensive. Even on Ebay, as of today, the choices where pretty limited! Accurail doesn't make flat cars and it appears that Atlas Trainmen Flat Car Kits are out of production! It appears you can get anything you want, as long as it's Ready to Run! Sorta like the Model T, you could get it in any color you wanted as long as it was "Black"!
 



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