G'day from Tasmania Australia


rodney mcgiveron

rodney mcgiveron

Member
G'day all. Thought it was time to join a fun and informative forum group ...that no doubt love Model Railways as much if not more than me if that's possible.. I live in a little former rail town St Marys (about 800 population, about 20kilometres (13 mi.) inland in Australia's smallest but second oldest State. We are an island about the same size as West Virginia apparrently..and are about 300 kms off the south east tip of the Australian mainland...Our state's population is about 550,000...
Our only rail company is Tasrail....but fights for business with several trucking companies... locomotives in the past have been English Electric, EMD, Alco's but at the moment $220 million dollars is being spent on new track upgrades , rolling stock and 17 nerw locos from EMD (USA) due to arrive later this year...Only freight trains except for several great scenic rail trips...no commuter services... I model mainly BNSF in HO scale and just commencing brand new room sized shelf layout soon to repace original table one...I switched to DCC 18 months ago and use ROCO and Dynamis equipment.. Have seven sound equipped locomotives and about fourteen DCC standard ones, mostly Santa Fe but also 2-3 UP and numerous DC of CSX, NS, Southern , CN etc....some DCC capable some not... LOVE American stuff....so diverse....buy mainly online ...cheaper and quicker. Our branch line closed in the mid 1980s Was famous for lots of small bridges across two rivers... My house is 130 years old and was a railway cottage built for the track workers in the early 1880's...My dad was the last track ganger to operate out of the town retiring in 1985..
I can't wait to get to know other forum members and to get some expert help as I go and maybe also offer some assistance myself later on...
Cheers to all Rod McGiveron...
 
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Welcome to the Forums, Rod. This is the best and the friendliest site available for model railroading. Check out http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine if you haven't already. It's a free online magazine that has good articles and lots of info on modeling. Feel free to ask and offer info, after all, it's the members that make a site interesting.
 
G'day Bob

G'day...Thanks for the welcome...much appreciated...the forum looks awesome and I will check out your link ....Is Burlington your location?
If so does that have a correlation to Burlington Northern rail and by definition to BNSF....when Burlington Northern linked up with Atchison Topeke and Santa Fe....or maybe not...I'm a massive fan from 20,000 kms of BNSF ...You do N Scale...You have my admiration sir, I tried it to start with but hard in Australia to get decent priced and good range compared to HO.... Thanks again Cheers to you Rod....
 
Rod, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, aka the CB&Q or the Burlington Route was one of the predecessors to the Burlington Northern. It was owned by the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railroads. Along with the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway they merged in March of 1970 to become the Burlington Northern. Later on the Frisco Railroad was brought into the mix.

I grew up along a CB&Q mainline that was later downgraded to about a five mile branch line after an abandonment of a section of the mainline in 1962. Sad days, indeed!

I am buying equipment to model the CB&Q from about 1960 to 1967. Awaiting the remodeling of what will become my train room. It'll be about 11x16 which should allow for a very nice run of trains. The wife just doesn't see the same urgency to get it done as I do, though.:D
 
A ha Bob

G'day Bob again,, Thanks for info on the predessesors to the BN...as you describe..Almost as much interest as Model Rail is the history , mergers , abandonments , of rail lines over the years...same here in Tasmania.
A good friend of mine has driven in every state in Australia throughout his career , recently retired actually but mostly in New South Wales and Queensland...Steve Jeffs...He has lots of videos posted on You Tube also from cab and other places by the way and has seen lines come but mostly get closed down and assimilated.. Different to the USA , not much privately owned rail companies...Either state government run , linked by Australian National (AN) on the mainland but the big mining companies such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton etc run own trains...some are 90,000 tons of ore and 7km long..In Tasmania TGR Tasmanian Government Railways was sold to Pacific National .. It deteriorated really badly by early 2000s that the state government bought it back..Almost literally unusable...derailment after derailment etc... A few years back they re-named it TASRAIL began restructuring , employed a General Manager who knew what to do and secured nearly a quarter of a billion bucks to replace below rails , rails sleepers (ties in USA) rolling stock , new signalling and coms, and 40 plus y.o. locomotives..It's working ...market share is up , contracts are coming and jobs are returning..timber cartage once again soon too.. Brand new freight terminus in Hobart (state capital)..It's about time...If you see Steve Jeffs vids , have a look...good to watch..Cheers to you Rod..
 
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Welcome Rod. L&N Castle here(aka William Latture). In addition to the BNSF Railway,you say have some NS,as well Santa Fe,right? I primarily try to model the Louisville& Nashville Railroad,as well The Southern Railway,a small bit of GM&O,MidSouth,The Frisco,a BNSF predecessor, Seaboard System/Family Lines,as well the old Seaboard Airline Railway. In fact at last count I have in my collection close to 61 locomotives:eek:. Anyway,if you have any questions,I'll try help out as much as I can. So,again sir Welcome aboard. William.
 
G'day William

G'day William,,,Thanks for the welcome and the comments... Yes I'm a huge fan of the ATSF...and now BNSF...railway...My first model was a Superchief warbonnet F7 with a dummy B Unit about five years ago in N Scale when I realised that buying rail modelling stuff online was actually affordable...I quickly switched to HO , got some Bachmann rail King stuff and have been hooked ever since (big time).. I'm now the owner of about 50 locomotives at least 30 of which are ATSF Santa Fe,, GP30s, GP40s, GP38s..my alltime favourite SD40-2s etc as well as a few Union Pacific , Norfolk Southern , Southern , CSX, and Canadian Nationals..Also have several GE Dash 8s , Dash 9s and recently sound equipped ES44 Acs..
No Sd70 Ace or Macs though ... really hard to get here in Australia..
Postage a killer from overseas..All these are BNSF swoosh paint schematics.. Also around 130 Rolling stock...including two sets of wellcars now....see...I'm hooked good and proper...Switched to Atlas flexitrack and turnouts recently too....Can you tell I love American rail?
Thanks for your info and I'll check out what you mentioned with great interest...Cheers to you....Rod from a land downunder..
 
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