CoastalRev's Jamberoo Railway in N Scale

When 'starting out' in N-scale some 12 months ago, I already owned one piece of N-scale equipment, albeit 1:150 rather than 1:160: the Ibertren 'World Series' Alco, painted locally by someone as 4421. I bought it second hand years ago on the off chance I might some day become an N-scaler and it was a 'grab it when you can' type of deal. I think in the mid 1990s it cost me about $119. I also had a second-hand N-scale US-outline Minitrix caboose... I had dabbled in HOn2 1/2 many moons ago and its chassis was to have been the basis of something for the narrow gauge.

I was aware from my days working part-time at Northside Model Railways in West Pennnat Hills (for the late Darrel Nelson) that N-scale US-outline boxcars were very cheap... so I went onto eBay and bought a few... I think I have about 15 or so now! I've also got two end-platform ('observation platform' carriages from the US and a set of Great Northern 'streamliner' carriages, plus a minitrix set bought off ebay.

So I planned that as soon as I got some of my aussie rollingstock converted to MT couplings, some of this stuff would follow.

So as of today: 10 boxcars using microtrains 1031s plus my 70-class (on the minitrix 0-6-0 diesel shunter chassis) now has microtrains couplings too.



I had a bit of fun shunting my growing micro-trains fleet with the 70 and the 45, before running several special trains to clear the layout:

1. 4520 took several boxcars plus the 3 MT-equipped K wagons + my COR tank wagon to Dunmore
2. 70xx took the remainder of the boxcars.
3. Thomas (now my only decent Rapido-equipped runner!) came and collected the Peco 4-wheel milk tanker and the 3 Rapido-equipped K wagons.

This was so I could build some hills to make the village of Jamberoo more, um, village like.



Despite Jamberoo being on the valley floor - and at the edge of the upstream end of the floodplain, our beloved little village is quite hilly: The main street only ranges from between 25 and 29 metres above sea level - that's not hilly. (The floodplain ranges is about 10-20 metres above sea level). But the highest point of Macquarie St, two streets back from Allowrie, is 60 metres above sea level.



So armed with the calculations of the heights of the various parts of Jamberoo (thanks to google earth!), we cut up some soft foam rubber using our 'spare' electric kitchen knife - a wedding gift I've rescued from being 'donated' to others many times!

This method is one I've never heard of before, but we had heaps of the foam lying around courtesy of a mattress that was 'trimmed' to fit in my daughter's half-size single bed. Once we have a basic form we shall papier mache the landscape.

The pictures show that the heights seem exaggerated; at one level they are: their vertical plane is to scale, but the horizontal plane is compressed. I got this idea on Saturday while sitting in a car on Tate Place (long story; has to do with my job as a minister!). Basically, from the northern end of Tate Place, looking south, one can see the houses in the part of Jamberoo represented by our model railway and they look 'compressed' and almost on top of one another... as they ascend the hill, there is a visual effect that they are closer to each other than they are.

And so we have deliberately compressed the horizontal while maintaining the vertical.



There is much more work to be done yet - but as the State Government says, "still a long way to go but we're heading in the right direction". Unlike the State Government, I expect to deliver.

Labels: micro_trains, progress, rolling_stock, scenery