Victoria Park, Variations on a theme

[S Class]

Ok, so let me start with the necessary potted history:
First layout was in 2008 on a door, more or less something to keep me busy over the summer between high school and university and to take my mind off a cheating hussy. Obviously I moved away from home and HCD layouts don’t go well in share housing so when I moved again I immediately started scoping the hall way in my house for a lightweight modular layout, not repeating the mistakes of the past, this eventually became known as Maryvale as has been mentioned on these pages.

This one would be different, by the time I started planning I was online and had found places like this that suggested that I go code 55 for its higher realism and I liked it. If there are two things that I hate in model railroad photography: it’s oversized code 80/100 track and puffball trees, I like to treat this hobby like art to cover up my lack of apparent talent in other artistic means, this probably explains why I’m never satisfied with anything I do, unless I join the cubism school.

But again another move and less space means that this layout has become more of a storage space than something I can work on, a change in track plan means I had to take it all up and partially rebuild it, I became disinterested, the #7 turnouts leave too much space for my liking between the tracks. The two biggest problems I’ve come to realise are this: I have a layout that is 3600mm x 450mm or in ‘Merhican 12’ x 18”, that’s a friggin big layout and I have about three tracks max in width, which means heap of scenery fill needs to be done, yeah ok for an urban layout but I’m modelling a branch line truncated terminus, in short it’s too big for what I need.

The second and major problem is the track, much as the Atlas stuff is good and I swear by it the amount of work just to get it down and set it becoming too much for me to deal with, gotta buy bullfrogs for the turnouts, gotta align everything flawlessly, solder this, solder that, expense, expense, expense with money I don’t have thanks to that fat ranga running this miserable country. Then came the other night as I made the photos for the update, built my first Australian wagon and put the microtrains trucks on (yeah I bet you can guess the next part) go to run my wagon up and down the Alemain diorama, buzzzzbuzzzzz buzz buzzzzz, pizza cutters, matronfornicating pizza cutters on C55, buy FVM wheels or wheelsets at the higher price, expense, expense.

I can’t win.

[S Class]

Ok so apologies for the major text hit but here comes the positive side to the story, as I filtered around one of my bible websites:
http://www.victorianrailways.net/
I came across the diagrams for much of the Victorian network, now out of boredom I’ve already done a HCD plan for future use based on the Maribyrnong nee Saltwater River line in Melbourne which I’ll post up later for your consideration. But more importantly while looking around the eastern suburbs I came back across a station called Victoria Park on what is now the Hurstbridge/South Morang line in Melbourne, back in its heyday the suburb was a real working class place and boasted a not insubstantial, but compact yard with heaps of compounds and parcels dock for the electrics:
http://www.victorianrailways.net/signaling/completedia/colldia.html

It’s all gone now and the area is full of yuppies.
In my despair, while buying scenic supplies for Alemain I had a chat with the guys at the LHS and they pointed me in the direction of Unitrack, now expecting it to be massively expensive and knowing the attitude towards it here I had trepidation, but the price was reasonable (bar turnouts at $40 a pop, bloody hell they better be able to cook!) and with the exception no compounds (double slips in yankee doodle) the range was good.

So onwards and upwards, a spare piece of wood has been sitting in my room since I used the other half to build a shelf for my desk, starting point for something small and experimental.
And on to the pics:


first attempt, lacks the important features, doesn't really allow for the separation of levels as at the real thing


second attempt, move the sidings around, gain a little more length on the tails, but it's not really anywhere near the proper layout of the real thing


On the fourth attempt, the third being more or less the same as the second I decided that maybe the smart thing would be to check my dimensions on the board, what I thought was 240 x 900 actually is 285x 900, oh goody more vertical space to play with, move the runaround to the lower level which with a subtle hight change gives a reason for the kickback off the main line.

and finally

Hot dog, we have a wiener.
Black lines are the running lines, the orange line will be on a slop, bar the left siding which was a dock at the station that will be shown to the left off layout, this then kicks back to the mauve track of the yard itself, an extra siding is in place and there is more room to add one or two more as money permits for turnouts. I doubt I'll get more than 1/2" of vertical transition but the real thing had a heavy grade in and out which helps justify the very short trains in and out.

So to do my tax return and start spending money, the limited wood work will commence soon enough.

[avel]

are you going to have removable staging on each side? 

[S Class]

Later on as I make my conclusions on Unitrack, I'll probably come to some standard and build more modules and a staging loop of some description.