Free-mo NZ120

On Earthquakes...

2011-03-07T08:59:00.002+13:00

Shit happens, in this case a couple of major earthquakes in Christchurch. Work and personal life has been hectic, not to mention stressful. At the same time my career is moving ahead quickly and I find myself with lots of new exciting work to be doing (including a new book to write over the next year). As a result I have achieved next to nothing in the last six months after intending to get back into the rail modelling late last year.

The good news is that the modules survived unscathed through the quakes even though a lot of other stuff at my place did not. I guess the legs were sturdy enough after all! I hope to pick the modelling up later on in the year after things have calmed down a bit, and I have lots of plans percolating away in the my brain. See you sometime in the future.

Grant

New and Improved Grass

2010-11-14T10:34:00.000+13:00

I've started working on the modules again, and below you can see some pictures of my progress. The most significant thing I did was to add some additional colour to the grass. When I originally applied the static grass I only used one colour. This made the grass look quite uniform and unrealistic, and I wasn't really happy with it. My solution was to use the airbrush to add in various shades of brown and green, and I think it quite successfully adds depth and realism to the grass. The real impression isn't quite captured in these photos (I need a better camera!) but you get the idea. I think I'll use this technique next time too.

The other work I've done is to weather the buildings a little. I used an oil wash, some Tamiya rust coloured weathering powder, and a silver pencil to highlight some of the details. I also added in some rather randomly placed signals from the Trackgang range that I bought from Russell at the Convention and painted up. I'm sure the rivet counters will take me to task on the placement, but I think they do the job of adding a bit of necessary detail to the scenes.

What's next? I'm almost done with these three modules, so over my Christmas leave I'm going to start on the bench work for the next set of modules. I'm hoping to build another five sections and get this to the stage where I can run some trains, and then tackle the scenery.

Time to get this hobby started again...

2010-09-18T19:28:00.001+12:00

Winter is more or less over, I'll be much less busy with work soon, so it seems like it's time to dust off the modelling gear again. I'm going to start by doing the final detailing on the first three modules, and then in about a month's time I'm starting the next modules. Hopefully, by the end of the summer I will have a complete loop so I can run some trains!

By the way, the modules survived the recent Christchurch Earthquake without any damage (though the same can't be said of my nerves).

Keep an eye on this blog for the continuing tales of my excursion into modelling New Zealand rail in Freemo NZ120!

Building a bridge

2010-05-05T14:51:00.002+12:00

Next up was building the bridge across the river. I thought that the most successful part of my previous layout was the river scene, so I wanted to duplicate something of that here. The river bed had been lined with lightweight hydrocal and painted, and the surrounding area had been given a little scenic treatment. The rail itself runs across the piece of thin mdf that was used to make the roadbed, and this would also act as part of the bridge structure. The prototype for the bridge was based (very loosely) on a number of bridges I've scene around the South Island, and I worked off several pictures I discovered on the net.

I was going to build the bridge out of dowel and strip wood, so there was another trip to the local hobby shop, who were getting to know me pretty well at this point. First up, I used some blocks of wood to make some concrete abutments for the ends of the span to sit on. This was then painted a vaguely concrete colour and weathered.

I then cut some rectangular strip wood into the parts of the bridge that would attach the pilings to the bridge span. (Obviously I know next to nothing about bridges, these bits probably have proper names!) Having glued these in place, I cut the dowel to the appropriate lengths, and more super glue was used to fix these to the structure, leaving me with the following:

Realistically, I think the dowel I used could have been a size thinner to give the bridge a more scale appearance.

I then cut up some sections of rail from the Peco track I had left over, and used these as diagonal braces for the bridge piers, which were also glued in place. Next, the whole thing was airbrushed a dark brown, which was probably the wrong colour on reflection; I think a sort of silvery brown/grey would have been more representative of aged wood. Let's just pretend that someone decided to paint this particular bridge!

As this stage the river bed was also painted a greenish grey. Once this was dry, I applied a liberal amount of PVA to the river banks, and sprinkled over this some course grade Woodland Scenics grey talus, which I think gives a nice impression of the rocks that can be seen in any number of South Island rivers. Around this I sprinkled pretty much an entire packet of finer grade talus, and then soaked this with scenic cement to fix it all in place. This was then left to dry, which took about a day.

Being a nice sunny Boxing Day when I was building this (accompanied by one or two festive beers) I took the whole module outside for some pictures.

I'm pretty happy with what I achieved with the bridge. All that remained at this point was to pour the water and add in some shrubbery and detail to the river bed, which I will cover in a future post.

Next time: experimenting with grass.

Scenery, part 2

2010-04-25T17:19:00.002+12:00

Back to the build updates! In my last build post, I got to the stage where the modules had been plastered. The next stage of the build was to seal this with a coat of paint. I chose a light brown colour, because, basically, I had a can of this left over form the last layout. It could have been darker, but for what I had planned it would do the job, as very little if any of the paint would eventually be seen.

This was also an opportune time to test the track again, and make some adjustments, so I got to have a little play with a locomotive. the modules were still running fine!

With my trusty airbrush, I next painted all of the trackwork a dark brown colour. Some layout I've seen go for rust coloured rails, but though this might be suitable for some areas, in general the rails around here appear a dull dark brown colour. (I've looked!) I didn't bother to mask the points at all, as it did not seem necessary.

Once this was dry, I decided to make the rock cutting for the river module. After masking the track to keep it clean, I mixed up some light weight hydrocal in a bowl, and applied this liberally to both sides of the cutting. Previously I have tried using Woodland Scenics Foam Putty for making rock faces, but I think that hydrocal does the job just as well. It's also a little more robust than the foam putty, which tends to soften when you paint it.

Leaving this to dry for a couple of days, I took to it with a craft knife to carve out the rock surface. I still need a lot of practice at this, but I'm fairly happy with the result. I'm sure I'll get more practice at this on the next modules I have planned.

Next, this was painted with some very diluted water based paints. I used a light brown, ochre, and finally a black stain in patches to give it a varied and natural look.

By this stage it was time to start thinking about grass and ground cover for the modules. Previously I had just used Woodland Scenic scatter of various shades, but this time I was keen to try out static grass, as I had recently seen a method of building an applicator on YouTube involving an electric fly swat. However, I decided to give the modules a base of scatter, and to apply the static grass over this to allow for a little variation in the appearance of the grass. So using three shades of Woodland Scenic ground foam, and plenty of PVA, I began to apply the grass, starting on the river module, leaving me with this:

It's amazing how the layout begins to spring to life when you get to this stage! Exciting!

Next time: building the bridge.

Winter approaches...

2010-04-18T14:49:00.000+12:00

Unfortunately, I haven't done any rail modelling since the convention. Last week I did set the modules up in the spare room, which is probably where they will stay over Winter. I've worked out that rearranged, there is just enough room in the spare room for an end to end "U" arrangement once I get some corner modules built. Realistically I'm probably not going to get much modelling done in the next couple of months given the busy time it is at work, so I'm probably going to take a break from trains for a couple of months. I'm also saving up for the next batch of modules, which I will probably begin in the second half of the year. Here's a few pics of the modules as they are now.

I will continue to update my build posts, with another one of these on the way shortly.

Convention 2010 part 2

2010-04-03T21:02:00.003+13:00

A little more from the convention. I wasn't able to attend for the entire day today, with work commitments and so forth, but I managed to spend a few hours over there. I has a couple more good discussion about the scale, and was able to catch up with Greg (Weeduggie) about the developments he is making. Russell from Trackgang also showed me the method for installing the new bearings he is including with his kits, and these give a very obvious improvement in performance.

Here are a couple more pictures, first one of Russell and his Trackgang table, and second of the excellent Kai Iwi Tunnel layout adjacent to our setup:

The convention has also been the prompt for a little thought on my part, so the following is an account of some of my recent cogitations.

First off, my big disappointment at the convention is not being able to run the layout because of its partially completed state. Of course this can't be helped given that I've only been building the thing for five months, but it has fueled my enthusiasm for finishing enough modules to form a loop to make running practicable.

At the least, this means five further sections, but ideally another seven, with four sections for the end pieces, and three for the other side of the loop. I've already got a number of ideas for what to put on the other sections scenic-wise, but I think I have decided to concentrate in the next six months on getting the framework built and track laid so to have a functioning layout. Then I can move on to the scenic work. I'll spend a bit of time soon calculating the amount of timber I'll need for the other sections (obviously it will be something like twice the amount that went into the current three sections). Hopefully I can get the materials and make a start on building these in the next couple of months.

Second, I've had a few thoughts about the scope of the scale for modelling. Looking around at the quality of the other modular layouts on display at the convention, I think our stuff compares very nicely, and it strikes me that our scale has a number of advantages, most obviously in terms of what can be put into a given space. Even though in comparison our scale looks quite dinky, I don't think you need to compromise in term of the level of detail you can put in NZ120.

There is occasionally talk about NZ120 being a "two foot scale" in that it's sufficient that it looks good from this distance and gives a good general impression. I'm not sure I agree with this, and in fact I think it sells the scale short in that there is plenty of potential to build detailed models that bear very close scrutiny. One of the most impressive things I've seen at the scale are Weeduggie's brass etches for various small locos. These look excellent, and I think that once they are built up and detailed, that they will build into very nice and detailed models.

We train modelers could improve the finishing we give our models. Even looking at some of the competition entries at the convention, I was struck by how the standard of much of the painting was not very good, and this really let down some otherwise fine models. We have a lot to learn from the painting and weathering techniques used in aircraft kitset modelling, I think. Some rail modelers seem very slow to adopt airbrushes for example, even though these provide vastly improved finishes over brush painting. Perhaps taking our scale to the next level should not merely be a matter of refining prototypical accuracy and the scale standards, but in refining the aesthetics of our models?

Convention 2010

2010-04-02T21:23:00.005+13:00

I've been attending the Convention all day, so I thought I would update and share some pics. I've met a bunch of people that I've only known from online, and for the most part they haven't been completely insane. (Being a model railway convention, I have met a couple of those people today however!)

Graham (Greytrainz) called me late on Wednesday night suggesting that we take my modules to represent NZ120 at the convention. I accepted his generous offer, and so I took Thursday off work to put some last minute detail on the modules and get them presentable. Graham turned up at about five that evening, and we took them over to the venue and set them up (helped by Jolon and Russell).

I spent most of today hanging around by the modules and chatting with other modelers. Most had good things to say, and it was nice to get some feedback. We had some of Jolon's and Graham's models set up on the modules, and it looked a pretty good display. Jolon had one of John Rappard's old Abs on display, which is a very nice model.

Graham's work on styrene etched buildings is pretty impressive by the way, I'm looking forward to getting hold of some of these.

Russell from Trackgang was there with his range, and impressive it is too. I'm looking forward to building more of the stuff. Especially impressed by some of his loco builds. I'm tempted to build a Dg after seeing what he has managed with the kit! Today he managed to sell me some premade signals, which will be going on the modules.

Tonight's SIG was busy and positive, with lots of discussion about the future of the scale, though we could have done with more time.

Tomorrow I'm planning to attend a couple of clinics, including one on modeling New Zealand scenery. I'm hoping to learn some techniques for making native flora.

Station improvements

2010-03-28T16:57:00.002+13:00

I was a little unsatisfied my station, so this week I fixed the windows and gave it a new paint job. It's yet to be weathered and glazed, but I think it already looks better than it previously did.

Scenery, part 1

2010-03-21T17:00:00.002+13:00

In my last full update I detailed how I had laid the track, and noted that I was happy to be done with it. Largely this was because I got to move on to my favourite aspect of modelling: the scenery.

Mostly, I think I model because I like the art and craft aspect of the modelling, especially of landscapes. I just really like how models look for some basic psychological reason. Railways provide a subject matter, and of course they have their own intrinsic interest, with the ability to build a model that actually functions and has some operational (play) interest. But I'm not really train nerd. This probably also explains my lack of ability to get motivated to build rolling stock in a way that I can get motivated to build scenery.

Anyway, onto the scenery for the modules. In my past layouts I've adopted a preferred method of scenery building, which is to build the frame out of timber, and lay over this a skin of chicken wire to which I then apply plaster gauze. This isn't either the lightest method nor the cheapest, but it gives a very solid base to the scenery, and it's desirable in a number of other ways that I will mention.

So the first step is to build the framework for the hills and so on. On the current modules the hills are fairly minimal, so this didn't take long at all. The scenery formers were cut out of the timber that was left over form building the framework, and then screwed and glued to the modules.

This whole process tends to add more strength to the modules (that that they really needed it) and so everything is nice and rigid (and heavier) now.

After I was happy with this, I sanded the scenery formers, and then cut the chicken wire to fit. This was then stapled down, and trimmed along the edges, taking care to remove any sharp and prominent bits of wire so as to avoid later annoyance.

For little lumps and bumps where the method described above would be overkill, I crumple up newspaper and tape this down with masking tape so that it forms small hills and undulations.

Next is the messy (and fun) bit: applying the plaster gauze. I'm using the Woodland Scenics gauze. As you might have noticed, I use a fair bit of their range. I generally like the look of Woodland Scenics range, plus my local hobby shop stocks most of it, so it is convenient. Again though, it's not the cheapest, and I'm sure more frugal modelers could find ways to cut down on costs.

I cut the plaster gauze up into manageable sections, quickly soak kit in a bowl of water, and then apply it, using at least two layers and smoothing it out as it dries. After this, I mix up a bowl of lightweight hydrocal, which is a type of plaster that is useful for making rock molds and also for surfacing the scenery. Using a medium size house paint brush I brush on the hydrocal, which has the consistency of watery pancake batter, but which quickly hardens.

After all this dries for a day, I'm left with this:

That's all for now. In the next post I'll describe how I add grass to the surface, and how I built the rock cutting on the river module.

Back on track...

2010-03-21T16:19:00.003+13:00

Okay, so I can use lame puns too. Here is the most recent work I've done on the layout. I added some more trees and shrubbery. It took all of ten minutes. As previously, the trees are from the Woodland Scenics range. They're expensive, but I like the look. I'll be making my own trees soon though.

Stalled...

2010-03-15T18:48:00.000+13:00

I haven't updated in a while. To be honest, I'm a bit stalled on the modelling front at the moment. For a start my laptop, and all my photos of the layout is still missing in action. Secondly, the water in the river has on the module has developed an annoying milky appearance in a few spots. I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure how to fix it. I'm not even sure if I should fix it, as my annoyance may be a result of my perfectionism/anal retentiveness. Lastly, work is again very busy, so there is hardly any time to do anything anyway.

Anyway, I may step away from the modules for a couple of weeks to clear my head and get motivated again. I can't complain, I've had a very good run over the last few months!

On another front, the convention is looming up. I had toyed with the thought of entering the modules in competition, but I'm simply to busy at the moment to consider that. I'll be in attendance anyway, and hopefully it will help on the motivation front. And it will be good to meet up with some like-minded folk and see what other people are up to.

Latest Progress

2010-03-07T18:57:00.003+13:00

I did a bit more work this weekend, but I'm still without my laptop. Here's a nice picture of the river module I just took to make up for the lack of a real post.

Here's a peek at this weekend's work. I built several Trackgang containers kits, and also added some concrete buffer stops. The containers were painted with Tamiya acrylics and weathered with an oil wash and Tamiya rust coloured weathering powder, which does quite a nice job of dulling down the paint surface.

Another building

2010-03-04T19:35:00.002+13:00

Unfortunately my laptop screen died last week, forcing a temporary hiatus on the posts about the layout building, but I've been busy working on the layout nevertheless. Last weekend I built an engineering workshop. Still lots more work needed on this, but here are some pictures:

I've also ordered a number of new detail pieces from the guys at Trackgang Products, and these will be placed on the layout this week.

It's been suggested that I enter these in competition at the upcoming Convention. That certainly gives me a deadline to work to.

Goods shed!

2010-02-26T17:30:00.003+13:00

Another quick update before a full post this weekend. This week I built the first of the new structures: a goods shed. It still needs a bit of detailing and work on the surrounds, but it does the job. It's made out of styrene and a bit of mdf for the steps. It's airbrushed with my crappy Tamiya Sprayworks, and weathered with a bit of dry brushing and an oil wash.

Laying the track, part 2

2010-02-21T14:54:00.003+13:00

In the last of the build posts I got to the stage where the roadbed was down, and the modules awaited their track. One thing I did to at this stage was to drill the holes in the module ends through which the connecting bolts would go. Once this was done, I bolted the modules together. Most of the joins were nicely flush, but there was a bit of sanding needed here and there.

I decided to lay the track on the bridge module first to get a bit of practice before moving onto the more complex track arrangement on the yard sections.

Stage one of laying the track was attaching the track to the outer edge. Because it is inevitable that the sharp track ends will be accidentally snagged at some stage, it is necessary to fix them at the edges. I decided to drive nails in alongside the track, and then solder the rails to these. While this works satisfactorily, it doesn't give the cleanest look. In the future I will solder the rails to screws driven in directly under the rails.

The track on the river section amounted to one and a bit lengths of flex track, so the appropriate length of flex track was cut with the Dremel cutting tool. After soldering the track sections together at the joiner, I soldered feeder wires to the bottom of the track, and fed these through holes I had drilled in the basedboard. I then glued the track down with PVA, and soldered the other end to the nails. A few dabs of PVA is strong enough for gluing the track down at this stage, because once the track is ballasted, there is no way it's coming back up again! Finally, I filed down the track ends flush with the end of the modules.

Next, I moved onto the yard sections, again starting at the edge and moving inwards. As predicted, the yard section was much more complicated. For a start, fitting the points together in the desired arrangement meant trimming the sleepers in various places. Thinking ahead, I drilled holes beneath the points in the appropriate places so that point motors could be attached at a later date. Also, I removed a couple of sleepers form each end of the points to make attaching and soldering the rail joiners an easier job. Replacing these sleepers would be one of the last jobs of the track laying.

Attaching the various feeder wires also took time. To simplify matters, I added feeders to all of the sections of track so as to not rely on the contact of the point blades to feed the sections of track with electricity. I had always planned on running the modules with DCC, and thankfully this makes wiring a great deal more simple. Still, I expect I could have got away with fewer feeders, but I thought the extra time spent adding them would ultimately mean better running performance in the future. With this in mind I also decided to solder all the rail joiners, though this was a decision I was not entirely happy with later on, as I will explain in a future post.

After a great deal of cutting, trimming, soldering, hole-drilling, and filing (and some annoyed swearing), I finished laying the track. At this stage I had not glued it down, as I thought it was wise to thoroughly test the track for a period before fixing it permanently.

I was pretty satisfied with how things had gone, and glad to be finished. I'm in awe of those modelers who hand build track; for me laying commercial track is enough of an ordeal. Still, time and effort put in at this stage of the build is crucial to the running quality you eventually get.

Next time: starting on the scenery.

Power poles!

2010-02-20T18:07:00.001+13:00

Just a quick update of today's work. I bought a number of Woodland Scenic trees, and a whole bunch of styrene. Out of the latter I made some power poles, painted and weathered them and put them on the layout. I also got some corrugated sheeting and clap board to build two new buildings, which I'll start on tomorrow. I'm really pleased with the power poles; it seems to be the little details that lift the layout.

Laying the track, part 1

2010-02-14T16:37:00.001+13:00

Having finished the benchwork, it was time to think about what to put on them. I had made some rather elaborate plans for the modules based on Otira, but I had long decided to drastically simplify these so as not to bite off more than I could chew. Building these modules already involved a number of techniques that I would be trying for the first time, and there was quite a lot to do, so I would keep things simple.

As noted, I had decided to use Peco Code 80 track, and already had a number of large insulfrog points.

I went back into Acorn Models where they had a box of Peco Code 80 flextrack, so I bought twelve pieces which would turn out to be be sufficient for all three sections. I set these out on the modules, and then tried various track arrangements. I also used my half-completed Dx as a prop to get a sense of the scale. It soon became obvious that the 450mm by 1200mm size of the sections offered plenty of scope in this scale. After a lot of thought I settled on the present arrangement.

The next challenge was the road bed. In the past I had used 5mm cork tiles, which were cut to fit with a craft knife and then glued down with PVA. On the join between modules I thought it necessary to have a firm surface under the track to avoid damage to the track at the edges, so intended to have a section of the roadbed made from mdf on either module edge.

A sudden brainwave led to the decision to have the whole roadbed cut from the 5mm mdf that was left over from the construction of the benchwork. This would be a whole lot simpler than the cork method. The disadvantages of this method were the potential sound problems which cork can help with, and also that unlike soft cork, it would not be easy to pin the track to the mdf surface. Given that I usually glue the track down, I decided that this last disadvantage was not a major problem, so I went with the mdf plan.

Getting out my cheap (and worryingly erratic) jigsaw, I cut the roadbed pieces to shape, including a section that would end up being the bridge. Then, using the sanding drum on my Dremel, I shaped the edges of the roadbed. I bought the Dremel to aid with cutting track, which it does awesomely; but it has ended up being hugely useful for all sorts of purposes. Best tool ever!

The roadbed sections were glued and screwed down, and then painted with a ground colour. This was sort of pointless, because the roadbed and track would eventually be airbrushed a dark brown anyway. I'm sort of picky and like to have things looking neat as I'm building them, even if it occasionally means putting in work that won't be scene in the finished product.

With this finished, it was time to start thinking about laying the track. This is where things stood for about a week. Everybody has bits of the hobby that they do not entirely enjoy, and for me this has usually been laying track, though I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because you have to be very methodical to get the track just right. Anyway, while I worked up my enthusiasm for laying the track I also had a chance to plan the wiring.

Next post: laying the track.

Construction begins

2010-02-08T17:13:00.000+13:00

I had used dressed timber and mdf on my previous layout with no hitches, and so having worked out the amount of material I would need for three 1200mm by 450mm modules, I headed down to the local Placemakers with a friend and his overly large trailer. I got around 5 metres each of 90mm planks, and 30mm by 40mm timber for the legs. I also picked up several sheets of 6mm mdf, screws, glue, and chicken wire. All this was eye-wincingly expensive, but it's nice to work with the right materials.

Back home, I sat and stared at the pile of wood for a couple of days. My woodworking skills are not the best, so I was a bit hesitant about starting. I also wanted to think through the construction sufficiently so to avoid mistakes along the way. You'll also note that I'm fortunate enough to have a clean, well-lit, and warm garage to build in, although it does get cold in winter.

I wasn't overly concerned with the weight of the modules, as I reckoned these will spend most of their time set up in the garage. I settled on a framing the modules with the 90mm timber, with a couple of cross braces. These were all screwed and glued together with minimal fuss, and to my surprise were mostly square!

The mdf sheets I used are 1200mm long, so only the edge of a mdf sheet needed to be cut to get the correct size, and this was fixed to the top of the frame after pre-drilling all of the screw holes.

I finished off the three modules over the course of several evenings, and over all the process was a lot of fun. I'd like to get some power tools in the future for this kind of thing, because I used a handsaw throughout. A saw bench would be awesome!

The next challenge was attaching the legs, and I decided to use bolts and wingnuts, so it was back to the local Placemakers for these. The module standard designates a railhead height of 1200mm, which I think is ideal, though some people might find it a smidgen high. Before attaching the legs, I had wondered how stable the whole arrangement would be at this height, but after the legs were on it proved to be very stable. I looked around on the internet, and others have used a similar solution. Lots of hole drilling later, the modules were ready to assemble.

At this stage, the legs still need their adjustable feet, and I've purchased a couple of hundred (!) T-nuts for this purpose.

Here you can see how the legs are attached each with two bolts:

You will also note that two of the modules have cut out sections for the scenery. Lots of layouts I see have no depth beneath the railhead, with the track just plonked down on a flat piece of plywood. This often strikes me as really artificial, and would look especially so for the undulating countryside on New Zealand that I intended to model. So a little planning ahead was needed at this stage to envisage where the track was going to go, and how it would be situated in the landscape. One cut out was for a river I intended to build. Everyone loves a river!

Next post: planning the track layout and laying the roadbed.

Back to the the beginning...

2010-02-06T11:06:00.000+13:00

My intermittent interest in model railways was rekindled last year by a visit to the yearly Christchurch train exhibition, where there were a couple of 3/16ths scale New Zealand prototype modular layouts, and also a trip I made on the TranzAlpine to escape Christchurch for the weekend. Riding the train back from Greymouth, my imagination was again captured by the great scenery, and the potential to model this unique landscape.

My previous layout, which I built in 2007, was a roundy-roundy arrangement with a scenic area on the front and a staging yard at the back. It was based somewhat roughly on the West Coast side of the Midland Line. It was fairly successful, and I learnt a great deal while building it, but ultimately I felt it was flawed and lacked further potential. I was also having difficulty at the time working out where I was going to get rolling stock from, and my enthusiasm for the hobby diminished rather quickly after a huge pile of work landed on my desk. The layout was eventually sold on Trademe, but I figured that it had served its purpose as a bit of fun and a learning experience.

I had considered building another circuit layout, but I was ultimately unsatisfied with the realism and scope a manageable layout could offer, so these plans came to nothing. After seeing the modular layouts at the Christchurch show, however, I became convinced that a modular layout was the way to go. Here was something I could make a start on, and its modularity meant that the layout could develop and grow over time as my enthusiasm dictated.

I had been lurking at NZ120.ORG, and so I posted a thread about the possibility of forming a modular group, which quickly led to a long discussion about modular standards (that I will not repeat here). After a lot of discussion, a rough Free-mo standard was developed. It can be found here.

I was ready to start building. After a lot of thought and revised plans, I decided to build a freelance module based on a South Island location. I think that Free-mo is suited to freelance subjects, because ultimately the modules will be joined up in ad hoc and unrealistic arrangements anyway, and what is needed in a Free-mo module is something that is going to make a functional contribution to a layout. I haven't ruled out building something more prototypical in the future however. Thus the idea with this module was to build a yard that would be functional in a Free-mo layout, allowing for the staging of trains. The design would have a couple of passing loops, sidings, and a head shunt. I jotted down my rough plans on a piece of paper, and then calculated a list of materials.

Actually, this is a gross simplification of how it all came about, but I'll spare you the interminable sequence of decisions I made and latter revised!

Next post: buying supplies and making a start on the modules.

Some pictures

2010-01-30T01:45:00.000+13:00

Here are some picture of the modules as they are now. One of the good things about modules is that you can take them outside into the good light to work on them and for photography. The modules still need a lot of detail work, adding trees, fences, power poles, several more buildings, and so on. In future posts I'll discuss how I got them to this stage.

You can also see some semi-complete Trackgang kits of a Dx locomotive and a couple of items of NZR rolling stock. More info on these to come also!

Behold, a new blog!

2010-01-23T18:06:00.000+13:00

Welcome! I'm inaugurating this new blog to discuss the building of my NZ120 Free-mo modules, and NZ120 modular layouts generally. Hence, this blog concerns the meeting of two railway modeling standards: Free-mo, and NZ120, both of which need a little explanation.

"Free-mo" is a recent American bastardisation of "FREMO", a European modular railway standard that places the emphasis on community, prototypical operation, and and a sort of anarchic freedom from the strictures of traditional model railway clubs.

Free-mo involves a standardised module template that allows modelers to meet up and connect their modules for running sessions. The standard specifies things like the railhead height from the ground, the endplate profile, and the method of electrical connection between modules. Beyond these very basics, individuals are given the freedom to build what they want, and so modules may be of any length, shape, or complexity so long as they meet the standard.

NZ120 is a scale standard for the modeling on New Zealand prototypical railways. The models are at a scale of 1/120, and they are designed to run on N gauge track, a combination which gives a reasonable approximation of New Zealand's narrow gauge railways. NZ120 has a relatively short history, and is also supported by a very small community of modelers and manufacturers. Many NZ120 models are scratch-built using proprietary chassis. The appeal of the scale is that it allows the modeler to represent trains running though New Zealand's distinctive landscape in a relatively small space.

The meeting of these two standards is filled with a great deal of potential modeling fun!

In this blog I am going to provide information about NZ120 Free-mo modules, chiefly through the discussion of the building of my own modules. Hopefully, the information that I provide here will be both useful and encouraging for other NZ120 modelers to take the plunge and build a module or two.

Cheers,

Earwicker.