North Shore Railway Modellers' Association, Inc
The model railway club for Sydney's North Shore and Northern Beaches
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LAYOUTS
Page last modified 2 August 2010
| Club Layouts | Members' Layouts |
| Dungog | St Enodoc |
| Mainline Mark 2 | NSW Main Line |
| Kids Power Railway | |
| New layouts |
This layout, modelled to a scale of 1:87 in H0 gauge, represents the station of Dungog on the North Coast line between Sydney and Brisbane. Dungog is a small quiet country town, located about 80 km (50 miles) north from Newcastle's main locomotive centre of Broadmeadow. However, its geographic position allowed efficient crew and locomotive operations to be made for the heavy express passenger trains working the North Coast Railway, as it was called in the 1940s.
Most of the layout is constructed from blocks of High Density Foam sandwiched between two panels of 7 mm plywood, this providing very strong and extremely lightweight units joined and aligned by aluminium dowels. Code 75 Peco trackwork is rubber glued to the foam.
Uncoupling is achieved automatically via electromagnets laid under the tracks and operated by a timer and push button on the control panel.
The trees, scenery and buildings are the work of our members and the backscene is made from actual photographs of Dungog.
A lot of the rolling stock has been either scratchbuilt or kitbuilt, with a good percentage of quality proprietary products altered to improve their appearance and to represent the types of trains typical of the area. These include timber from mills on the North Coast, fruit expresses, and daylight and overnight passenger trains. Trains are both steam and diesel hauled. Although the AD60 Beyer-Garratts only worked as far North as Martin's Creek quarry, through the use of modellers' license they may be see on our layout.
The layout can be operated either using DCC or conventional DC control, and can be changed from one to the other within minutes.
Dungog won the trophy for "Best Club Layout of an Australian Prototype" at the AMRA Exhibition, Liverpool, October 2009.
This 00/H0 gauge layout, which consists of a double-track elongated cross-over figure-of-eight, is constructed in modules and is intended to show off trains of all nations in a continuous "main line" setting. It will be improved and enlarged in the years ahead, until, like Mainline Mark 1 before it, it is superseded by perhaps Mainline Mark 3!
Trains operated on the layout are H0 or 00 gauge from many eras. They are mostly British, American, Continental and Australian. Steam, diesel and electric are featured hauling all types of rolling stock.
A new module, incorporating a model of an iron foundry from the Forest of Dean on the border between England and Wales, is currently under construction.
The layout has recently been modified to allow DCC operation on one track with conventional DC on the other.
Here is a short video of Mainline Mark 2
Kids Power Railway
In 2009, Kevin Phillips of the
Central Coast very generously donated a single track L shaped terminus to
fiddle yard layout, in working order with basic scenery complete. This has been taken
on by our youth group as its development layout called the Kids Power Railway.
The under-18 team, one of only a few in local clubs, has been planning, building and operating the layout since the beginning of this year.
The current group of six, which comprises of members aged between 7 -13 years,
have been completing tasks such as:
Before the layout's first display at the 2011 exhibition we plan to achieve
The youth group meets fortnightly on Fridays under the supervision of senior members. If you are under 18 and wish to participate please contact Michael Grey via mail@nsrma.com.au.
Below are some photos of the layout as donated by Kevin Phillips
New H0 Australian layout
The full story is available from Mick Bluett. Basically
parts of Dungog would
be revised using the existing layout with the addition of shunting yards. In
operation it is envisaged teams of 2 would run a goods yard with shunting &
delivery of good to various new industries around the track. This would be run
with a timetable to follow.
New N gauge layout
Peter Moses has donated a small N gauge layout to the club. This has four continuous tracks linked by a number of crossovers.
St Enodoc represents a British Railways Western Region station on the Newquay branch in Cornwall, modelled in 4 mm scale 16.5 mm gauge (00), and is the third layout to bear the name St Enodoc - the first was a simple branch terminus, and the second a double-track main line junction.
The layout is based on the real-life Bugle station, with its passing loop and branch to the local china-clay works. This is one of those rare locations where express passenger trains can be run legitimately over a single-track branch, Newquay being a popular holiday resort with through trains on summer Saturdays to and from all parts of England and Wales.
At the back of the layout are two dead-end fiddle yards linked by a single through track for continuous running. The entire layout can be dismantled to allow the room in which it is sited to be used as a spare bedroom.
Track is SMP with hand-built points using printed-circuit board timbers, and the layout is operated by DCC. Most of the stock is kit built or modified ready-to-run.
St Enodoc is fully operational although scenery has yet to be constructed.
This H0 layout is built in the basement area of a Federation bungalow and extends through three separate rooms. From the main terminus, the main line passes through the suburban junction of Slobston before heading out into the country through Bunyip Lakes and climbing through the mountains to Nulla Nulla. The line then returns to the terminus, or on to a continuous run, via storage loops. A branch from Slobston runs through Willow Creek to Nulang.
CCTV allows a single operator at the main terminus to see what is going on in the other two rooms.
This layout was featured in the NorthSide newspaper, published by Cumberland Courier Newspapers. Click here to see the article and a video, and here to see some photos.
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