Fact vs. Inspiration.

I don't know about you, but for me there are often images that help motivate the path from thought to the reality of recreating a slice of miniature railway history. One I have mentioned before that was really inspirational (mentioned in an earlier post: Original Inspiration), is the shot below. This was taken by Rod Sloggett and published in an old ARHS Railway Museum guide booklet, and I have since been given a copy of the original. It shows the quite common (in earlier times) working of two Swing Door motors as a "locomotive" on a goods, passing through Flinders Street station.

Picture: Rod Slogget, ARHS Williamstown Museum Guide

Not sure whether this is how it goes for you also, however the reality has been quite different. Firstly I realised that the Moonstone/Red scheme didn't look that great on models compared to the earlier "Crimson Lake" elegance so that piece changed. Secondly, in practice I found that while running twin motors on goods was Ok, shunting was something else altogether. The reason is modelling compromise wherein we don't have scale curves. As mentioned before my curves have a minimum radius of 3ft and I use Medium points but even so, the outswing from a Swing Door motor due to body length is sufficient to cause some challenges in shunting smoothly. Now, I could fit fillets to the 2nd Motor buffers to remediate this, but time has brought about other motive power to handle the goods workings so in fact this has turned out to be a less common working on Glenburn. Hence the occasion for a picture, and this entry.

M-AM combination works 25a Dn Suburban goods through the "through roads" bisecting an unscenicked area known as The Yard (one day I will work out a name for it). Nb. As with most pictures on this Blog, clicking on the picture will bring up a larger image.