Era interlude - RAAF Recruiting Train

A carriage set I've always been fascinated by but which has been so far out of my era that I couldn't justify a purchase was the RAAF Recruiting Train. There were two, three-car sets in total, and Set 25B ran all over the state between 1940 and 1942, pretty much doing what the advertisement suggested - "Walk in one end a farmer and out the other a signed up member of the Air Force."

I had started collecting Camco FO kits to one day build this train myself, but the part where I'd need to get custom decals had me stumped. I just didn't know who I could go to to get some made up. Fast forward a few years and SDS models have upgraded the Austrains NSW 'cowboy' cars, releasing a set in the RAAF Recruiting Train livery under their Austrains Neo brand.

I picked up this set a few days ago from Casula Hobbies and after a bit of reading on the history of the cars wanted to correct some minor things to get them more accurate and closer to the prototype. Straight out of the box, this is what you get:

According to a History of RAAF Recruiting Trains by R.I. Merchant (published on SDS' Austrains Neo website), the cars were sky blue with silver roofs. I could also see in a few of the pictures the exhaust for a generator which was housed in the guards' compartment to power refrigerators and other equipment on the train.

I fashioned an exhaust outlet from a spare kit sprue, reducing the size of the end to give it some shape with a file. After drilling a hole in the roof by eye going from photos, this was duly fitted.

Next the car was masked for spraying. Having learned the lesson of using too much tape on the 421, I stuck the tape onto paper where it would come into contact with the car, save for about 5mm at the top where it would need to stick onto the car.

A spray with Tamiya TS-30 silver leaf and voila!

 The detail of printing on these cars is very fine.

I finished masking and spraying the other two cars this afternoon and now the whole set is complete as per the title photo.

To make it even more accurate, I would need to replace the buffers on the outer ends of the set with the longer type, and fit the cars with hook and link couplers. I've seen the latter done, but I'm not quite ready to jump into that yet.

I'm tossing up whether to make a short diorama for the cars to sit in a siding somewhere, but that would need to come after I've solved the main problem of the next layout.

Until next time, best wishes for the rest of 2018.

Cheers,

Ben

Arrival of the Supplementary interurban cars, and the end of another year

On Track Models' Supplementary Interurban Cars

They arrived!

I bought four cars all up and even without taking them out of the box they look amazing. I mentioned in a previous post how MFH2705 (pictured above) is missing a double letterboard to make it prototypical, but if I'm honest, the absence isn't killing me that much that I want to take it apart right now and add a strip of styrene to correct it. As I've said before, this has saved me hours of building my own cars.

I took the cars and one of my 46 class for a spin on a friend's layout a few weeks ago before I left Canberra. The cars roll quite freely and the only difficulty comes when trying to separate them as the sprung corridor diaphragms (which actually work!) prevent the knuckle couplers from lifting up and  out. As we found, a magnet uncoupler is your best bet here.

A friend had upgraded his MUB set(s) with an ESU power pack and passenger car lighting strip (item #50709) as well as the end marker lights using a small length of fibre optic strand off a red LED, and offered to do it for a reasonable fee. With all of my own tools and modelling equipment about to enter boxes and half of the train stuff already in Sydney, I threw money in his direction and received my carriages back within a week, all lit up and running with tail-end red marker lights. All carriages have all been consisted on DCC to run as Set 10, which means I can turn the whole four-car train length of interior lights on together, and the marker lights can be set up as directional. Although by late 1978 these cars were being split up and run in ad-hoc sets on cobbled-together supplementary interurban trains, I like the thought that went into setting this up for me. You can learn new things by yourself up to a point in this hobby, but I've found that the few minutes I've spent learning a new skill or feature off another modeller have been fruitful.

Above: 7305 takes set 10C around the metro goods and return to Central, thus providing return guard's accommodation for the return leg of a morning interurban service.

One less car to build
Another friend recently built MFS2146 as per the AMRM article from a few years ago and offered to build me one as he enjoyed the process so much. I dropped off a donor FS car to start the project as the last job on my way out of Canberra up the Federal highway. I'm in no rush, it will be done when it's done and I'll get it back some time in 2019, but this now leaves me with just MFA2706 to do myself before my 6-car supplementary interurban set is complete. That's just made a huge job much more achievable.

The coming of a New Year, and a new layout

I've said it before, but running the trains up and back gets old after a while. Which brings me to the plans for the new year. We've currently moved into a rental while we finalise buying a house in Sydney, or as Scott from the Barcoola blog has suggested - and I wholly endorse - buying a train room with living quarters attached.

I've pitched a few ideas for a new layout in this blog, and I have yet another up my sleeve that may make the cut, but I'll keep that under wraps for now. Although I've got the room dimensions of the place we're looking to buy and tacit approval to claim a room for the sole purpose of model railway #4, I'm hesitant to do anything concrete like buy track and timber until the sale has gone through and the brake lights of the removal truck are disappearing down our driveway.

There's good things ahead in 2019, and not just from RTR suppliers. Some things I'll actually build myself.

And I'll finish those damned meat wagons...

Until then, thanks for following this year.

Merry Christmas,
Ben