Issue 90 starts with the story of Willesden Junction, a 009 layout by Pete Wilson. This name was jokingly given by the British troops to a large WDLR transfer yard in Belgian Flanders during WWI. The layout gives a good impression of working conditions for the British operators of the War Department Light Railways during the 1914-18 conflict. A second article about Willesden Junction, focussing on the locos and their rolling stock, is expected in one of the following issues of The Review.

So for now, I have put the Koala Creek layout on hold a bit, which means that there is also little progress on the HOn30 Shay. I am slowly redeveloping the 3D printed parts for the Shay, but at the same time I am still not happy with the current quality of Shapeways … so just be patient.
In the mean time I have started to work on a bookshelf  layout, as I should be able to fit one in a corner of my home office … where I am also freeing up some space for a workbench. The theme of the layout has nothing to do with sugar cane in Queensland, but probably a bit more with the title of this post …

While browsing the web, I bumped into the following interesting video on Youtube.

It shows the U.S. operated 60 cm gauge Light Railways in France, during America’s brief 19-month involvement in Word War I. I became quite interested in the subject and after ordering and reading “Narrow Gauge To No Man’s Land” by Richard Dunn, I started looking at creating a small layout, showing one of these American operated lines running through a small French Village in the Menil-la-Tour area. Something like this …

From what I have been able to find-out, most of the rolling stock is available. The scale is a bit different however … it’s all 009 … which is 1:76 scale stock running on 9mm gauge.

The 2-6-2t Baldwin is available from Five79, while the gondola, boxcar and flatcar are available from Meridian Models. The only thing missing is the tank car, but it should be possible to make it, using a Meridian flatcar as a base. I also went looking for the right figures to use for the layout and bumped into W^D Models. They have a great range of 1:76 figures, including French soldiers and American engineers. I already bought some and tried to paint a couple of French soldiers as a test.

As mentioned, the US operated line will run through a small French village in the Menil-la-Tour area. These villages mainly consisted of farms like the ones below. Similar buildings can also be seen in the second image of this post, where a Baldwin 2-6-2t runs through the French village of Corniéville.

The layout will need quite a few of these, so I have been looking for a simple way to make them and decided to laser-cut the parts out of 3.5 mm Styrofoam and 0.38 mm Laserboard (resin impregnated kraft paper). After making a design for a first test building, I visited my friendly neighbourhood laser-cutting company with the materials, which ended up like this.

The final result can be seen in the first image in this post … and as you can see, all is quiet on the Western front …

Fortunately I remembered reading an article by François Fontana, where het took one of these buggers apart and gave it a good rinsing. It was published in Voie Libre, the well known French narrow gauge railway modelling magazine, which now is available as a digital version in English via Zinio.com and can be read on your iPad or Android tablet … tried it yesterday on mine and it works great!

OK, enough said about tablets … back to work again. You start out by dismantling the locomotive, which is quite easy. Just unscrew the smoke stack, push the body backward a bit and lift it off.

Then take out the small weight beneath the cab, remove the couplers and the cylinder block. The driving rods can be removed from the wheels with a couple of fine tipped pliers.
Now come that harder stuff … taking apart the mechanism in such a way, that it will be possible to put it back together again.

You first have to remove the motor. Pick up your pliers or a small spanner and unscrew the two carbon brush holders at the side … be careful with the carbon brushes and springs! Once the holders have been removed, you can just take out the motor itself.

The motor can be cleaned with a small dry brush, to remove the dust. I also tend to use a rubber blower, which is used to clean a camera, for these kind of jobs. If there is much grease on the cog of the motor, clean it with a brush and a bit of alcohol. Once all is clean, screw the carbon brush holder back in the motor, connect them to a transformer give the motor a good run.
Now back to the last part, the frame. Locate the two small nuts between the wheels and unscrew them with your pliers and remove the bolts from the other side … be careful not to lose the insulating washers!

Next remove the wheels from one side. Gently pry them lose by pushing a small screwdriver between the wheels and the frame. The centre of the wheel is made of plastic, so they come off quite easily. Once they are off, carefully remove the axles by sliding them through the cogs.

This last action releases the brass pieces on the side, the drive shaft with its worm gears and the two small cogs. Once everything has ben taken apart, the parts are soaked in white-spirit and one-by-one cleaned with a soft brush. The fully cleaned parts are dried with a tissue and the mechanism is put back together again. The worm gears on the drive shaft are lightly oiled, before the motor is placed in its position.

It’s a fun little project which can be done with a couple of simple tools and it will only cost a couple of hours to complete. The advantage is that you will have a nice and smoothly running mechanism again, which can be used for a any new HOn30 project. François Fontana even built a Bayer-Garrat with two of these!
Curious which new project I will be using this small Decauville mechanism for? Just wait and see … it will pop-up the next time somewhere …

It ran every day except Sunday … it departed just after lunch and took two and a half hours to get from Nambour up to Mapleton. In it’s up service, it carried passengers, supplies, goods, mail and sawn timber. The tram was stabled up in Mapleton overnight and in the morning it would come down to Nambour with return passengers, mail, logs, sugar cane and if it was in season, oranges.

They’re great little runners and will act as the base for a couple of future projects. The 12 mm short wheelbase chassis will power a 0-4-2t Fowler made by Chivers Finelines. Although Roger Chivers stopped producing the kits himself, they are now being made by by Five79 (owned by his son Matthew) and are available via Parkside Dundas. The motor bogie will power something completely different … a Backer & Rueb steam tram … which has nothing to do with my Queensland tramway. I just like those little buggers.

First of all, I should go digital … I know, it sounds a bit scary, as it means that I will have to fit DCC decoders in my models. With small decoders like the Digitrax DZ125 or the CT-Elektronik DCX74z, it should be possible and as you can see from the image above, the DZ 125 just fits in an N-scale Shay … so should definitely fit in mine. Furthermore, I will have to find some kind of “under-the-table” digital sound system, that will be able to handle the sound of my locomotives.

I did some browsing on the web and found two very interesting ones:

1. Surroundtraxx
   This is a commercial product made by Soundtraxx and had been pre-announced for a couple of years already. It was finally released about a week ago and the products are currently shipping to the dealers. It works with multiple speakers that can be hidden beneath the layout. Using the Digitrax Transponding block-detection system, SurroundTraxx faithfully reproduces the sounds made by each train on the layout and directs the sound to the speaker closest to the train’s location. As a train moves along its route, SurroundTraxx makes continuous adjustments to the sound level of each speaker so that the sound appears to follow the train around the layout. SurroundTraxx does not simply switch the sound from speaker to speaker but uses an intelligent cross fade algorithm that factors in train speed, direction, and distance between speakers. The sound makes a smooth transition as the train travels from one sound zone to the next without abrupt pops or thumps. SurroundTraxx is capable for support of up to 6 sound zones and will simultaneously produce sound for up to 6 locos at a time. It will however store up to 99 different locomotive profiles. This of course all sounds perfect for an HOn30 layout. There is only one big disadvantage … the price: $595.00. Included in the box are only the SurroundTraxx unit itself, a speaker harness, the power supply and a LocoNet cable. It will still be necessary to buy 6 speakers (or 5 speakers and 1 subwoofer) yourself.

2. Virtual Sound Decoder for JMRI
   It’s a new development in JMRI, which is free, and is being coded by an N-scale modeller calling himself TwinDad. The Virtual Sound Decoder (or VSDecoder) runs on a PC and emulates (simulates) the function of an actual sound decoder. It listens to the Command Centre for throttle commands and responds to them with the corresponding sounds, just as a sound decoder installed in a locomotive would do. So all you will have to do, is place the speakers of your PC or laptop beneath your layout and you will hear the sound of your locomotives. For now it is still under development and will not yet give the functionality of the Soundtraxx system. TwinDad is still working on several sound files … so if you have any available, please contact him via the nScale.net Forum. Furthermore, as far as I understand it … one of the most interesting future developments will be 3D location tracking and 3D sound, allowing you to simulate the sound coming from the locomotive via the PC’s surround sound audio system. Wouldn’t that be fun!

Looking at two systems mentioned above, I believe that I would certainly opt for JMRI with the VSDecoder. I know that the development depends on just one person, but it has and will have quite some possibilities … it’s for example even possible to run your layout with JMRI via your iPhone or Android phone. And it should be possible to buy a small netbook and surround sound system for a lower price than the Surroundtraxx system itself.

So, I sawed them off and did another test fitting. As you can see from the image above it fits quite nice, but there are some issues with the 3D-print itself. First of all, the lower sides of the cabin are bent quite a bit. It’s a known issue with FUD from Shapeways, caused by the fact that they are thin and not supported. This can easily be corrected by making them a bit thicker, so I will change that. The second issue however is a bit more serious.

The roof of the cabin and the hood (top and sides) are not very smooth and have quite some banding on them. I do not believe that this is should be the case with FUD prints from Shapeways and have asked them for advise. So, I’ll just need to be patient a bit …

I am also not quite sure if I hit the shape of the Jenbach with my 3D-model, as the hood seems to be a bit too wide and slightly too high. Furthermore, I would love to have an open hood, just as the originals had in the warm and sticky Queensland climate. Fortunately, as mentioned in my previous post, I already found an alternative for the Bachmann chassis. It’s the chassis of a small 0-6-0 diesel engine made by Fleischmann. As as you can see from the spare parts leaflet, it should be possible to model an open hood … at least at the front of the Jenbach. I am not quite sure if the engine is smaller than the one in the Bachmann chassis, but I should be able to find out fairly soon … just found a second-hand one on the web. Will let you know as soon as it arrives.

Bob Dow, a railway modeller from Brisbane, has a great construction article on his site of an HOn30 model of one these Jenbach locomotives. Being a lazy modeller myself, I decided to simplify things and started working on a 3D model. As with every model however, you first need to find a chassis and then base the model on the actual size of the chassis … trying it the other way around doesn’t really work.

Following Bob’s example, I based the model on the chassis of the N-scale Plymouth switcher made by Bachmann. I however have also seen a model that was based an N-scale diesel locomotive made by Fleischmann.
Modelling the 3D model in my CAD program only took me a couple hours. I have not added al details yet, but decided to order it from Shapeways already … to do a test fitting and to see if I measured the chassis correctly. All I have to do now, is to be patient and to wait for about two weeks for the printed model to arrive.

If you are looking pictures and more information about these Bundaberg-Jenbach diesel locomotives, just visit Lynn Zelmer’s site.

The image above shows ‘Eudlo’ uncoupling loaded sugar cane trucks near the main line junction, before backing up to take on water at the Bli Bli water tank.