Category Archives: Rolling Stock

Wow!

Posted on by

While browsing the web, I discovered a great site . It’s called Weston Langford Railway Photography and contains a huge amount of pictures of Australian railway scenes, taken between 1961 and the current day by the well known railway enthusiast, Weston Langford. I did a search on Moreton and found about 20 pictures that were taken on the 22nd of November in 1966. Inspirational stuff for modellers Australian sugar cane railways!

108533

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.

A quick update …

Posted on by

Just a quick update on my 3D-printing adventures … as mentioned, I ordered some additional parts from Shapeways. These were the parts for the 13 ton Shay that I previously ordered from printapart.com, as I wanted to see if they could meet that same level of quality. Unfortunately I hit a small bump in the road here. Most parts printed fine, except for the cabin of the Shay.

Oil burner side view

I ordered four of them from Shapeways and somehow the wall thickness turned out thinner than it should be. According to the 3D model, the wall thickness should be exactly 0.75 mm. Amongst the four printed copies of the Shay cabin, the wall thickness varies between 0.35 mm and 0.70 mm. I am not quite sure if this problem was caused by an issue during the upload of the STL-file or if it was an error with the printing process itself.

Continue reading →

Without words …

Posted on by

I always try to focus on one project at a time, unfortunately I can not help myself to start thinking about the next one already …
My converted Shays will of course run on the tramway itself. I will however also need some engines for the Sugar Mill itself, so I started looking for information about the Fowlers that were operated by the Moreton Central Sugar Mill in Nambour.

Coolum at the Moreton Mill yard

That’s when I ran in to Peter Bruce’s Railfan Blog, with some great pictures of the daily operations at the Moreton Mill in 1962.
One of the pictures on his blog has the out of service Shay in the background … and Bruce even promises to show more pictures of the Shay in his next post … I am looking forward to that one!
I have added smaller versions of the pictures at the end of this post, just click on the link below to see them. The original and larger pictures can be found on Bruce’s Blog.

Continue reading →

Cabin Fever

Posted on by

Time sure flies when you’re having fun … it’s already been two and half months , since my last post on the HOn30 Shay. I know that I have a couple of followers out there who are waiting for an update, so here we go …
Another set of parts arrived from Printapart last Friday and after a quick test-fit, I refitted the entire body to Shay version 0.2.

The HOn30 Shay with new parts and cabin

To start with, the diamond shaped smoke stack is now 1 mm taller and I remodelled some details on the headlights which did not print that well. I also remodelled the right-hand side by changing the height of the piston cover and by adding HO scale pistons. Furthermore, part of the N-scale piston cover has been hidden beneath a toolbox, making it less wide and giving it the look & feel of the original. And last, but not least … the little bugger finally received it’s cabin!

Continue reading →

Shay version 0.1

Posted on by

All has cooled down now and I have been able do some work on the HOn30 Shay. First of all, I have changed the diamond stack to ensure a nice and sturdy fit. Secondly, I have modeled the headlight … it’s a bit larger than the ones on the Mapleton Shays, because it has been based on the headlight of the Joe Works Shay.

The HOn30 Shay with wholestick truck 
And last but not least, I have modeled the sides of the frame to fit the HOn30 profile. The parts have been ordered from Printapart again and they just arrived a couple of days ago. As you can see from the pictures in this post, I just couldn’t resist fitting them to the actual Atlas Shay body. I am quite pleased with the result already and both the diamond stack and the headlight will remain as they are.

Continue reading →