It’s a start …

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Koala Creek

OK, I am slowly progressing with my quest for a HOn30 “Class A” Shay. As mentioned in my previous post, I will try to kitbash one myself … with a couple of pictures from a Japanese modeler as my main example …
Fortunately I had a bit of luck on eBay last week and won the bid for a couple of bodies of the N-scale Shay made by Atlas. They will allow me to mess around a bit, without destroying a complete Shay …

I compared the body to a drawing of one of the Mapleton Shays and must confess that it looks very promising. The length is almost an exact match and the size of the boiler is also quite good … the shape is a bit different though.

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Painting a background

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Koala Creek

A great tutorial on painting a background for your layout, can be found at Dave Frary’s Trackside Scenery blog. Dave is an active professional model railroad builder, photographer and instructor. His photos, plans and stories have appeared in Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman and many other publications.

There was also an interesting quote in the article

… In the next few months I’ll be building a sugar train railroad based in the Caribbean. It’ll be on some fictional island surrounded by lush jungle with evidence of past volcanic activity …

Wow, that sounds interesting … I will be following his blog with a lot of interest the coming months!

Where to find a Shay?

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Koala Creek

Deciding to model the layout in HOn30, will probably make life a bit more difficult … but what’s life without a couple of challenges. So, where to find a “Class A” Shay in HOn30?
Google was helpful again and after browsing a “few” sites, I found the following options.

The first option would be to find a brass Shay that was made by Sugiyama Models in Japan, which were sold in the eighties and nineties under the “Joe Works” or “Flying Zoo” brand … either as a kit or a ready-to-run model. They however are quite rare, which makes them hard to find and a bit expensive. There was one being auctioned on eBay.com this morning and it was sold for 455 U.S. Dollars. Unfortunately I was the second highest bidder …

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Here we go!

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Koala Creek

A couple of months ago I stumbled upon a website about the Mapleton Tramways. The site covers the history of one of the Sugar Cane and Shire tramway in Queensland, Australia. What made this tramway even more interesting, was the fact that it ran on very narrow 2 feet gauge and used a couple of 13 tons “Class A” Shay locomotives.

These engines, with builder’s no. 2091 and 2800, were probably the smallest Shays that the Lima Locomotive Co. ever produced. Their boilers were only 2 feet 5 inches in diameter and they weighed about 13 tons in working order. Top speed on the flat was 10 mph, 11 with a following wind … Continue reading →