Some G scale Railway Stuff

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Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: Australia Posts: 1051	Posted: 12:24pm 14 Nov 2021       Thanks Davo, G gauge is garden railway, LGB was the popular name for it, when I was a kid we had some HO trains as well, had fun with that, years later moved on to the 7 1/4" inch guage and run around a club track the old man built some rolling stock and parts for friends that where building a few different loco's. Club politics where getting in the way of what should have been a good day out, so eventually built our own track around the yard around the dam and bridges over the creak, had proper turn outs sidings, the lot. A few friends would turn up on the weekend with a loco or 2,have a run around the track for a bit, have a chat in the afternoon and have a good look and the build quality that was on the go, and share a few ideas. It was a fairly cheap hobby to have a bit of fun with, as most of it was hand build not bought. After some time the opportunity come up to get hold of some full size railway gear and some stuff to suit 2 foot gauge railway, same size as the sugar mils use, had some track as well, it was a lot of fun, too big for the yard and couldn't go far, as it was at the time, it was fairly cheap compared to other size railway builds. (not any more) Some time later the area was getting built out and had to move to another location, most of the railway stuff was donated to a few friends that continued on elsewhere. Didn't get back into railway stuff for many years, until these last couple of years, LGB was a decent size to build and work on with out the need for a magnifying glass (in my opinion), as would be needed for some of the smaller gauges, HO and some others. G scale (LGB) Loco's and rolling stock could be bought, but not cheaply and mostly US English and German models where available, when everywhere went into Lock-down, this stuff sold out everywhere and was mostly unavailable, I guess it was a way to for many to get away from the wife and keep mentally occupied in there sheds. Didn't really want a whole layout of all foreign model railway gear, wanted some Australian railway locos and rolling stock, even better was Queensland stuff, modelled  on railways built from 1890's up to 1970's, very little if any available to be bought. So there was the need to, If you want it, "build it"  build the stuff you want, that's what its about its more interesting building things, get it working, spend some time to enjoy it and move on to the next project. There are many who have had some sort of railway project at some stage, not that surprising any more when someone says I wanted to extend the railway line (being LGB its quite large in a house or shed) that someone says they want to go through the wall into the next room or shed, started cutting a hole, not fast enough so got out the chainsaw and cut through the wall.   Quote   He used to get the bogies and make his own carriages out of wood. Nothing as detailed as what you have done  here but nice enough especially for 40+ years ago. He expanded that  to literally the size of the spare bedroom.  When he hit the walls and my Grandmother hit the roof, it was deemed it would have to go up the shed. Next thing an extension to the shed was built, covered in  and that was it's new home although Grandad wasn't so happy about that. Too cold, hot, too dusty and not inclined to go up there at night... even though he finally had the power put on up there after 30 + years of running an extension cord. That sounds all too familiar, quite a few interesting stories similar to that, went to an Auction down the Road, place was a fairly new build, Most notable, It was a SHED WITH A HOUSE ATTACHED, big shed too, great idea, at the time he was selling a lot of gear, not sure why but perhaps the wife didn't like the idea and did a runner. Yes there is some tremendous layouts around, the old computer power supplies where good to use for lighting and other things on the layouts.   Quote   I was visiting once and this large parcel arrived. It was box of 200 sets of Bogies from Germany worth over $5 grand.  I asked why he spent so much on them and he simply said "because they are the best ones." He wanted to upgrade the wheels on his "worthwhile " rolling stock.  He was showing me some of his Locos and I asked what this impressive piece was. He said oh, that's only a cheap one, it's only worth about $900 but have a look at this good one. It was made of brass and very detailed.... and heavy. He said was about $5k worth.  He then proceeded to show me I don't know how many more "good" ones. I must have had the " Is he for real?" Look on my face when I looked up at my aunt and she said " Yes, I know" and went back to cooking dinner. Definitely some really good expensive loco's about, saw a live steam model of 3801,c38-nswgr-3801-newcastle-flyer, when I was a kid we went out to see the real one when it was up in Queensland, coupled behind the Flying Scotsman, that was a day to remember. There are a lot of ideas that have come to fruition through the use of 3d printers, the resin printers will produce a lot better detail than these filament printers. Have also read that people have used the resin printers to moulds and parts so they can do aluminium castings of there own designed parts, I don't know the process but would certainly like do some of that for other projects at some stage. I would like to have a CNC plasma cutter table as well, after using this laser cutter and and seeing how it works its not all that different to the way a plasma cutter would work, scale the whole thing up, use an ordinary plasma cutter head mounted and adjustable height. The laser cutter is based on an arduino and connected to a computer to run, so I think it wouldn't be that difficult for a few people here to build a working unit.