Victoria Street, the dead tree version

I had a week off after and including Easter, there was 'the list' of tasks that required attention that ate most of the time. There was the Good Friday after sales and follow up service with some running on that n scale layout that I help concoct for a colleague. 

Yet the most interesting item that happened over the break was that I finally cobbled together all the published posts from the blog along with photographs into a Microsoft word file, all forty odd thousand words over three hundred, and thirty odd pages formatted with page numbers together with a contents list of dates and titles. 

 

 The Thesis

This document has been called by my rather academic and somewhat sarcastic bride as 'my thesis'.

This 'thesis' documents the formation, evolution and the current state of Victoria Street. I did this, so if something happens to the cloud that contains my blog, I would have something external that recorded my achievements. 

After the massive word count, I'm tempted to run down to the nearby Officeworks with a USB stick, so I can get a hard copy printed off and bound for posterity. 

This might be something for fellow blog pilots to consider, because hard drives die and formats change, but at the end of the day we all can still read and store text on printed paper, as humanity has done so for eons.  

From the multitude blog posts under the wires. 

Glenn. 

Episodes of Bustitution

Buses, either complement or are the nemesis of tramway operations, but they are a reality. They offer flexible route alternatives without the pork barreling and/or the expense of infrastructure in implementing a tramway.

Victoria Street now has on its roster ( or streets), six buses of four differing types and vintages. 

All buses in the collection are all 1/76 (OO) scale made or offered by mobs such as EFE, Trux, or Oxford, then a maybe a combination of all of the above. 

First cab (bus) of the rank is....

The Austerity bus.

(Oxford Bedford rework)

Loosely based on the unit that featured a timber body that was pressed ganged into service during the darkest days of WW2 before the tramway was extended from the then terminus, Maribrynong River to the government cordite/explosives factory further west over the river.  Most services 'gunned  it' from Footscray railway station with the headboard coded with 'Special E'. 

MMTB 301

This model has 'blackout' white markings on the bumper bars and mud guards. 

Now it's on an enthusiast's excursion. 

The next stop at the interchange features the Leyland Tiger TS8 half cab.(Trux)

I have three of these units in service, these entered service when the MMTB was in the process of rehabilitating  the age expired cable tramway network with electric tramways or as a replacement entirely  

These sort of buses extended the range of the then electric tramway network without the necessary outlay required for rails and overhead, yet provide a glimmer of hope in future, given patronage, of the option of expansion of tramway services. 

In most cases, these replaced late night and/or weekend services on some tram routes. Then on some cross suburban routes led to the demise of local tramways completely.  

I have also changed the headboards to reflect west suburban destinations. 

The third phase. 

The Leyland National. 

An EFE/Trux production. 

What happens when successive state governments offer a rail link to the city, yet do nothing, bustitute. 

The citizens of suburban Doncaster, north east of Melbourne, have for as long as has been recalled, have been promised a heavy railway line into the city, to this day this has not happened. 

Some Melbourne suburban rollingstock even had Doncaster East as a destination on the headboard roll in anticipation, but alas these units have retired from service and will never arrive.

Another case of promises,promises. 

Enter the mid to late 70's, tangerine is still somewhat a fashionable colour and as long the sun still shines,  rail is not heading out to Doncaster soon. 

Behold the Leyland national, barreling down the Eastern Fwy, to the city, in its own designated lane at 80km/h. 

These buses apparently due to their modular construction, led to handling and ongoing maintenance issues that in the end resulted the exclusive use on 'slow' suburban runs. 

While the run number features 'D' from the Doncaster depot the headboard has been altered for a Footscray depot run. 

Going long haul, the Denning Mono Coach. 

A Trux model. 

Introduced in the early '80s, these coaches filled the void by the closure of lesser country rail services, they also provided a rather cheap (and somewhat long and nasty) interstate transport between the state capitals as an option when airfares at the time compared to today were incredibly expensive.  

The other use for these coaches were charter services such as school excursions, country race meetings and at the the time, the rather lucrative border raids from Melbourne to the Murray River towns of New South Wales with 'sports' clubs that housed poker/fruit/slot machines. This caper ended when these horrid machines were introduced into Victoria by a state government who was at the time going a bit scruffy for revenue. 

This model in AAT livery is relevant as AAT at this time had their Melbourne depot in the inner western suburb of Spotswood.

 The nightmare scenario on Victoria Street.

As in the past tram depots have evolved into bus depots, for a variety of reasons such as the tramway has become redundant or the depot has become too small for larger trams and/or an expended fleet. 

The former Footscray tram depot in Buckley St, went from a four road yard and shed housing a collection of four wheel single truck trams to an extensive bus depot covering an entire block. 

Under the wires on its last day of trams

(Photo courtesy Trams Downunder)

After the closure of the local lines. 

(Photo courtesy Trams Downunder)

Back to back buses. 

The wheels of progress have turned again, recently the bus operator moved from Footscray to a new and larger greenfield site further out west, resulting in the Footscray site being sold off for a development featuring apartments and a retail section.  

Not under the wires but amongst the diesel fumes and oil leaks on the tarmac. 

Glenn

There is always something on the go.

Since the exhibition, the layout sat fallow in the study for over a month, still as the three disjointed modules that were placed there on the Sunday evening after the exhibition.  This is mainly due to the bride entering the final furlong of her post graduate studies, which in turn places me in the chief role of kid wrangler (3), until Melbourne Cup week (early November). 

With the modules not connected, this allowed some housekeeping to be performed between organising food relief (dinner) and emergency sessions of the UN Security Council (peacekeeping).

- some street lights at the junction were finally connected. 

- an external socket and switch installed to the front end of railway station module.

- an introduction into the realm of Bluetooth technology. 

Lights are on.

The intersection of Victoria St and Albert Rd is now illuminated by street light which improves operational safety for tram services heading to and from the Ammo Factory of a night time.

The Junction at night

A lonely wait at the Ammo Factory

The Glenno Go-Box*.

The only place that I could set up the rolling road was the open ballasted track on the Ammo Factory Module, but now I have installed the trolley wire, I no longer have the height under the wire to use it there.

Enter the solution to the problem.... 

The Glenno Go-Box* by Glenno Innovations.

"Crafted from the finest left over commemorative port wine display box, The Glenno Go-Box* will last longer than the horrendous hangover from the original contents.
It's a rolling test track, it's a servicing cradle with storage all rolled into one, but wait! It's also portable, it can run DC, DCC and also has a battery option for when you are away from the work bench.

A rolling road for DCC programming....

A servicing cradle.....

    
 The Glenno Go-Box* is supplied with two directional 1/4" mono jacks, with 1/4" plug on each, a battery pack, a set of powered wheel cleaning tools and a fly lead that connects to your layout, regardless if it's DC of DCC.

Battery option....

 

The Glenno Go-Box* is great for running in new rollingstock and/or programming DCC, as it takes up little space, ideal for those with small or micro layouts.

  Small and compact with storage....

In service mode, it stores and sorts all your service equipment in one convenient compact location.

The Glenno Go-Box*"

In reality, I have cobbled together an old grog box with a bit of flexi track glued to the outside base, wired to a pair of mono jacks that can fed by a battery pack or a fly lead from the layout, that can also power a set of Peco wheel cleaning tools, all of which can be kept inside with the rolling road under a sliding lid fashioned from an old cutting mat (as the perspex lid was re purposed for switch panels).  I have installed felt pads on one side and blocks of rubber on the other so to keep the rails side clear of the bench when in service mode.

Note; this concept is not trademarked* or patented, so feel free to plagiarise this idea for the benefit of the entire model railway community.

A switch and a 1/4" mono jack has been installed on the railway station module so to feed the Glenno Go-box, the switch throws the power from the supply(DC or DCC) to either the track or the output so not to reprogram the rest of the fleet sitting on the rails, the lead was purchased from a music shop, as used by rock guitarists for effect pedals.

The feed from the layout.

Bluerail Bluetooth Decoder.

From cutting notches to cutting edge. I have recently installed a Bluerail Bluetooth unit into
one of my fleet, SW6 870 a Cooee collectable static model retro fitted with the mechanism from a Bachmann Brill trolley.

Direct control via Bluetooth and the free app.

Not much real estate left under the drop centre.

This adaptable chip plugs directly into a 9 pin decoder socket, while larger than regular and cheaper DCC decoders, this allows myself to use a smart phone directly to control this tram without having to fire up the laptop, run JMRI, make sure the wifi is up and the USB interface is plugged in if I wish to trundle a quick service from one end to the other, without either having to punch in the car number into the tethered Powercab, all I have to do is power up the rails with either DC or DCC, open up the app and we are off.

The size comparison.

All the adjustments are made from the smartphone, also it plays sounds out of the smartphone, as it only set up with diesel and steam loco sounds at the moment, I have muted the horn, engine noise and toned down the coupler clank to substitute for the linebreaker kicking in. Break squeal and release along with the bell provide enough entertainment for me at this stage.

Motor control is smooth, but it will not tolerate any slight disruption to power supply and will shut down, it is probably less tolerant than DCC, but this is all a learning curve at the moment. The Bluerail unit also has four light outputs that can be adjusted from the smartphone.

I have bought another one which I may adapt into an adhoc Bluetooth DC controller or use as a spare if I let out the magic smoke!

So there it is, a bumper issue, and as with all road trips there were some casualties.

W5 800 looking worse for wear, minus a route number box and a lifeguard

residing at the Ammo Factory siding waiting for repairs.

Staring down into the football finals (Go Bulldogs!), then rolling straight into the spring racing carnival from under the wires.

Glenn

The wire is up!

Finally the trolley wire is up left of the railway bridge on Victoria Street. 

After about eighteen months since the beginning of construction of the new modules, (the depot, the junction and the Ammo factory), the trolley wire sits resplendent above the rails. 

Now to be quite honest, I thought I would not be able to get this up before the Sunshine model railway club exhibition, the first weekend of August; however the lucky combination of an early shift and and the bride heading off with the kids to her parents for a few days during the school holidays allowed myself to knock over this task. 

The method of hanging wire is a bit of a dark art that requires a little planning and a fair crack of patience. 

The materials that I use for this project are;

- coat hanger wire (span poles)

- multi strand copper earth cable

- craft beads (insulators)

- PVA and five minute epoxy glue

- a sharp felt tipped marker pen

A collection of hobby tools required are;

- a soldering iron and solder

- small side cutters

- a 300mm/12" steel rule

- a cutting mat

- a few spring loaded clothes pegs

Let the fun begin

Now in a perfect world, be it 1:1 or 4mm:1', all span poles would be evenly spaced around the curve, in reality street infrastructure such power (utility) poles, driveways and other obstacles. This is where it becomes interesting.......

The span poles are the first to go up, straight coat hunger wire cut to length with a dash of black paint on the bottom like the prototype. 

Some span poles are reworked Atlas telegraph poles with a cross arm removed and a few insulators knocked off to resemble the power (utility) poles that line the tram tracks of suburban Melbourne.  

The span poles are glued into blind holes drilled into the base board, these holes should be a snug fit for the poles. 

The next is the span wire made from the strands of the copper earth wire, the strands are 0.6mm (.024") thick. 

To straighten the strand, I roll the strand between the steel rule and the cutting mat. 

First cut the wire longer than the span being covered, one end is coiled two to three times around an off cut of coat hanger wire, then five of the small craft beads are threaded onto the wire and are left to slide along the wire at this stage. 

The coiled end is slid over the top of the span pole, pulled taught then coiled on the opposite pole across the tracks. Rinse and repeat.

The span wires at the Ammo Factory

On the curves along the tracks, pull off wires are required for the intermediate span wires so the trolley wire can be centred above the track. 

These are soldered to the span wires close to the span poles, care is required when soldering close to the plastic power poles. 

The intermediate span wires are threaded with the beads and soldered to the underside of the pull off wires, again the beads are left to slide for the time being, the spring loaded clothes pegs assist in holding the wires during soldering.

When all of the span wires are in place, finding where the trolley wire will sit is the next stage. 

I have for this task cobbled a wire centering tool made from a non powered Bachmann Brill trolley bogie, a blob of Blu-tak and a tooth pick.  Crude but effective way of finding then marking the contact point of the trolley wire to the span wire with the marker pen. 

The wire centering bogie

Stringing the trolley wire requires over estimating the length of the run, starting from one then methodically soldering the trolley to every span wire where marked, at this point  making sure that two of the beads are between the pole/pull off wire and the trolley wire. The aim is to have along the span wire, two beads, trolley wire,  one bead, trolley wire, two beads. The clothes pegs come very handy when hanging the trolley wire and the wire centering bogie can assist in pushing the trolley wire against the span wire for soldering. 

Positioning and fixing the beads (insulators) along the span wire requires the tram with the widest pan on its pantograph for clearance purposes.  One bead hard against the pole/pull off wire, the next is placed clear of the passing pantograph, these are glued into place with PVA glue, the one bead between the trolley wire is glued dead centre. 

Therefore in the odd chance of a new tram with a wider pantograph fouling the overhead, the beads can be relocated with a drop of water. 

Clearance testing.  

The positioning of the overhead frogs over the points at the depot, junction and terminus I followed the local but fast diminishing prototype of Melbourne. Trolleyville online also provide tips on hanging overhead wire and fixtures. As the whole overhead had to taper lower to the railway bridge, the whole assembly was set into place by sliding and adjusting the wire height along the span poles, once I was happy with the 'flow' of the wire I used five minute two part epoxy glue to fix the span wires to the span poles.

To finish off, a splash of black paint. 

Easing into the Ammo Factory line.

The view from the railway bridge.

Another angle of the tangle

From under the newly installed wires. 

Glenn

Phaffing about

The last month after knocking over the depot shed, work and life has conspired against me. On the odd occasion  I tend to shuffle trams in and out the roads of the depot shed, along the stretch to the racecourse back to the ammo factory then back into the sheds.

 

Busy times at the depot.

The other thing I doodle with is time tabling, especially when I'm on dad duties, roughly drawing train graphs of arrival and departure times that allow for short shunting special services to and from the racecourse that also in turn need to avoid conflict with regular services. The backs of envelopes, pages from a scribble pad, scraps of paper all provide a medium for creativity while supposedly supervising small children.

I did manage to visit a hobby shop, I obtained some sanitation based objects, old school rubbish bins (none of those 'modern' wheelie bins), and a Victorian era public convenience for the Ammo factory terminus. As per usual the facilities were kitbashed to suit my requirements, as the original concept was again too large for the area provided.

I bet the ratepayers of Victoria Street are happy with the local council.

 

Loitering or stage fright?

The other purchase was a replacement motor for 812, as this tram had a history of coughing and farting after about fifteen minutes of continuous running, the current draw of the original motor was diagnosing an issue with one of the windings, the decoder after the stated period would kick in 'self preservation' mode so as not to allow the 'magic smoke' escape.

The replacement motor is one for the Auscision brand of Australian prototype locomotives, the centre height was spot on, however the diameter of the new motor is about .070" wider than the original, so some old tech school bench fitting was required to make it fit inside the split chassis of the Cooee Collectable mechanism.

 

I will make it fit.

The replacement motor also has some massive brass flywheels that may in someway affect the tides of the planet and not to mention the ability alter the course of the space time continuum. The original drive shafts to the gear towers had to be extended to accommodate the new motor, now I have a tram that could out pull most of the model locomotives going around if I could be bothered with fitting it with some kadees.

 

812 is finally back in service.

 

So there it is, in a nutshell. I have spent the last month phaffing around.

From a slightly busy work bench under the wires.
Glenn.

Works at the Depot.

The brickies have been in and the depot shed is starting to resemble something like a tram shed and less like a cool store, This is the largest and most intact structure on Victoria Street, it is also the final one.

 

A typical day on the tramways.

The brick sheet used is Superquik pasted onto the foam board with a glue sick, concrete lintels and bases are cereal box card,  the roof is in the process of being finished off with Wills corrugated iron.

The space between the shed and the office features the former substation that used to serve the depot and the line to the Racecourse and the Ammo factory,  The original rotary converter installed when the depot was isolated from the main system inside has been mothballed and the space is used by maintenance as a store. This was made up from leftovers from the Ammo Factory building, a Metcalfe Warehouse kit.

 

The substation/stores

Depot signage has either been scanned from books or sourced from the internet, resized in windows word then printed out on office paper.

Here are few more photos in and around the new depot shed.

 

4MPH in the yard.

 

 

Carring out from the sheds.

 

 

About to enter service.

 

 

Road 3 at the rear of the shed,

the entry/exit point of rolling stock for the layout

 

 

The whole depot lends itself to an inglenook shunting puzzle, which means that in order to run a tram from the back of the shed, one has to shuffle and shunt trams in and out and try not block the traffic out the front of the depot for any extended period of time. some trams are sent over the crossover to the Ammo Factory to hide for a few moments, others provide 'double shunts' at the depot entry, all in all fun and thinking all round.

 

Now for the fun part, the overhead.

 

From under the roof at the end of the layout.

Glenn.



 

 

 

There is a fine line between detail and insane.

I have been in the process of installing lights into the two SEC trams, Ballarat 28 and Bendigo 29. These trams were DCC chipped nearly two years ago, they had their CVs tweaked and have been in regular service since.

 

County cousins from about 2 years ago.

 

However a tram without running lights can be a hazard to itself and to others, for when it is called up by the controller, you have no clear idea which direction it will go when it moves into step one, (usually into the tram 'behind' it at the depot), nor can you tell if it has stalled on dirty track or it's just being difficult.

That's the thinking behind about fitting lights are, the headlights let you know which way it should go and the saloon lights inform you that the tram is receiving power and is waiting for further instruction, this sums up the detail aspect.

The insane part of this blog, is that both trams are of the single truck four wheel variety, (Ballarat 28, a reworked tyco/mantua trolley and Bendigo 29 a JEM resin kit on an Bachmann 44t powered bogie) therefore there is a distinct lack of real estate inside these models, even when you have installed rather small decoders, there is the space consumed by the mechanism, then you decide to install headlights, marker lamps and interior saloon lights as well, enter the two blokes with the straight jacket and a few sessions of weaving cane baskets!

 

The mechanism of Bendigo 29, with a socket on top

fashioned from half an eight pin IC socket.

 

 

The innards of Bendigo 29.

With three LEDs at each end, two warm white, on red.

 

What makes this concept more interesting is that I install LEDs with dropping resistors for lighting, but as I choose not to incinerate surface mounted LEDs for these projects, no, I use the more robust 3mm LEDs, warm white for the headlamps, red for the tail/marker lamps and yellow for interior lighting.

With the marker lights, I use 1mm(.040") fibre optic thread/element that is heat shrunk to the LED, and to ensure that the 'magic smoke' does not exit the decoder, all leads of components and wires are heat shrunk and insulated. All of which is in the confined space of these trams.

 

The marker light assembly, a warm white LED with heat shrink

surrounding the two smaller heat shrunk sleaves that the 1mm Fibre optic

element will press fit into.

 

 

Testing the marker light assembly before installation.

 

Ballarat 28 was just as entertaining to do, and was fitted out in a similar way. The results speak for themselves

 

 

Ballarat 28 & Bendigo 29 passing outside the Grand Theatre,

 

 

and earlier in the evening along Victoria St.

 

 

Then back at the Depot later that night.

 

 

From under the wires with little trams in the dark.

Glenn

P.S. This is the 100th post of Victoria Street.