Street Life

A couple of weeks ago the crew from Sunshine Model Railway Club had their August exhibition, and for the first time in three years I was not exhibiting Victoria Street, so this gave me plenty of opportunity to have a good look around the trader stands and have a rummage through their boxes of obscure modelling items.

I am always on the lookout for people to fill out the street scenes of the layout, as trams tend to run through an urban environment and people are an active component to the operations of trams be it 4mm to the foot or 1:1 scale.

Another thing is that streets are full of other features, and needless to say I was stoked to find scale parking meters, ideal for the inner urban scene, and the soon to be scourge of my local traders and residents.

The other aspect are the parking bays and road markings that go along with the street scene, on many layouts at exhibitions I have seen a perfectly ballasted and weathered railway blighted by an attempt to 'model' a road by a dark grey strip of paint divided with an equally harsh attempt of hand painting a centre line, some may have even tried to mask the road before painting the lines, only for it to bleed under the tape.

The method I use on Victoria Street is the glue and paper strip technique, it gives sharp lines and a tidy finish, the paper I use is bog standard office paper cut into strips 1.5 mm wide and trimmed to length glued into place with PVA glue on the bitumen road surface of my choice, 400 grit wet and dry sand paper. It works for me.

(It is also easier than painting road markings, especially when you have already hung the trolley wire!)

So here are a couple of happy snaps with the slightly better digital SLR.

 

 

Evening twilight on Victoria St, now with metered parking



Looking for change for the meters, from under the wires.

Glenn

A Real Clanger

I have recently obtained the sound module from a promo item issued by Yarra Trams as part of an ongoing safety campaign. The item was a bright yellow foam rhino fitted with a sound module that sounds two beats of a tram gong.

The rhino campaign states that a tram is like up to thirty rhinos on a skate board, so therefore a 'look and listen' campaign. A subtle reminder for any pedestrian or motorist who decides to position themselves in front of a moving tram, that they are either a fool or a definite front runner for a Darwin Award.

Innocent enough.

(Before)

 

The sound module is roughly an inch in diameter and three quarters of an inch thick, it is powered by two small lithium button batteries and is actuated by a small press button, given its size and 'disposability' it cranks out a decent set of clangs with a nice sustain.

 

So with a little bit of fitting and phaffing, and a new push button and some fresh batteries, it's all now fitted into the facia of the layout. (my first foray into sound...) The red push button is now a magnet for my kids, they push it, it goes clang clang, so they push it again, to them it's better fun and more addictive than bubble wrap!

 

The interactive display

(After)

 

 

I know, if I really wanted too, I could go into the full sound DCC sound caper, but I am having enough fun at the moment with my little gong button.

 

 

From under the wires and driving the missus mad.

 

Regards Glenn

 

 

 

 

 

 



Cutting Notches

As I have observed with the remaining stock of W class trams in circulation, is that they have a certain characteristic when accelerating.

As these trams run a traditional series/parallel DC controller (7 series, 7 parallel notches) there are a distinct yet subtle 'kick' most times when notching from first resistance series (notch 1) into second (notch 2) and when going from full series (notch 7) into first resistance parallel (notch 8).

A typical W class set up (minus all the vigilance controls that exist on the current



 Melbourne Fleet) photo courtesy Wikipedia.

 

 

With DCC and the Decoderpro/JMRI software, I have 'tweaked' the speed curve on all trams to include this feature, it also allows for a visual speed check of the running tram without having to look at the numbers on the NCE Powercab.

 

Believe it or not the jump from one step to another in running is not as severe as it appears the speed curve.

 

 

From under the wires

 

Glenn

 



 

Changing Tracks

To be quite honest, little has been done on Victoria Street in the last couple of months, There has been a career change, so after near on twenty five years on being in the maintenance engineering caper, including the usual field of self inflicted injuries (mashed thumbs, nasty lacerations, the odd sprain and/or strain and burns!!!!), my working life has taken another direction.

With the new gig, as they have a rather stringent social media policy, all I can say is that they operate differing shifts, run large 1:1 equipment and deal with all aspects of humanity*.

So when I finally get myself into some sort of pattern, the planned backlog of work will be tackled.

 The two yellow lines of facing points (Melbourne)

signifying a compulsory stop, so to observe the

setting and intended direction the tram will take before

proceeding. (like in life, look before you leap)

Photo courtesy of Vicsig.

 

 

*the diverse and interesting people of inner suburban Melbourne.

 

From under the wires,

 

Glenn

 

Stepping out of the comfort zone

Occasionally you can get a little bored of running on your own layout, so when the opportunity to give my girls a gallop in greener pastures came up, I thought why not.

The crew at Melton Model Railway Club also have dabbled into the NCE DCC/JMRI wifi caper, together with the Free-mo Au mob have had a couple of run days on their collective temporary layout.

So myself with a road case of DCC fitted trams and my NCE Powercab, hit the road and headed west to Melton.

 The city and the bush.

 Running away from home.

 Hunting in packs.

Loitering with intent.

Mixing it up.

 Even the old X1 went for a run.

 After some dramas with wifi router, everyone went retro with power/pro cabs plugged into the layout.

So all in all, a great day with a fair minded concept of a modular layout that gave the girls a good sustained run higher than half throttle over a decent length of track, thanks again to Adam and the crew at Melton for the opportunity to have a cracking run.

Not from under the wires this time.

Glenn

Time to get organised.

Several projects have been horribly neglected since becoming besotted with DCC, materials for other projects have stockpiled to the point that the domestic authorities are in the process of intervention.

PROJECTS THAT REQUIRE ATTENTION!!!

•  The illumination of Victoria Street, so far only one module has been completed, The Railway Station. The rest of the layout still resides in the dark ages.

• The animation of the crossing gates.

• The construction of several other classes of Melbourne trams, these will include the W2, X2, VR, PCC 1041 and a Z1/3, plus the reworking/painting of several existing models with the correct decals and the installation of DCC friendly lighting.

• The construction of 2 to 3 more modules featuring back scenes such as residential, educational, and industrial to compliment the current retail, recreational and railway aspects, all with simple trackage to offer longer operational running.

• The updating of the track wiring for DCC, and the elimination of terminal strips in favour of plugs and sockets.

So there it is in simple point form, I have to spend more time at the work bench and less time phaffing about  on the laptop, which reminds me of a couple photos I recently uploaded to flickr of shots in the dark.

 As shade of film noir.

 Now in living colour,

and at the other end of the 'only' lit module.

From under the wires,
Regards Glenn

Life and Art

I try to capture the essence of Melbourne life in Victoria Street with street scenes from a time ago.  People, places, signage all play a part in creating a narrative of the time. While most scenes are created out of my memory. One in particular, is one I intend to model possibly when exhibiting and I need to go for lunch or for just a wander.

The scene played out yesterday (24/1) in full 1:1 scale in Racecourse Road, Newmarket.

Note the scorch marks on the impact beam courtesy of 600 volts.

(Herald Sun Newspaper)

This event happens too often, 3.7 metres (12 feet) is not that great a clearance; however, it always seems to catch out truck drivers regardless of the advance signage, clearance gauges and warning lights and this causes all sorts of traffic mayhem for locals, the route 57 tram and the rail line above.

So at the end of the day, some truck driver will be looking for a new career.

Play safe, work safe.

From under the shorted out wires.

Glenn.

P.S.Happy Australia Day.