LLV 9958

Good progress was made today on LLV 9958 with the completion of modifications to the underframe and assembly of the sides and ends of the van. Tomorrow work on detailing the body will begin.

A quick update

Christmas has come and gone and now, I should hopefully be able to settle back into a working routine on Murringo's rollingstock over the coming year. A small amount of work has been managed since the last update.

The paintwork on the Redfern Models BCH hopper has been tidied up where it has smothered some of the finer details and the provided bogies have been replaced with AR Kits 2BP bogies and a nummber of brass wire detailing parts have been fabricated in preparation for additional detail work to the end platforms and underframe. A scratchbuilt MRC refrigerated van is now making good headway with some work still remaining on the ends, underframe, roof and doors. The roof has been "canvassed" with masking tape strips.The next step will be to fit the ice hatches and roofwalks. The K wagon project has been put aside to allow more complete projects to be finished including the detailing of a small fleet of Protype S trucks and CV closed vans. LLV 9958 has now had the horizontal cross members on the underframe removed, thus making the van effectively an LLV. From here, only a minimal amount of work will be required to complete the van.

Hopefully, it will not be too long before the next update.
Regards,
Murringo's shed foreman.

Today was a moment for celebration for the staff of the Mechanical Branch as they watched ex Victorian Railways GY 5127 roll out from the workshops after undergoing an extensive rebuild to convert it to an NSWGR K wagon. The management have described the conversion as being very successful, despite the extremely late delivery of the wagon. With the paintshops still not ready for use, the powers that be have informed me that the wagon will enter service following the fitting of Kadee couplers and continue running in its current condition until such a time that the remainder of the work can be finished. This will include the fitting of underframe details such as brake gear, hoses, handrails and tie rings as well as new brake shoes as the old ones were beyond salvage. It will also be required to beef up the side sills of the underframe so that they are flush with the sides, as per the prototype, however it will be possible to complete this work within a short time frame. It is expected that once GY 5127 is completed and repainted into Gunmetal Grey, it will be renumbered as K 25576. GY 5127 was originally purchased back in 2004 as part of a small lot of model trains, however it was not until 2008  that the decision to rebuild it as an NSWGR K wagon was finally made. Now after two long years, the Mechanical Branch have released their first rebuild into traffic. The management are very pleased with the results of the conversion, and as such have purchased a second GY wagon to under go a similar treatment, GY 16347. Various parts of GY 5172's original underframe will be re-used to rebuild GY 16347's underframe, beyond this, the conversion will be essentially the same as with GY 5127. Upon completion GY 16347 will be renumbered as K 23040.

Happy Modelling
Murringo's Shed Foreman.

From the workshops: New stocks of parts have arrived

Today christmas came early for the Mechanical and Permanent Way branches' workshops. The mechanical branch has now taken delivery of a Callipari K wagon underframe and RU grain hopper body as well as a mountain of various bogies and couplers and many other spare parts. The mechanical branch are slightly less enthusiastic about the arrival (and the subsequent increas in workload) of a badly battered Bergs 1959 BCW cattle wagon, a broken Lloyds 43 class body shell (which appears to be beyond salvage and a Bergs 49 class loco missing the cab and short hood which may be salvageable. It is expected that the BCW will be stripped for parts for the other cattle wagons in the workshops presently and the K wagon underframe will be used to assist in the rebuilding of two ex Victorian Railways GY wagons to K wagons.

Meanwhile the Permanent Way Branch has now taken delivery of some new sections of timber platform and a variety of signal parts as well as a lower quadrant Distant signal arm, several signal lanterns, some ground frames, point rodding stools and various other assosciated components, platform namesigns. I think the time has come to get the navvies off their backsides and into making some sleepers and other parts for the track so that when Mr Postman brings Greg Edward's trackwork manual, things will be at a sufficiently advanced stage to begin the tracklaying process.

That's all for now.
Regards, Evan.
Murringo's Shed Foreman.

From the traffic manager's desk

Recently the Mechanical Branch has taken delivery of a number of new wagons. These include two MLV and a lone LLV louvre van; two D wagons and a BCH coal hopper.

Below are photos of the new wagons (excluding one of the MLVs) as delivered.

 

To the sharp eyed, yes that LLV is indeed actually a GLV (at this present stage). There are plans afoot to rebuild this as LLV 9958, an LLV from the first batch with rivetted underframes, however fitted with end pressings matching the second batch LLVs, which were recoded as GLV. This work however, will not be able to be undertaken until November due to the paper (HSC) work which presently covers my desk.

Regards,

Murringo's shed foreman.

The Murringo Branch

This is a blog for my model railway, Murringo that I am presently building. It has taken me five years just to get to the stage of being able to really get stuck into building Murringo This being because of indecision, school work, space restrictions. Now I at last have a dedicated space in the garage in which to start building.

Murringo is set in the 1955-1957 era as a small Whitton era branchline to a village tucked away in a fold of the hills in the southern wheatbelt of NSW. This short branch, built to connect the grainfields that surround it to the coast for export and distribution through the state and nation. I will admit that while Murringo is a real town, the railway is purely fictional. I chose to model a fictional line because it frees me from the restraints of the prototype and allows me much greater choice in where I set my layout, etc.

Why Murringo?
I chose to model a branch to Murringo because I've always been interested the cross country line from Blayney to Demondrille and the branchlines which stemmed from it, but all of the station layouts that suited what I was after exceeded what space I have available and those that did fit, lacked in operational interest and complexity. I finally decided on modelling Murringo when I was reading about James McInerney's layout "Lambing Flat" and the fictional "off stage" branchline to Murringo. A bit of research into the village and the surrounding area showed that it was just the right blank canvas for my layout.

Why 1955-1957?

The 1955-1957 era was chosen because of the variety of rollingstock it offered. The mid-late 50s were a time of great change on the NSWGR. Many of the 19th century steam locos had been displaced onto small country branches out west leaving a good variety of small motive power for my choosing. Along with this, many of the pre war freight wagons had been shifted to the branches and even new bogie wagons were beginning to find there way to the extremities of the network. To top it all off, it was a time when the grain industry was shifting from the old method of shipping grain in sacks toward more modern bulk handling, allowing me to model the indispensable S truck piled high with grain sacks protected only by a canvas tarp next to, then modern, covered wagons loaded with 20+ tons of grain sealed up from the elements.

That's why I've chosen to model Murringo in the 1955-1957 era.

I hope to keep this updated in future with news on the tracks and trains of Murringo, as well as the town and that you enjoy reading my railway ramblings.

Sincerely,
Murringo's shed foreman.