Modeling ScaleScaleScale for the O Scale TTTrainsrainsrains Craftsman OOOIssue #1 • US $8.00 O Scale Railroading Down Under: Neville Rossiter’s Bay Ridge Harbour RR Build This Float Bridge! Plus regular features... O Scale Hall of Fame From the Cupola Modeler’s Shelf Dealer’s Corner Narrow Minded US $8 • Can $12 & More... Lots More! PremierePremiere IssueIssue N&W Hopper Cars in “O” Scale class H2 Brass Three Bay Hoppers N&W Classes H2, H3 and H2a • Brass Construction $225.00 • Less Trucks & Couplers • Factory Painted • Decals Provided • Available Unpainted $210.00 w/decals class H3 Order Yours Today! Contact: Rich Yoder Models class H2a 7 Edgedale Ct, Wyomissing, Pa. 19610-1913 • 610-678-2834 • [email protected] Visit our site on the Internet: www.richyodermodels.com Photos are of prototype hoppers. Original cars built by Virginia Bridge & Iron, and the N&W Modeling for the Scale O Scale Craftsman Issue #1 OTrains Editor/Publisher Features Joe Giannovario 4Neville Rossiter’s Bay Ridge Harbour RR Layout/Design A U.S. prototype model railroad down under . Jaini Simon 11 Adding Weights to Cars Contributing Editors Gary Woodward’s simple solution. Bruce Blackwood 14 Working Windows, Hatches & Doors – Pt. 1 Bobber Gibbs Custom Builder Harry Heike shares his tricks of the trade. John C. Smith 27 Improving Weaver’s 53' Flat Car Subscription Rates: 6 issues United States US$36 Not bad out of the box, Ed Bommer makes it even better. Canada/Mexico US$50 Overseas US$75 31 Constructing the Float Bridge on the BRHRR Mastercard & Visa accepted Build the most interesting feature of the Bay Ridge Harbour RR Call 610-321-0858 during Eastern time business hours 36 Building a PRR B8a – Pt.1 John Sauer shows how he builds in modules Dealers write for terms. Advertisers write for information or visit our website. Departments O Scale Trains ISSN 1536-9528 www.oscalemag.com Published bimonthly (6 times a year) by 10 Narrow Minded - Bobber Gibbs O Scale Trains Magazine, PO Box 238, Lionville PA 19353-0238 12 O Scale Hall of Fame - Minton Cronkhite © 2002 OST All Rights Reserved 13 Dealer’s Corner - Bruce B. Blackwood Contributors: O Scale Trains welcomes your feature articles, photos, and 17 The Modeler’s Shelf - Readers’ Photos drawings. Such material should be sent to the above address for possible publication. If we 19 Advertiser Index accept, you will be notified immediately. For more information concerning article prepara- 23 Events tion guidelines, please send an SASE to the above address and request our “Guide For 34 Crapola From The Cupola - John C. Smith Authors” or visit our website. 40 Product News & Reviews COVER: ANew Haven boxcar is readied for the Car Float on Neville Rossiter’s Bay Ridge 44 The Modeler‘s Shelf - More Readers’ Photos Harbour RR. See story on page 4 for more info. 46 Observations O Scale Trains • 3 Bay Ridge Harbour Railroad An American model railroad in Australia Neville Rossiter Above: Looking across the car float dock at Bay Ridge, a switcher sets out cars behind the Perth, Western Australia warehouses on 1st Avenue while a power shovel scoops gravel from a flat car. Below: The car floatbridge from dockside. Neville scratchbuilt the floatbridge which is the My interest in model railroads subject of an article elsewhere in this issue. started off when I was seven years old, funny enough with O gauge — that is, Hornby clockwork trains which were very popular in Australia after the Second World War. Hornby would be the equivalent in Australia to Lionel in America. As I got older I went to HO scale European Marklin trains and kept this scale for a number of years. One day I picked up (yes its true!) a copy of Model Railroader and fell in love with American railroads. At that time Rivarossi/AHM was coming into the shops and I was fascinated by the large articulated locos that Rivarossi was producing. Eventually all this was sold and it was a number of years between getting 4 • O Scale Trains Above: Farther down 1st Avenue we see a string of Allied Chemical tank cars headed toward the married, establishing a career and 2nd St yards. Notice how the combination of 3-dimensional flats and the photo backdrop add real depth to the scene. bringing up the family before I got back into trains seriously with American HO. Below: We’re looking down across the car float itself into the floatbridge. It looks like it’s low tide, too. Neville uses lots of figures to add a sense of action to the static scenes. Then, again, one day at a local model railway show in Perth I saw some On3 locos and a bit of track. I was hooked on its size. This led to a trip to America and several purchases of On3 items. In 1990, after a couple of years of constant kit building and little train running, I decided to go into O scale standard gauge and have been happy with this decision ever since. Planning the present railroad began with planning the space. In fact, I had a room built onto the house for this pur- pose. Here in Australia, we don’t have basements so building a layout means using a room in the house or going outside to a shed or separate building. I started to build my layout in 1988 (continued on page 7) O Scale Trains • 5 PIERI RR1 1 WWeeigheiighh Bridge r g BAYAY RIDGER GE PIERP ER 2 track Junkk Paved o r Mirror M Switcher Paved Container Yard Track GravelG av l Pressr s DrillD l CuttingCu i g BenchB n h WoWkBWoerkrk BenchBeecc h SanderS n e GlassG s Slidingi n Dooro r LumberLumu bber N Makea e this h lline inee 22"" longo g andn Team Track Freight scaleca e is then e 1/2"1 2 = 1 ffoot. footo GlassG a s Slidingli ng D PwrP Sta. The Layout Details NAME: Bay Ridge Harbour Railroad. TRACK: English, Peco, codes 124 & 143. SCALE: O (1:48), standard gauge TURNOUTS: All # 6 Peco. PROTOTYPE: Freelanced. CURVE RADII: 42" Min. LOCALE: Brooklyn, New York. GRADES: Nil. PERIOD: 1960-70 (flexible) SCENERY: Real dirt and Woodland Scenics STYLE: Around the wall. Walkaround. materials. BENCH HEIGHT: 50" BACKDROP: 1⁄8 Masonite, with painted sky, BENCHWORK: Butt joint framework, flat Pioneer Valley, and Walthers building back- top, subroadbed 3⁄4" Chipboard and drops. Homasote. CONTROL: Four cab controls using MRC ROADBED: Cork and direct to Homasote. Control Master 20 Power Centers. 6 • O Scale Trains using On3 with a standard O gauge about a day. The benchwork is fairly Ridge float bridges in South Brooklyn feeder, but after 2 years I changed to standard, virtually flat module boards were many years ago. Rolling stock is all standard gauge as I found I was using 1x4 pine and 3/4 chipboard and Intermountain, Red Caboose, Weaver spending too much time building On3 1/2 Homasote on a cork roadbed. The and the new AtlasO, which I find are rolling stock. Originally, the layout track is all Peco because it is the only O excellent for their price. was an “around the room continuous gauge track available in Australia, the track” plan, but I soon got tired of ballast is Woodland Scenic. What Operations are running trains to watching the trains going round and scenery I have is Woodland’s ground each end and switching in between. I round. I then found that a switching foam and real dirt from the hills that use a simple card system. All uncou- layout was what I liked, so I worked surround Perth. The backdrop is ply- pling is done by hand. At one end of out a layout that was virtually one big wood painted blue. Structures are a the layout I use 2 visible tracks for industrial park (Harbour) with inter- mixture of well known O brands, interchange. At the other end a float changes at each end. It is a walk-in end mostly modified in some way. I use bridge with removable floats. to end no duck unders!! The room MRC controllers (hand held walka- measures 25 x 25 feet and is fully air round), and all the wiring I have done The loads on the freight cars are all conditioned and heated although with myself, along with virtually everything removable so that cars are run one the Perth climate the heating is not else! One of my sons, Mark, painted a way loaded and return empty. (The really necessary. The lights are fluo- huge number of figures for me. loads are lifted off and returned by rescent, 14 in all. Mains power is sup- hand to shelves under the layout.) I plied direct to the layout through 10 Locomotives are Weaver, Red have had up to 8 operators at a session power points. Caboose, and the new AtlasO. I also but mostly I am by myself or with one have two sets of Sunset, BB-3 “rats” of my sons. The railroad eras can be changed that I hope to use for switching duties from the 50’s to the 80’s and 90’s in at the floatbridge, the same as the Bay My entire railroad apart from track, Below: That’s Neville holding the car float and standing in front of Pier #2. Doncha just love the size of O scale? Especially for us old pharts with failing eyesight! But the quality and quantity of detail in O scale models are hard to match in any other scale O Scale Trains • 7 ATrip Around The Layout 5: Beginning to turn west we come across a cobble stone team track.