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Steel Rails Layout & Story by Frank Gedde Photos By Neville Rossiter Working the tracks at Alice Arm The ore trestle An overview of Alice Arm • O Scale Trains - Jul;y/Aug ’08
This is the story of the Dolly Varden Silver Mine, set in British Columbia, Canada, circa 1914. It was fascinating to sit in on a lecture about this mine while at the Toronto NMRA Convention of 2004. It was just what I was looking for to reproduce as a portable modular layout to exhibit at shows and, of course, it would fit around the walls of my garage! The whole thing caught my eye because of the rugged terrain, the plethora of trees I would have to make, and because the buildings, cabins and mine area were all made of wood and shingles. It also gave me the opportunity to try a new scenery technique not seen before in Western Australia. Just the thing for me. I decided to move up in scale to On30 and to try DCC, too. NCE DCC was the operating system of choice, used in Bachmann locomotives (a T-Boiler Shay, and the new Climax). I’ll need to acquire some more small locos, but they will come with time. My aim was to keep it small and modular. I made the main modules 12” wide, 4’ long, and 2’-8” high, with a fluorescent light fitted behind the valance of each module. The layout has seven modules arranged in an “L” shape. Spectator viewing was also considered, with a height of 54”eventually chosen to allow people to look into, rather than down on, the layout. The pine trestle legs supporting the modules were four feet high, with the layout’s framework sitting on top of them. The basic frames were constructed using 1x6 pine with mitered corners and timber gussets inside where the trestle legs sit. Risers (1x2) and 1/4” plywood roadbed were installed and cut at each module end. In all, construction took nine months. Narrow-gauge On30 track and rail (all code 100) were purchased. Track was handlaid in the yards and over the bridges, which took over three full days to complete. Turnouts were Peco HO, due to their competitive price. Clay was used for general ground cover, as were sticks and twigs collected from the natural environment. Flower stamens from the marri tree (eucalyptus calophylla), various lichens and mosses, and branches from the sheoak tree mimic tree trunks superbly. Various flowers from proteas, bansksias, caspias, dryandra, wattles, and paperbark twigs were also used. In fact, most of the scenery materials were natural products mingled with (of course) the old faithful ground foam. Using an industrial sealant, Selleys “No More Gaps”, the whole assembly was fixed to a polystyrene base which was fixed between the wooden frames. Automotive spray paint from cans and spray glue were also used extensively with a final coating of diluted PVA glue. u (more photos on page 6) July/Aug ’08 - O Scale Trains •
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39 - O Scale Trains Magazine Online

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