Wombat Creek Tramways

Saturday 30 May 2020 is a day to remember in Wombat Creek. The tracks on the new extension have been laid (and re-laid due to a curve being too tight) and wired. The circle line is now fully operational with up to three trams running at the same time.

The photo shows the single line along Lt. Church Street. The line was planned to run in front of the church, but resulted in a curve in Church Street being too tight. The curve was eased but one of my three identical (?) still derails negotiating the curve. A problem to solve at a later state.

The shop fronts are mock-ups of real shops from the streets of Melbourne. They have just been printed and glued to cardboard to give me an idea, how they fit in. Before a final print each shop front has to go through Photoshop to get rid of electric wires and poles in front of the shops.

The control panel for the extension is a temporary fixture made from a take-away container! The tracks are still the original lay-out. The two unused holes are for the now re-positioned points into Little Church Street.

The work on the extension of Wombat Creek Tramways is on its way. A couple of engineers are inspecting the latest track work at the intersection of Main Street and The Golden Mile. The four right angle crossings are working quite well, but the crossing just to the left and outside the view has caused some issues with older locomotives. The engineers also have some concerns with the curvature right before the points. The track geometry isn’t great.

The reason for this is partly how Wombat Creek Tramways is constructed. The mayor of Wombat Creek, Alfred Campbell, decided with the help of his son David, editor of the W.C. Chronicle, the town needed a tramway. (The rest of the good people of Wombat Creek are too busy with their own businesses to care). To keep the costs down AC/DC decided to purchase tracks, points and rolling stock second-hand, if possible. So they bought a pair of points for a very good price, and as a result of this the Tramways got an unnecessary curve!

In my previous post I was running out of room. A bookcase was ‘un-stacked’, moved and finally re-stacked and more room for Wombat Creek Tramways appeared! It is now possible to extend into stage 2, The photos shows ‘the blank canvas’ that will be the town centre in a couple of years!

So enough room, but not enough tracks. I have the five crossings and the points needed, but a mail order will soon be done for more flexible track. I will keep to posted on the progress!

Stage 1 of Wombat Creek Tramways is almost finished. Well, it will probably/hopefully never be finished. Still some ‘concreting’ to do between the rails and a couple of points to wire. But otherwise, all major features are done. So it is time to think ahead.

Unfortunately I am running out of room. ‘The Tram Room’ should have enough space for stage 2, but at the moment the room also serves as a office. My wife and I are both working from home due to COVID-19.

But I have done some forward thinking. I do have a plan for Wombat Creek Tramways, so I had a pretty good idea of the next step, which will have to fit onto a 900 x 900 mm square. On Ebay I got a very good deal: two Peco points fitted with motors for $25. Unfortunately they are a quite long version, so could they fit in?

Some cardboard was cut to the right size and I could measure it all up. The points didn’t fit in the expected spot, so the plans had to be redrawn. The result is a far better line-up! The points will sit at a major tram stop, which gives the opportunity to go in to directions. It will also save me two point a a crossing on stage 3. The 90 degree crossings (four of them) will connect to the existing track at the front of the lay-out. The points near the church will lead to a track at the back of stage 1 (behind the town hall). The last three points are spares for stage 3. The two quarter circles are for drawing curves.

So what now? Wait for the virus to disappear or try to get started on stage 2 already. It can be done without being put in place. Just a matter of lining up the tracks. I prefer the last option.

The paved area behind the brewery, the shops and Ray Knott’s joinery has been somewhat ‘boring’, so something had to been done to make it more attractive. A while ago a small building – formerly the stables for the brewery’s draught horses – got erected and some fencing applied, but the area still needed more to be attractive. So I decided to plant a tree – a rather big gum tree.

I started off with florist’s wire to form the trunk and branches.

The wire was then covered with no-more-gaps filler. It takes a while to try but remains flexible for some time, which gives you the opportunity to keep adjusting the shape of the tree.

Once dry the whole tree was painted light grey with a few darker strokes. Brownish paint simulates rough bark at the base of the tree as found on some gum trees.Finally the canopy was added using Woodland Scenics light green foliage.

Before planting a small area of cobblestone was ‘dug’ up and replaced with some grass made from ‘teddy bear fur’ sprayed with a light green paint.

No backyard would be right without a Hills Hoist. Of course the two gardens around the houses had to have the Aussie icon for drying your laundry. A bit fiddly to do. I had to reduce the number of strings from six to four, but I think they came out all-right. The clothes are made from tissue paper painted with a very diluted acrylic paint.

The garden around the green house still needs some work. The garden bed is too empty and where is the second icon from the 1960’s – the incinerator?

My third project during my stay-at-home holidays dealt – like the horse stables – with an odd shaped area. This time it is next to the ‘Mug Punter Hotel’. I often search the internet for images I can use as inspiration for future buildings. I came across a few photos of a South Australian blacksmith shop advertising horseshoeing. They gave me the idea to construct this small building. Due to the size of the spot the proportions of the building is much smaller the original, but the features are pretty much right.

The corrugated iron cladding is vertical on the front and back, but horizontal on the sides. One of out-buildings to the side is with stonewalls re-enforced with steel beams. The very vigorous plant near the front is also found at the original building. I haven’t worked out how to write/paint ‘Blacksmith’ and ‘Horseshoeing’ on the corrugated front, so I may end up with a sign above the door. Another challenge is the interior. The building was design to have the front towards the street and you wouldn’t be able to see inside, but it works better being turned 90 degrees.

The fence looks a bit worn down, but what else would you expect after the business was taken over by ‘Oscar Leaky’s Plumbing Service’! Oscar is so slack he hasn’t bothered to put up his business sign. To be true the signage is delayed because of COVID-19. I get my signs etc. printed at Officeworks on high-quality paper, but I don’t think a trip to Officeworks will qualify as ‘essential travel’.

Woody’s timberyard has been completed for quite some time – except for the crane used to haul in and out large pieces of timber. The timberyard sits right at the back of the layout, so the buildings are only a couple of centimetres deep.

The figures on the fence come from a similar fence around a timberyard in the Danish town of Svendborg. I am not sure it is still around. I caught the image from Google Streetview and put it through Photoshop. In real life the board was a real piece of wood, but being at the back of the layout I decided a ‘flat’ print will do (The 3 foot rule?).