FAULCONWOOD AND SPRINGBRIDGE RAILWAY.

[aussietmrail]

Hi Roy, sad to see Faulconwood and Springbridge Railway gone, will you be calling the indoor layout the same name, my layout is indoor and outdoor design, could join in on both threads, Tehachapi loop in in under the pergola as well as the main station complex too.

That is interesting your grade on the new layout, 1 in 40 as my grade on my layout one and a quarter in 42 inches , I made up a board so every 18inches I support posts to the right size on the spiral.

Slowly moving along on my layout, will do some more work on the entrance station module over the weekend, bought a new hand saw today, Stanley cuts any kind of wood, use it for trimming tree branches, bought a mitre box as well.

I discovered a new way on how to construct the wind turbine blades, will be working on the new turbine blade tomorrow, pics to follow on my post, got six to build an need a third set of spine cars to put them on, need 5 spine cars for only two blades, 20 inches long in HO scale to 45metre blade.

ill be interesting to see the progress of your new layout, looking forward to see Autumn arrive, still have a few hot days in Autumn..

Tony

[cleanerg6e]

Today to give my aching back a rest I removed the last of the track on the boards and on the Hebel blocks. I was a little heart broken at the thought of having to throw all the new track from the blocks in the bin. I found that the cement/ballast mix had adhered to the blocks very well but with a little persuasion came off the track quite easily. So after a cuppa and a bit of thinking I wondered if I was to use my council high pressure water blaster on the work vehicle if that would remove the ballast/cement that was still adhering to the plastic sleepers.

My pressure water blaster comes with four changeable nozzles, three for water and one for detergent application. Discarding the detergent nozzle the other three are wide, narrow and jet. I tried the narrow nozzle and turning the lengths of Peco Streamline over so that the sleepers were upper most I blasted the track with the high pressure water.

Low and behold the cement/ballast mix just disintegrated and what looked like horrible track with cement/ballast clinging to it came up brand new. I turned the track over so the rails were upper most and gave that side a quick hit. I even did a set of points taking care not to blast the little spring and they too came up like new and fully functional.

Once the remaining stumps are removed I can make a start on demolishing the Hebel block work. They will come off the cement base easily enough but I'll have to hire an electric demolition hammer (the mains powered version of the air compressor powered "jack hammer") to split the aggregate concrete up into small enough pieces to enable me to shovel it into a wheel barrow and tip it into a skip.

As for a name for the new railway, I haven't a clue and I'll cross that railway bridge when I come to it.

Roy.

[cleanerg6e]

ba14eagle said:

Roy

My heart goes out to you.

I have recently had to do exactly what you are doing. Hours, years even, of hard work ripped up / apart - sometimes in minutes. It really does your head in.

I have been looking at property to rent and buy recently. I am going to be renting for sometime to come, so have very little prospect of building much of anything and all the prospective properties to buy, none has a decent garden in which to build - I have been very spoiled!

So, before I hijack your thread too much, I will just say, keep your chin up and think about the fun you got out of what you had

Oh and before I go, I will say to all our English based friends, I am always open to invites to come and play on your railway, if you can put up with my diesels Got to get a fix somehow this Summer.

I apologise for not replying sooner. Your right it takes only minutes to undo what takes an age to install. You may hijack my thread as often as you like. I hope you are able to find a house with a decent size garden to build in and not too expensive.

Roy.

[cleanerg6e]

Yes Mick in the end the elements finally got the better of me. My only regret is that I made the railway TOO big in the first place. I was annoyed when people here (in Australia) had all sorts of wonderful ideas that I should try out, but they wouldn't come and give me a hand to implement them. So I didn't try them out. As stated before it was a constant worry about vandalism as the railway stuck out like a new tooth in an old ladies mouth and didn't blend in. I'll upload some more ending photos once the demolition is complete.

Roy.

[cleanerg6e]

IanR said:

Yes, share some photos Roy, then we can all share your heartache.

R.I.P. The Faulconwood & Springbridge Railway.

Thank you Ian you're very sweet and I still look upon your railway as the very best of high level outdoor model railways.

Roy.

[cleanerg6e]

traingeekboy said:

Sad to see the railway going away, but perhaps you'll make something equally as interesting either in or out of doors.

I struggle over my own layout due to other issues. But I plan to keep hacking away at it.

Yes in some ways it is sad Griff in that I won't be able to run 60+ wagon freights and 12+ passenger coach trains. But I'm looking forward to the new railway. I try not to get downhearted thinking of the time and money and effort that I put in on the Faulconwood and Springbridge Railway. I did what I did and it can't be undone. I think I was very foolish to build such a HUGE length of railway as the upkeep was big. Having a look on you tube most of the big garden railways owned by older men in G scale seem to fall into disuse after the owner becomes too frail to look after them. So maybe there's a lot to be said for a small garden railway.

On mine if the boards had not rotted out where the hinges were due to water getting in around the tiny screws then eventually the tops would have given way due to the paint deterioration and being unable to paint under the rails. I wouldn't have left it too long for the stock and rails to plunge through the boards into a broken heap onto the ground below though.

Even this railway that I'm planning will eventually have to be consigned to a skip when I'm too old to look after it unless someone here with a large out building wishes to buy it. With a garden railway you can't remove it and reinstall it somewhere else.

Roy.

[aussietmrail]

Hi Roy, Heart goes out for you as well, all that work you put into the layout, I often think the same but have designed the track plan so I can add on as I go, that way trains are up and running quicker.

I am glad I have gone module layout in the garden railway, taking a bit longer to build and will have no ballast in the track at all, maybe a thin layer to make out the track is ballasted, track will sit in on the ballast like I did on the Tehachapi loop module.

How much track did you end up saving cleaning then with the high pressure hose.

Tony

[cleanerg6e]

One box full of streamline code 100 and one medium right hand insulfrog point.

[aussietmrail]

HI Roy, how it going down there in the Blue Mountains, a few days of summer left, looking forward to the cooler days.

Good news you managed to save a box of flexi track and a point for you new indoor layout adventure , what sort of track theme have you decided on, a box of flexi track in the hobby shop at Ipswich $120. I have been buying a few lengths at a time, have bought two boxes in the past and reusing old track even old points from the first layout, won't be using the old points on this layout.

Working on the entrance track module the last few days, coming along slowly, will get there.

Happy modelling Tony from SE QLD

[cleanerg6e]

Well the demolition has come to a halt due to all the rain we've been having. I've now removed all the stumps and they're neatly stacked as are all the track boards. I've started demolishing the hebel blocks but due to the ever present rain I can't hire the electric demolition hammer because I can't use it in the rain.

My Pink Tongue lizard is dead after 15 years of having my place as it's adopted home. I came home Monday night and found her/him in the jaws of a Red Bellied Black Snake. I startled the snake which was attempting to eat the dead lizard after killing it. Whilst I went inside to phone for the snake catcher the snake itself disappeared. Maybe the Pink Tongue was getting old and not able to move as fast as it once did.

Red Bellied Black Snakes will usually try to escape and won't confront a human unless cornered. The Eastern Brown Snake has an entirely different temperament. That snake has a really short fuse and a huge inferiority complex and would prefer to strike rather than escape.

If it manages to bite you it's venom is so toxic it's lethal.

Roy.

[aussietmrail]

Hi Roy, we have had our fair share of rain as well with that cyclone, we got 140mm's out of it, still humid up here, looks like what my son has said we are going to have a warm autumn and all of a sudden the winter will hit us.

Sad to hear you pet blue tong lizard went the way he did, that red belly black snake must of being huge, haven't seen any of those snakes here, we have more problems with brown snakes, got to make sure the fly screen slide back door is closed at all times.

Haven't seen out lizard around for a while.

Do you live near Katoomba and Leura museum, they have a O scale Swill narrow gauge layout and the scenic railway is near there as well, that would be an interesting project to model.

Tony.

[cleanerg6e]

Photos will follow shortly of the final view of where the railway used to be.

I hired a demolition hammer and was a bit apprehensive about it's ability to go through the concrete. I'd hired it for 4 days. I picked it up at 10am. I started "hammering" at 10.30am and I'd completed the demolition by 1pm. Either it was a very efficient tool, or my concreting wasn't as good as I thought....mmmm. I got a large refund from the hire shop.

I've cleared out the garage and I'm amazed at the junk that I'd managed to collect over 30 years.

For Tony I live about 15km from Katoomba and go there as rarely as possible. It's a ghastly place. Tourists love it, locals hate it. I have been to Leurala a sort of toy train/dolls house/old home museum which has a wooden mock-up of a full size steam loco smoke box in the garden. I think it's a "P" class 4-6-0 and use to be in the old NSWGR shop in Sydney.

The scenic railway which is reputed to have the steepest rail incline in the world has recently had a thorough rebuild due to plain common usage. Many tourist think that it's an easy way of quickly getting into the valley below and that's what it was constructed for. But no it was constructed by the Katoomba Coal and Shale Co for extracting coal and kerosene shale from the valley below. What is now a beautiful lush green valley was in the time of the mining as "bald as a coot" with not a tree in site. (The beautiful tree lined valley was planted by men after the mining had finished). When the mining started to decrease the company would offer tired walkers a quick and cheap ride to the escarpment above. Not in the type of vehicle used nowadays but in 4 wheel wooden coal wagons. The people sat on pit pony feed bags. They also later gave people rides down into the valley. There is a story that two elderly ladies inspected the haulage cable and asked the operator if the cable broke how long would it take for the wagons to stop. The operator replied 'madam the wagons would stop in 5 seconds. Thus reassured the ladies climbed aboard. Without a cable and brake on the cable to slow the decent the 5 seconds is how long it would take to reach the bottom....in a mangled heap. H&S at it's finest.

Roy.

[cleanerg6e]

Where I live is steeped in railway history.

We have the Lapstone Zig Zag, the first attempt to get a railway over the mountains. That formation is now a popular walking track.

The second attempt was the single track Glenbrook Tunnel which on a continuous curving uphill gradient of 1 in 30 with no ventilation was a horrible experience for both passengers and steam loco crews. It's still there but has been used for years for growing mushrooms. As it's only a single track tunnel, height wise is pretty good but width wise there's not 'mush room'. In WW2 it was used for the storage of chemical weapons, mustard gas etc. That only came to light quite recently when two (now) old former armed forces personnel came forward to tell what was really going on in the tunnel at that time. They lived locally and the locals had no idea.

Up at Wentworth Falls is a large lake that appears to be natural. Wentworth Falls Lake is man made and used to supply water to what is now Lawson Lawn Bowling club. It has a odd appearance to some of it's outer walls. They are curved because it was originally a number of water tanks. From the Lake at Wentworth Falls a pipe ran down the northern side of the railway line to Lawson and kept the tanks filled. From there the pipe ran down the southern side of the railway line to Valley Heights Locomotive Depot. Water was also supplied from the lake to water columns at Lawson, Springwood and Valley Heights Loco Depot.

Valley Heights Loco Depot supplied locos at assist down trains up the ruling 1 in 33 gradient from Valley Heights to Katoomba which is a distance of 20 miles. The present mainline still uses this formation. The ruling gradient from Penrith to Valley Heights is 1 in 60.

Valley Heights loco depot is now closed and in use as a railway museum. Steam finished over the mountains in 1957 and today high powered diesel locos work in multiples of 3-4 to haul goods and empty coal trains up the gradient.

[cleanerg6e]

With the first skip full of all the concrete stumps and 4x4 wooden legs but no railway boards I tried to get a bigger skip. My first one was a 4m squared skip at $547 for 4 days. A 10m squared skip was going to be $1200 for 4 days but on ringing them later they had none spare so I hire a 6m squared skip at $700 for 4 days which arrived Monday morning and will be picked up Friday morning. Most of the railway boards are in this one and all of the concrete and Hebel block is going into it too. I'll probably have to hire another 4m squared skip to finish off all the demolition and rubbish removal. All the treated wood that was in use as garden edging for a proposed garden will be removed an disposed of. I intend to use rock and concrete it in. All of the big pieces of rock I bought can be split to thinner pieces, then broken into smaller pieces to use as garden edging. I'll take some photos of the skips and post them on here together with a view of the now empty plot.

It should make a nice ending to the Faulconwood and Springbridge Railway thread.

Roy.

[traingeekboy]

I;m still saddened to hear about your layout being torn out, but sometimes a clean slate really does lead to something new and interesting. I will be curious to see how the indoor layout works out.

[cleanerg6e]

Well here are the last two photos which signify the end of the Faulconwood and Springbridge railway.

The first photo shows the area which had the concrete and Hebel blocks.

The second photo shows where the concrete and blocks are now.

That my friends completes the thread of the Faulconwood and Springbridge Railway R.I.P

Roy.

[IanR]

Farewell the Faulconwood and Springbridge Railway.

[aussietmrail]

Hi Roy, thanks for the info in post 553, will have to check the post if it is right later, year have hears that saying people hat live near historic sites don't go any where near them, in Ipswich there is the Ipswich workshops railway museum. I was involved in the museum around 2002 when there was a train club there but since they kicked the train club out I have never being back, they have a train show there don't go to it either, I live about 20K's from there.

Very sad to see final days of Faulconwood and springbridge railway go lets hope Roys new in layout adventure will just as good, will be keeping an eye n the indoor layout posts.

A pity you couldn't leave some of the track and track bedding there as a back drop like they do with the real railways, in Brisbane some of the tram track is still there in a couple of suburbs .

Know how Roy feels had to do the same with my layout and cut it back, the Tehachapi loop had to go, like Roy where I had the loop module stored the garden shed roof leaked and made a mess of the plaster and grass matts.

The new spiral is going to a simple spiral construction where I can set the sections up quickly as a module layout, plug and play.

Going to be a stinker up here today, having a new Air-con fitted, old one is on it's way out, be much cooler in the house now in time to watch the cricket.

Happy modelling, Tony.

[mick]

After all the work you put into it it's hard to believe the Faulconwood and Springbridge Railway is no more. I guess now you'll be moving on to doing the garden, perhaps sowing lawns and planting all kinds of things? What was there before the F&SR took over?

[cleanerg6e]

mick said:

After all the work you put into it it's hard to believe the Faulconwood and Springbridge Railway is no more. I guess now you'll be moving on to doing the garden, perhaps sowing lawns and planting all kinds of things? What was there before the F&SR took over?

Yes I'll be planting plants Mick and before was just "Lawns" well weeds actually. I never moved the lawn, I harvested the weeds. I used a grass catcher on the mower so "all was safely gathered in", the catcher.