Taking the first steps

I've known for ages that the time to begin planning a home layout was really upon me. That decision to start means so many decisions needing to be made I guess it's just been easier to do nothing. Not that I've been sitting around my show layout SSC is certainly keeping me busy, but not forever I'm afraid. I'm aware that there will be a time that I'll want to get into the home layout, and I guess I want to make sure the planning is well out the way before Splitters is no longer in use.

The thought of having to tie myself to a particular area is one that has had me jumping about the state of NSW, not literally but certainly linking thoughts to photos to line diagrams to Branch lines. The discs available from the NSW Heritage Society of track plans around the state have been spinning for many an hour in the disc drive that's for sure! I'm being careful of not falling back to old favourites, like the Grenfell line from Koorawatha, an old favourite from years ago. In fact it came to my attention after reading about it in one of the earlier AJRM mags (always a great read!). Grenfell is a huge location, so won't be possible in the space I have...maybe another show layout?

 Daz and I had a tour through NSW years ago now taking photos of what was left in as many closed lines that we could find. We looked at track layouts, topography and anything else that might be of interest. I've been trolling through these photos as well, and Eugowra kept coming up. I've been mindful of being as clear minded and sensible about this choice of location as possible. So after a fair amount of time I thought, OK lets really look at the Eugowra Branch.

The discs from NSW Historical Society have been a huge help. I searched for Eugowra first and it brought up the stations that the extension from Canowindra to Eugowra opened with, those being Nyrang Creek,Trajere then Eugowra. The extension opened in December 1922. I had a look at the NSWrail.net site to look up any photos of the line and discovered that there were other stations that opened on this line in later years, the station listing became:

Canowindra
Nyrang Creek
Geradan             opened March 1927
Gooloogong       opened Feb 1924
Nanami              opened June 1933
Trajere
Eugowra

These additional stations I searched for on the discs, but only had Gooloogong come up as North Gooloogong. The photos on the NSWrail.net site had me intrigued with photos of a grain shed and mill located at Nanami. I will definitely have to look into that station further for my own interest.

The whole of the branch before Canowindra includes from Cowra, Cowra West, Glen Logan, Billimari, Bangaroo then Canowindra.

The space that I have in the garage is fairly limited. If I had any grandiose ideas of a railway empire they've quickly evaporated when reality of track design and aisle widths come into play.

For the sake of starting off this blog and planning here are two sketches of how things have changed so far. Things are still fairly liquid so the stations picked may change or be deleted as the planning continues.

 This first sketch shows a couple of different stations to the second. When I was planning originally the spot where Bangaroo is was to be a staging area. Well I'll see how I go as the plan moves along, but I think a simple trackplan might engage me in modelling a little longer than a staging area, so we'll see.

The second one has a little more thought to just how aisle widths and track radii will come into things. Also the station names have changed, but they may go back to Nyrang Creek instead of Gooloogong depending on room. The two stations set in stone are Canowindra and Eugowra. There are still oppportunities for change even with just these two depending on 'time' the layout is set in determining the track layout and its features.

I've still got to get into the track plan, but that will come just not in a hurry.

A busy couple of months in front of me, and for those of you who may read this in the next week, Merry Christmas to you and your families,
 may the gift of Jesus Christ touch you in a very personal way,
Peace be with you, always.

Geoff.