We are not modelling anything specific. We haven’t picked a single era, epoch, country, region or other archetype to go by. What we are building is a fantasy layout, on which it is entirely possible that locos and rolling stock will be mingling which never would have had any geographical or temporal proximity in reality.
There are numerous reasons for this, one being affordability of models. We’ve decided to pick up bargains where we can (relatively speaking), and we often go by look and feel of a model, rather than its actual utilisation or original purpose.
Bearing this in mind, we have expanded our fleet a bit, and it’s become more international and spread across time.
To recap, so far we have a Queensland Railways 2300 Class Diesel. This prototype entered service somewhere around 2009-2010, but is a rebuild of an older locomotive. These Diesels perform freight and passenger duty in Queensland on only a few systems, because they’re too heavy for other tracks.
We also have a GE 44 Ton Switcher, which was acquired as a track tester, but is likely to perform additional roles in our setup, once some remedial work has been done with it. The GE 44 hails back to the 1940s and 1950s, was mainly used across the American continent, but of the 386 produced, about three handfuls made their way to other parts of the world, four of them having ended up in Australia.
The first of our two recent additions is the NSWGR X200 class Rail Tractor numbered X214. This is a small loco which we really just liked for its looks, but the model does have a bit of pulling power (quote the manufacturer: “They’re stronger than they should be.”). The X200 goes back to the 1960s when it performed shunting and even some light line duties. 12 were produced but only about seven remain preserved. X214 had to be equipped with a decoder, but we knew that going in, and it was fairly easy to do.
The second addition to the fleet is a German steam loco Class 80 (DRG BR 80). These locomotives were built in the late 1920s for shunting duty, and were operated until the late 1960s in both East and West Germany. We wanted a steamie, but the cost of even average models is at times prohibitive, especially when fitted with sound. This one was a bargain we picked up on Ebay, after some research indicated that it would be fairly easy to equip it with a digital decoder and (further down the line), as it has a fair amount of space inside the chassis. At the moment, the BR 80 is running with one of my spare decoders, but a sound upgrade is firmly locked in for the near future.
We have also added some rolling stock, as can be seen in the above picture. I picked up a set of German passenger cars from a private seller. These ‘Donnerbüchsen’ (thunderboxes) were built in the 1920s in a full steel construction, and earned their nickname for the loud noise they made due to lacking insulation. We have one 2nd class car, two 3rd class cars and one baggage car. There is a good chance that at some point a BR 80 was hooked up to those cars like in the picture, as they were in operation during the same time.
For now, this will be enough motive power and rolling stock. Going forward, we will focus on landscaping and buildings.