Where does one start?

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Being in the Information Technology and software domain, I have methodologies to help guide practice to achieve goals and I wasn't sure how to start this process with a model railway layout. Sure, I could just go into a shop and buy a heap of stuff I didn't know what I was buying and then end up realizing I have bought the wrong thing or never actually use it properly, so I was little stumped where to start.

Going to the library is a little time consuming these days as most local libraries are more like community hubs and sometimes information is not available in their catalogues resulting in a blind book purchase.

The Queensland State Archives was a consideration, but that would have been a bit of day trip and time off work to try and coordinate, and I would need to renew my passport to travel 😁.

So, I turned to everybody's trusted source Google, quickly I become overwhelmed with the number of possibilities, acronyms, forums and videos of various viewpoints. Then I remembered a lesson from an old colleague and friend from many years ago who taught me "KISS", no not the pucker up type, the principle "Keep It Simple Stupid" and so things began to become clear. 

I fired up the coffee machine, made myself a brew, grabbed a notepad and started to scribe away to define my goals.

Choosing a location

This was a fascinating decision as I do not have the space for large continuous running layout and maybe the unconscious bias pushed me in this direction making the decision easy towards a shunting layout. As I mentioned my family worked for QR at various sites across Queensland and two of these sites I had experienced were Pinkenba and Mayne. When I looked at both sites on Google maps, I realised I did not have space to reconstruct Mayne and Pinkenba would allow me to pay tribute to my Dad and Grandad so it was selected.

Choosing an era

The period I selected was 1950's - Late 1990's again this was where Pinkenba was most active with its economic contribution in fuel delivery to Queensland and where my Dad and Grandad worked together.

Choosing a gauge

The Federation of Australia in 1901 created a range of unique outcomes for us as a country and I am not going to try and dissect and explain this but essentially, we've ended up with various standards of rail through Australia due to economic reasons and siloed decision making. In Queensland we run a 3 foot 6 Inch track or narrow gauge and it was at this stage I did not know if modelling would be possible but I wanted to try and keep as prototypical as possible.

Choosing a Locomotive

It was either Stream or Diesel. Since my family had worked together on Diesel it was selected and Diesel locomotives were what I had from my childhood train rides to the city and Ekka, even my first day to work in my first job was by Diesel. I aim to have about 4 - 5 locomotives on the shunting layout.

Choosing Rollingstock

The primary rollingstock down at Pinkenba was O Class Tank Wagons and the goal here will be to try and have about 24 tank wagons and range of other wagons to push around on the layout.

Moving forward

The next couple posts I am going to try and make about the journey, or should I say the further decision making I made to get informed before I spent my first dollar on model railway. Hopefully this will help anyone that may come across my tracks realise this is the experience that makes the hobby fun plus opens the doors to the ongoing learning opportunities.


Until next time.

Little Shunter


Credits

Evolution of rail in Queensland


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