The Third Rail

05/02/2025

There is still some life in an old Lima grain wagon. 1.5mm off the pivot, 12mm Spoorbabers and brakewheels from Sarmodel, then a dash of paint and off you go. Will do steps and handrails for it today.

04/02/2025

The largest SAR HO scale layout in SA is well on its way. We fetched the bits from Precision Miniatures yesterday. Made a couple of brilliant decisions last night late. Toorwater was moved and the poort will be rebuilt. By not just plonking it down on the table where the CG1 used to be, we gained another 40sqm of scenery space.

Now we can build depth into it. We can do smoother transitions between scenery bits and so forth. Its going to be a monster!

29/01/2025

When a customer send you a video of your last couple of weeks worth of work, it feeds me. There is a buzz, an excitement. Be honest, how many times while watching this clip, did your eyes wonder below the catwalk? Can you understand now why I carry on and on and on about wheelbases, pivots and correct sideframes?

These two 35’s just look right. And man, is it just me…. the grain wagons suit it perfectly.

Lekker julle!

27/01/2025

The single most difficult job on any model for me, is indeed the wipers. I dont do them on the commercial ones as it is a very time consuming job. Unless you have R800 to spare….

I put it out there as an option. And lo and behold, nobody even flinched. The tribe has spoken. They want wipers.

0.2mm brass….. bend and soldered. Then painted. You sneeze….. its gone. You swear too loud….. its gone. You dont look at it ALL the time…. its gone. You bend it slightly too tight, the rod breaks. That piece will fall in your plakkie and first time you get up stick straight into your “eina moer” nerve.

Timed myself yesterday….. takes me two and a half hours to make a set. But then the fun starts….. fitment.

Your brand bew weathered and painted loco…… you have to drill 0.2mm holes into. You gain about 11 years by the time you are done. You have one chance…

Yes, I know, you can purchase photo etched wipers. But they are flat. And designed for American locos. They would still have to be modified. The delrin ones are too thick.

So this was the only solution I could think of.

Lekker julle!

26/01/2025

I have a rough idea now of how I am going to do the HO track in the shed. On SCARM, the layout planning software that I use, I quickly drew a straight line with no sidings and used the train simulator to see what sort of run time I can expect.

I ran a train quickly in real life at a speed that I think it looks prototypically correct and that turned out to be about 130mm/s. Round about 40km/h scale speed.

And…… it took 41minutes to complete one lap!!! The main line remains a single track. The shortest table closest to the garage door gets run twice. That is a 27m stretch with a 10 track 8m long siding. This will give me trains crossing each other even though they are on the same track. I can run 10 consists, 4 minutes apart on the same track and they will not even see each other.

The main line is 285m long roughly. With all the sidings in, SCARM reckons there will be 780x 914mm HOm Peco flex straights! Of which I will have to buy 192 as the rest is here already.

So if anyone has 12mm code 75 track to sell, please let me know. I am going to need a lot of points.

Lekker julle!

24/01/2025

Sarmodel/TTR class 36GE and a Balkan Models class 36GM.

22/01/2025

2024….. time to reminisce a bit.

One never thinks that whatever you build is ever good enough. As Bunny Fouche mentioned to me a while ago: “ Jou eie goed is mos nooit goed genoeg nie”.

Every model builder has that problem. But organising my pictures last night the YNF build came up again. And now, with time that eroded your critical eye a bit, I looked at it and it pleases me.

Man! It was a stressful time. Deadline. The owner of YNF wanted a 34GM in Prasa livery but then wanted it changed to custom colours to highlight his business. Fritz reckoned me his favourite colours were blue and silver…… and that I had a clear canvass to do what I wanted.

It was a static model. I had none of the restrictions a running model has. I could get the stance nice and low. I could interlock bogies. Do all the plumbing. And the cherry on top, it was my all time favourite diesel. The GT26MC.

And he had no problem paying for my time. Then you can go ballistic. Below is a picture essay of the journey. I have no idea where it is now. If he still has it. It was built for the Rails of Africa expo. In 3 weeks!!

Thank you for the memories Mr Orren. I will never forget this loco.

21/01/2025

I’ve had a couple of you asking what happened to the 36GE.

So I finished it quickly today and put wipers on it and such. I will post a video later.

This is a loco thats way overdue in HO. This one in 12mm gauge. Its mine and a development item. So its not perfect but what I can say that it is absolutely spot on scale wise. Perfect wheelbases and pivots. It has 36ness! The soundfile is good, airhorn is wrong but I will alter it on the file.

All that must still be done is the interior. I need to draw it up and get it printed. So customer versions will have full interiors like the rest of our stuff.

Lekker julle!!!!

21/01/2025

HO scale South African railways layout on 12mm gauge

19/01/2025

This is my South African modeller of choice. If I want structures, this is who I would want to build my stuff. I already only use his figurines but this is what I want to see on my layout.

Ou Leon, dit is van die beste wat ek nog gesien het in die wereld.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1DtUPwtqWi/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Railway company

16/01/2025

First time they pull in unison.

16/01/2025

So what’s on the bench, I hear you ask?

Well, I am quite a way in. One class 33GE and one class 35GE.

The 33 is decodered and ready for the grey roof and running boards. I am starting to mask it now🤮

The 35 is a bit special. I call this one an inspirational train. I went through my parts and saw that I could do one more 35-400. I took a chance and put it up for sale on my WA group and I kid you not. 30s and it was gone with a second attempt by someone else shortly after.

Which in my book means that our locos are becoming sought after. There is no bigger compliment than that. I have done its gearboxes. Chassis will be rolling by tonight. Its wet and humid after all the rain, so that yellow undercoat will have to sit for a day. But by Monday they must be ready to ship.

So thats that. Thank you to all the people interested. I read every comment. I do not always reply as time is a bit limited. But trust me, I read every one and every name sticks. The regulars are the ones driving me. Without you lot, this would have been a lot harder to do. Just thank you.

Lekker julle!!!

14/01/2025

This morning a bakkie swooped in and loaded my trains. Now they are someone else’s trains.

In a way its like when a child leaves home. I am nervous and hope they travel well. I am excited to hear feedback. But still, a part of me went into the big wide world.

And there is a three train wide gap on my shelf.

13/01/2025

Look, this is how it works. Frank Collingwood at Sarmodel designs and prints the stuff I build.

I got a bit of a large head with the CG1 1/24 scale stuff I built in the past. So Frank is not the type of guy that gets offended when I ask for something to be altered. Which is why I love working with him.

When I was building the 5 GE’s, I noticed a little hump around the exhaust outlet’s one corner. Looked like a little piece left behind when the drawing was done.

So I mentioned it to him this morning. In typical Frank fashion, a dry icey reply came back, you know, like the inside of a blast freezer: “You mean this?”

And I was left with egg on my face. Ostrich egg. 😀😀😀

12/01/2025

3x 35GEs done!!!!

Tomorrow I assemble boxes and off they go to the the Cape.

Lekker julle!!!

12/01/2025

There is always a lot of debate around DCC decoders. Its like car brands. Everybody has his/her/its reason for choosing whatever they like to battle with.

Myself, I am an ESU ju**ie. I have had lots of flack from mainly the younger generation. Seems that nowadays bluetooth and yellow tooth, generic sounds through a 10000000W speaker and disco lights get preference over detail and customisation.

I am old school. For me the interface between myself and the inner workings of the decoder is very important. And pushing 60, I am all thumbs when it comes to modern technology. The last technology I mastered was indeed the Rubik’s cube….

So things need to be transparent. The ESU Lokprogrammer does that for me.

When pushed through decent speakers, no decoder I have tested has the ESU sound detail. Zimo tried. But they tried to bedazzle with reverb and hammering the Doppler effect and echoes and crap. I want to hear pushrods. I want to hear overhead clatter in the injectors. I want hear a turbo spool up. Detail!

I also don’t want to go through millions of CV’s to program. I don’t want to have to go through a sequence of buttons and crap to do a simple thing.

Click….. done. For those that are foaming at the mouth by now, go write me a smoke map on a soundfile. Throttle input, boost taper and so forth. Then show me.

That is why I use ESU. A decoder is only as good as it allows me to make it. Watch video below of two CG1 1/24 35GEs strutting their stuff.

Afrikaans want julle manne was deur dié bou bankvas agter my. Dankie aan almal.

08/01/2025

There is a common misconception that 12mm Cape Gauge HO is different in scale to 16.5mm HO SAR.

I am going to post pictures of two locos that I am busy with. 35GE’s. The orange one is on 16.5mm and the blue on 12mm.

Scale has nothing to do with gauge. Both are exact HO. 1/87. Someone mentioned somewhere that it is impossible to build HO scale SAR stock on 16.5mm and keep to scale. Rod at Precision has been doing it for decades.

Indeed, you will need custom mechanisms so you can build either-or from the ground up. And Frank at SARMODEL designed them in such a way that you have to look very carefully to see it. The man is a genius.

So now you guys running on normal 16.5mm track at home, don’t have to lie awake at night with desire. 😀

You can order. It will be pretty damn close. Isn’t technology in the right hands a wonderful thing? Thanx Frank.

07/01/2025

All of a sudden I get a lot of WA’s and emails asking for tips and tricks on building stuff.

Here are some:

1) Have the right tool for the job. Don’t buy Temu mini carbide drills at R90 for 10, rather spend R100 each and buy small HSS drills. You can thank me later.

2)If a part falls, do not look where you think it dropped. Look 3 metres from there in the opposite direction. Its there….

3) If you cant find the dropped part, dont worry. You will find it when you drop the next one.

4) Parts will dry fit perfectly until you put glue on them…..

5) If you use florist wire to make hand and grabrails…… it will look amazingly like ummmm…. florist wire. Buy brass rod. You can thank me later.

6) Never ever put grease in a wormdrive driven gearbox. Oil, thats it. Grease was a movie….

7)Microscale Micro set and Micro Sol for decals. Nothing else. You can thank me later.

8. Superglue will rather glue the tweezer jaws together than glue the part to the model. It favours fingers above its intended job too. Use Soudal and its accelerator. You can thank me later.

9) Do not EVER buy Temu masking tape. Ever. Buy Tamiya or Greenstuff World. Save yourself a world of pain.

10) Never ever come close to a model with a piece of masking tape if you can still smell paint on your model. Rush it and 3 things will happen. You will have seapage as masking tape tend to not stick on semi dry solvent based paint. Secondly, removing the tape might bring the base coat with it. Thirdly if none of the above happened and you used Temu tape, cleaning the tape glue off the model will take 3 hours.

11) If you are not sure what gauge of brass rod to use for railings and such, always go thinner rather than too thick. Thin looks pro, too thick looks like soccer goalposts.

12) If you make brass wipers for HO locos and suddenly its gone…… look under your nail. Its there.

13) When working with minute brass pieces or photo etch, never use swearwords with a “F” or a “P” or any other letter that might make wind when you scream it. Its a surefire way of blowing any part to a place where you will never find it.

14) Brass is not suitable for pick-ups. Phosphor bronze is. You can thank me later.

15) There will always be a fire. Be prepared. Or keep experimenting until there is a fire. Keep trying.

16) There is no shame in glueing your plakkie to the floor. It happens.

17) A Dremel will grab a T-shirt and change it from a 2XL to a small in nano seconds.

18) Never put your lunch on a belt sander.

19) Get water based flux. You will never look back.

Thats it for now. Feel free to add tips in the comments.

Lekker julle!!!!