The Buildings and Infrastructure

Firstly, I am indebted to my colleague Bob Stack who supplied me with copies of several key drawings of Borenore. These have helped considerably. If you have a photo or drawing that you think may help, please forward it to me.

I am leaving the signals out of the discussion for now as this will be a big project later in the build.

I will start from the LHS as you view the model or look at the plan from the first post and the first piece of infrastructure is the Overhead Bridge leading to the goods yard, an elaborate structure for such a task. It is an angled approach version of a typical NSWGR overbridge.

Fortunately, Rod Kelly from Laser Rail Bits makes an excellent kit of this bridge, albeit not exactly correct for Borenore. After a “long” enjoyable chat with Rod he offered to “burn” me some modified piles for the bridge to make it more correct for Borenore.

The next item is the SM’s Residence.

Crop from a Mike Schrader photo.

It is based on a Gate Keeper residence and in 1965 was virtually just that but with an extra chimney. However, it proceeded to get added on to over the years. I am lucky here as Stephen from SJM Models produced an excellent model of a Gate Keepers house and so this is what will be used on the model with a bit of extra work. There will be a second one needed for the level crossing.

One of the drawings I was given by Bob Stack shows it with all the additions, some of which have recently been opened up.

This is a drawing how it ended up.

Next in line are the station buildings consisting of a Lamp Room, Out of Shed, 3 Room Station Building with attached Toilet and finally the Signal Box.

The Out of Shed had a loading race at the rear as seen in the drawing below and the field notes.

The Lamp Room, Out of Shed and Station Building with attached Toilet will have to be scratch built. In the late 70’s I measured these up with the help of my father and friend Allan Garbutt who drew up excellent field notes as I called out the numbers. Here are a few scans of some of the pages.

The Signal box is a precast concrete version and SJM make a fine model of a 4-panel box so I asked very nicely and Stephen cast me an extra back for the kit which has allowed me to cut and paste it into a 5-panel box.

Finally, across the tracks from the platform is a G3 goods shed, a gantry crane, loading bank and stock race.

When first built the goods shed had the customary office attached but by 1965 it was gone as in these 1978 views.

This will be a slightly kit bashed Ian Lindsay Models G3 Kit and an SJM Gantry Crane Kit.

Rod Kelly makes a low timber loading bank that will be the basis of the one at Borenore, but I will probably need two kits.

The stock race will need to be scratch built and shrunk to fit.

There is also a tank car unloading point on the extension of the stock siding, but this is only a couple of pipes sticking out of the ground.

I have deliberately avoided discussing the large number of detail items that will be needed for the time being like platform scales, seats, etc. which will come from the SJM collection. Now to the build process. I will put up a post on each project as I build each item.

All photos by the author except the one credited.

Cheers Phil Collins

 Assembling the Modules

This post shows that this project is not just a one module wonder. The home layout will consist of the three Borenore loop modules along one wall of the garage with the RH Corner module linking the three main modules to what I am calling the Forbes Road Module. This module is fairly compressed. The two corner modules are simply there to get around the corner and are not prototypical. However, I may take some modelers license with the scenery. The modules sit on legacy L-Girder trestles at present recovered from my earlier layout. I will visit the subject of legs for the exhibition version when I get there. There are many ideas out there and I am sure I can copy one or modify to suit.

The drawing below shows the assembly of the modules for the home layout.

The second drawing shows the modules reassembled for a future exhibition layout. The new corner modules are the opposite hand to the home layout modules and are faceted to hopefully produce a more elegant appearance.

Drawings courtesy of Mitch Campton, thanks Mitch.

The next critical part of the build is deciding the position of the mainline on the baseboards. This will necessitate completing a couple of the buildings to position on the landscape to help make this decision. Accordingly, the next post will discuss the buildings at Borenore in 1965 and how they will be reproduced. 

Cheers Phil Collins