JMC Build 1

Ones that come up

Minimum is what the maker says it survives. Happy is where it looks right and stops derailing at speed.

Saves on this phone. Tap a filled slot to clear it.

• Australian Modeller Peco track, points, tools. Online. australianmodeller.com.au
• Auscision Victorian locos and wagons. Online. auscisionmodels.com.au
• Hearns Hobbies Melbourne, Flinders St. Walk in and ask.
• Walker Models Laser-cut Australian buildings. walkermodels.com
• Bunnings Timber, sample pot paints, PVA, plaster, spray adhesive.

In SCARM: Tools → Parts list. It opens in your browser. Save that page, then load it here.

Every track end that isn't joined. Ends that nearly meet. Track no train can reach. Kinks, S-curves, tight radii, steep grades, track too close to the edge. Marked up on a picture of the plan with numbers.

This needs the .scarm file. Email it to Matt and the report comes back here on the page.

1. Click the piece before where it stopped. Note the end point coordinates.
2. Click the piece after. Note the start point.
3. If they differ by even 0.1 mm, they aren't joined. Drag one onto the other until SCARM snaps it.
4. Check the angle too. Same position but different angle is a kink, and the train may crawl through it in SCARM and derail on the table.
5. Still stuck: email the file. That's exactly what the design check finds automatically.

• Bent One upright frame of a trestle bridge. Picture a capital A with extra legs. A trestle is a row of bents standing in the gully, each one cut to the height of the ground under it, with the track carried on top. The calculator counts the bents and tells you each height.
• Stringer The long beams that run from bent to bent and carry the track. Two of them, one under each rail.
• Trestle A bridge made of bents and stringers. Timber, cheap to build, very Australian.
• Viaduct A long bridge on piers, usually stone or steel. The Taradale one is the grand version.
• Pier A solid column holding up a bridge. Stone or concrete.
• Abutment The wall at each end of a bridge where the ground stops.
• Span The distance a bridge crosses.

• Gauge The distance between the rails. HO and OO are both 16.5 mm.
• Scale How much smaller than real. HO is 1:87. OO is 1:76 on the same track.
• Code 100 The rail height, 0.100 inch. Chunky and forgiving. Code 75 is finer and fussier.
• Flex track A 914 mm length of track that bends to any curve. Peco SL-100.
• Setrack Fixed pieces in set curves, R1 to R4. Train-set track. Same rail, less freedom.
• Point Where one track splits into two. Americans say turnout or switch. Peco names them by radius: small, medium, large.
• Frog The V where the two rails of a point cross. The bit wheels bump over.
• Electrofrog A point with a live metal frog. Smooth running, needs the frog's polarity switched. Peco codes with an E.
• Insulfrog A point with a plastic, dead frog. Simplest wiring, short locos can stall on it.
• Unifrog Peco's newer design that works as either. Codes with a U.
• Crossing Two tracks crossing without joining. Sold by angle, 12° or 24°.
• Curved point A point where both routes curve the same way. Handy leaving a curve.
• Sleeper The cross-piece under the rails. Timber or concrete on the real thing, plastic on Peco.
• Railhead The top surface of the rail. Heights and clearances are measured from it.
• Radius How tight a curve is, measured to the centre of the track. Bigger is gentler.
• S-curve A left curve straight into a right curve. Needs a short straight between, or long stock derails.
• Kink A sudden change of direction at a rail joint. Looks fine, derails trains.
• Easement A gentle lead-in where a straight becomes a curve, or a level becomes a grade. Flex track does the horizontal one for free.
• Grade Slope, as a percentage. Rise divided by run. 2% is the sensible limit.
• Track centres The distance between the middles of two parallel tracks. 50 mm straight, 55 to 60 on curves.
• Roadbed The cork or foam strip the track sits on. Gives the raised look and deadens noise.
• Ballast The stones between the sleepers. Glued down last, holds everything.
• Rail joiner The little metal clip that joins two rails. Insulated ones are plastic and break the circuit on purpose.
• Track pin A tiny nail through the sleeper into the board. The final fixing, hidden by ballast.
• Track clip The printed clip that holds track down while you're still moving it around.
• Tracksetta A metal template that holds flex track to an exact radius while you pin it.

• DC Old-style control. The controller sets the voltage on the rails, and every loco on that track does the same thing.
• DCC Digital Command Control. Constant power on the rails plus a data signal. Each loco has an address and is driven on its own.
• Decoder The chip inside a DCC loco that listens for its address. Sound decoders add the engine noise and horn.
• DCC Ready Has a socket, no decoder. Add one, about $40.
• DCC Fitted Decoder in, ready to run.
• DCC Sound Fitted, plus a speaker and the noises.
• Command station The box that makes the DCC signal. NCE Power Cab is both the box and the handheld.
• Bus Two thick wires under the board carrying power the full length of the layout.
• Dropper A thin wire from each length of rail down to the bus. Never rely on rail joiners for power.
• Reversing loop A track that lets a train turn round and come back the other way. The rails end up touching the wrong way round, so it needs a gap and a gadget.
• Auto-reverser The gadget. Flips the polarity of the loop the instant a wheel bridges the gap. You never notice it.
• Point motor A small motor or solenoid that throws the point from the controller instead of by finger.

• Loco The engine. Diesel, steam or electric.
• Rolling stock Everything without a motor. Wagons, coaches, vans.
• Consist A loco plus its train, as one set.
• Bogie The pivoting frame with two or three axles under each end of a loco or coach. A six-axle loco has two bogies of three.
• Hood unit A diesel with a narrow body and a walkway round it, cab set back. The T, X and Y class. The front platform you liked.
• Bulldog A diesel with a rounded full-width nose. The A and B class.
• Tender The wagon behind a steam loco carrying coal and water. Counts as part of the loco for length.
• Livery The paint scheme. V/Line orange, VR blue and gold, BR green.
• Era The years the layout pretends to be. Sets which liveries and wagons belong together.
• Outline Which country's railway a model copies. Australian outline, British outline.
• Coupler The hook that joins vehicles. Knuckle on Aussie and US stock, tension-lock on British. Not compatible, but swappable.
• NEM pocket The standard little slot a coupler clips into, so swapping is a pull and a push.
• Minimum radius The tightest curve the maker says a model survives. Add 150 mm for it to look right.
• Shunter A small loco for pushing wagons around a yard.
• Yard A group of sidings for storing and sorting wagons. Yours has five roads.
• Road One track in a yard. Five roads means five parallel sidings.
• Siding A dead-end track off the main line.
• Main line The track trains actually travel on, as opposed to yards and sidings.

• Baseboard The table. Yours is 4.7 by 2.4, in bolted sections.
• Operator well The cut-out in the middle you stand in, so you can reach everything.
• Plaster cloth Bandage soaked in plaster. Drape over a shape, wet it, it sets hard. Hills in an hour.
• Sculptamold Plaster mixed with paper pulp. Spreads like porridge, carves when leather-hard. The strata cutting is made of it.
• Leather-hard Plaster that has set enough to hold a shape but is still soft enough to carve. About 20 to 40 minutes in.
• Turf Coloured ground foam, fine as sand. The base grass.
• Clump foliage Ground foam stuck together in lumps. Bushes and scrub. Most of the look you liked.
• Static grass Nylon fibres that stand up when applied with a small electrostatic gadget. Real-looking grass.
• Sea foam A dried plant with tiny branching twigs. Perfect gum tree skeletons.
• Armature The trunk and branches of a model tree before the leaves go on.
• Dry-brush Wipe most of the paint off the brush, then drag it over a texture. Only the high spots catch it.
• Wash Very thin paint that runs into the low spots. India ink in alcohol for wood, black-brown for rock.
• Weathering Making a new model look used. Washes, powders, rust streaks.
• Craftsman kit A building kit of laser-cut wood or card that you cut, glue, paint and weather yourself. The wharf.
• Laser-cut Parts burnt out of thin timber or card by a laser. Precise, and the char is part of the look.
• Card kit A building printed on card. Cheap, quick, surprisingly good. The station was one.
• CA Superglue. Thin CA wicks into a joint. Accelerator sets it instantly.
• Canopy glue Glue that dries clear and won't fog windows. For glazing.
• Aliphatic glue Yellow wood glue. Stronger than PVA, sands cleanly. For structure.
• Pin vise A tiny hand-held drill chuck for holes under 1 mm.
• Rock mould A rubber mould you pour plaster into to make a rock face.
• Strata The layered look of sedimentary rock. Scored into leather-hard plaster.

• SCARM The track planning program. Every piece of track from the Peco catalogue, snapped together on screen, with a test train.
• Parts list SCARM's count of every piece in the plan. Tools, then Parts list. That's the shopping list.
• Endpoint Where a piece of track starts or ends in SCARM. Two pieces are only joined if their endpoints match exactly. The usual reason the test train stops.

Sizes are optional. If you're not sure, say roughly where it sits on the plan and the rest gets worked out.

Sends straight from this page, photos included. No mail app needed. If it ever fails, email it instead.

The tool you design in.

1. SCARM help pages
   Every menu explained, including the setting for millimetres. The manual for the tool you plan in.
2. SCARM: how to see the parts list
   Tools, then Parts list. Save the page it opens and load it into Check the plan here.
3. SCARM: export the plan as a picture
   Save the plan as an image or EMF to send or print.
4. SCARM layouts gallery
   Hundreds of other people's plans with downloadable SCARM files. Open them, pull them apart, steal ideas.

Track, points, wiring bits. Australian first.

1. Australian Modeller, Peco Code 100
   Flex track, points, joiners, pins. Online, ships fast. Prices on this page came from here.
2. Peco, the maker
   The catalogue behind every SL number. Check a part before buying it.
3. Hearns Hobbies, Melbourne
   Flinders St. Walk in, ask, hold things before buying.
4. Train World, Melbourne
   Brighton shop with a big Australian range. Good for a Saturday browse.
5. Metro Hobbies
   Online, Peco and Auscision stock, good for price checks.
6. Branchline Hobby Shop
   Peco flex track by the box. Compare before ordering.

Who makes the Victorian stuff.

1. Auscision Models
   A, N, G, X, Y, AN and B class. Pre-orders and what's in stock.
2. SDS Models
   Victorian and NSW wagons. Grain hoppers and vans for the goods train.
3. Hornby
   Flying Scotsman and the coaches to go with it. Search 60103.
4. Austrains
   Older Victorian range, T and B class. Often secondhand now.

Read before the first wire goes in.

1. Wiring for DCC
   The best free guide to bus, droppers, frogs and reversing loops. Dense but right.
2. NCE, the controller
   Power Cab manual and wiring diagrams. Read the quick start before day one.
3. Layout Concepts, DCC gadgets
   Auto-reversers, point motors, decoders, with plain-English guides. Used to be DCC Concepts.

Watch these before building any scenery.

1. Luke Towan on YouTube
   Australian scenery master. Gum trees, dry grass, creeks, rock. The look you liked at the show, step by step.
2. Woodland Scenics how-to
   Turf, foliage, plaster cloth, rock moulds, with a video on using each one.

Kits, card and printable parts.

1. Walker Models
   Laser-cut Australian stations, sheds, silos, a Golden Fleece servo, a deep gully bridge kit.
2. Scalescenes card kits
   Buildings as PDFs you print at home on card. Cheap way to fill a town while the real ones get built.
3. Printables, free HO buildings
   House kits designed for home printers. What the print request page turns into parts.
4. Jeevi Design
   Printable Victorian Railways and Puffing Billy details, Furphy cart, Aussie bits.

Getting the look right.

1. Victorian Railways photo archive
   Liveries, station buildings, wagons by era.
2. Puffing Billy fares and timetable
   The real trestle. Belgrave to Lakeside, pre-book.

Where to ask a human. Some of these block automatic checks, so they're listed on reputation.

1. Railpage Australia forums
   The big Australian rail forum, with a model railway section full of Victorian modellers.
2. Australian Model Railways, Facebook group
   Active, friendly, photos every day. Needs a Facebook login.
3. Australian Model Railway Association
   Clubs by state. A Victorian branch means people who've built exactly this.
4. RMweb
   The biggest British forum. For the Scotsman, DCC and Peco questions.
5. Model Rail Forum
   Smaller, British, patient with beginners.
6. r/modeltrains on Reddit
   Worldwide, quick answers, mixed quality.