Steady as she goes.......

The bits and pieces I ordered from Japan have finally arrived. Very exciting! It was like Christmas in June! So now I have some building kits to put together and 'Vietnamize' (is there such a word?) with appropriate signage, details etc.

I got a petrol station which takes up a lot more room than I thought it would, so now I have to decide whether to look for a smaller one (I did see one on the Plaza Hobby ebay site) or move a piece of track to allow enough space to fit it. Decisions... decisions....! It does look very nice though.

I also got some more palm trees and would you believe N scale bamboo! Now where am I going to put that? I also got my 5 level pagoda which will look really good on the module I think. Now where can I get some safron robed monks? Japanese monks seem to dress quite differently from Vietnamese ones so aren't really much use on this module. All of the kits are Tometec, while there is a fully assembled Japanese restaurant by Kato as well which will need a few changes.

I've started laying some roads, but may have to modify one because of the petrol station problem I described above. Also I finally got the top off a LifeLike SW9 (they don't make it easy!) so I now have a chassis ready for when I start on my first locomotive, which will be a D12E. I'll probably have to make new bogie side frames at some point but I think I'll leave that to last.


I also got a nice model of a brick church for my Australian N scale layout, but that's another story.

Slow but steady.....

I haven't updated this blog for a little while. I have been doing some work though. I've found an older US boxcar which looks vaguely like some older Vietnamese ones. Possibly introduced by the Americans in the 60's. I've painted it boxcar red, though I have a suspicion that they might have been some sort of light grey or silver colour when delivered.

I've also done a little bit of work on the module, planted a couple of trees and started planning the roads, particularly the level crossing.I have also added a wall between the repair facilities and the main line, but it still has to be painted. There are a couple of photos below (I really must finish the gondola!).

I've also been on my usual search for 'Asian' style buildings (see photos). Some of the Japanese Kato, Tomix and Tometec will be useful. I have actually ordered some from Japan, because the retailers in Australia don't seem to be interested unless the buildings can be fitted into Western style layouts. Though I did get the two smaller ones as seen in the photo above at a local Sydney hobby shop. They are from one of those Tometec 'collections' where you don't know what's in the box. But they are available very randomly. I have some more palm trees on the way as well as some n scale bamboo and a petrol station which will be converted to a Petrolimex one and a 5 level pagoda which will definitely make the module look more 'asian'.

I'll report more on these buildings etc when they arrive in the next few days.

What makes a layout 'look' the part?

As I add some bits and pieces to my module I have to keep on asking myself what will I need to add to make it clearly a segment of a city in modern Vietnam?

Now that the basic track is laid I need to start thinking about all those little touches that clearly tell a viewer that this is Vietnam, not China or Japan or Sydney, Australia. Part of it is the vegetation of course, so I'm trying to find out a bit more about that aspect of Vietnam. But I also need to consider items such as road signs, walls, fences, footpaths, other public signs, posters, advertising and railway signs as well.

I can get a lot of this information through looking at images found on the web and through my own observations. But it's not easy. If I wanted to see road signs in Australia I'd get a driver's handbook, but what is the equivalent in Vietnam, and is there an English version?

I've recently been surfing the net (do people still do that?) to find typical outdoor posters etc. to be displayed on the module. One thing you notice when you go to VN is that despite the rapid move towards a market economy Vietnam is still a very political country, so many of the posters, statues etc are of a political nature. Still if the module is to be accurate I need to have to place a couple of political posters beside the roads, as well as Vietnamese flags, which are quite common on buildings.  My only concern is that if I ever display this module to the public here in Australia, it might cause a problem when viewed by those who are less enthusiastic about the current Vietnamese Government.

Oh well, I'll worry about that if it ever occurs.

The problem is that I can find plenty of political posters but not so many advertising type posters. When I go to Saigon at the end of July I'll have to take many photos of advertising posters so that I can select a few for the module.

I will also need to construct a typical level crossing as well, as I have one crossing three tracks! I'd really like to build those gates with wheels on the bottom, that are rolled across to stop road vehicles. I have some photos so at some point will 'have a go'. I've started to build up a collection of motor bikes and bicycles as well as other road vehicles, but still need a lot more.

Mmmm. Maybe that's what makes the scene Vietnamese. All those motorbikes!

 

Track and All that Jazz....

Have you noticed how odd the track (particularly the metre gauge) is in VN? I don't think I've seen anything quite like it anywhere else. The sleepers (ties) seem to be some sort of composite steel/concrete arrangement where the rails are supported on concrete blocks which are tied together by a relatively thin piece of steel.

Traditionally sleepers are made of timber of course, but many tropical countries found that they rotted too quickly, so steel sleepers have been the go for at least a hundred years. In Australia a number of branchlines (particularly in Queensland) went the steel sleeper way. Of course in some parts of Queensland there weren't a lot of trees to make into sleepers.

Over the past 20 or so years of course concrete sleepers have been rapidly replacing wooden ones. They last a lot longer and seem to take todays heavier trains with less damage and provide a smoother ride.

But in Vietnam we have this 'composite' variety. I'm not even going to attempt to create track like this particularly in N scale. I have never seen model track like this, so short of building my own track, I can't see it happening on my module in the near future. I know lots of modelers build their own track, even in N scale, but they don't have to create what appears to be a quite unique style of sleeper.

Building railway models is often the art of compromise. Our NZ120 friends operate on the principle that if you're standing two feet away (60 cm) and it looks OK then that is acceptable. Standing two feet away from ballasted, weathered track in N Scale you'd be lucky to see some of the sleepers at all, right?

So why worry? Because we are supposed to be recreating reality and until DSVN replaces those unique sleepers with the more common fully concrete variety, they will sit there crying out to be modelled.

Who was the man who said that 'model railroading is fun'?

On another note, over the weekend I did some more work on the module, planting a couple of palm trees as well as some other trees and started planning where the roads will go. I have the ballast ready to be added to the track when I get round to painting and weathering the sleepers and rails. Most people ballast etc before they start adding scenery.  I always do things backwards! As well my tank car is nearly complete as is my gondola (open wagon). And I've been playing around with some ideas for the body of my D18E class.

So, progress is slow but steady but there is progress. How long this all takes only time will tell.......