Changes........

Ga Hong Ha is moving!

As part of some changes in my home, the layout is moving to another room.We've decided that it's better to put the car in the garage rather than leave it outside. This means that the layout is changing from a long thin layout with a fiddle yard located in the garage, to an L shaped layout with all of the trackwork on show.

This could take a little time, so I will take as many photos of the layout as it is now, before some parts of it disappear and are replaced with slightly different ones. I'll put up some of the photos in the next blog.

I don't plan to change the basic layout design but there will have to be changes because of the shape of the space I will have available. In particular because the layout will be up against walls I will not have a fiddle yard like the current version.

In the meantime I've finished the basic station building (see previous blog) and now need to add Vietnam specific details. I also need to think about a design for a goods/freight shed.  I think the one at Thap Cham will suit my purposes. Just need to draw a plan before I scratchbuild.

On with the move......

Stations......

I've been undecided as to what the main station at 'Ga Hong Ha' will look like for some time. I've tried using the model of Dalat I picked up in Saigon last year but we all know it's Dalat and it's to a smaller scale so looks a bit odd. Then I thought I'd scratchbuild a modified model of Thap Cham or perhaps Hue? Again, a bit odd, as we all know what Thap Cham looks like and we all know what Hue looks like.

So I was surfing around the net a couple of weeks ago and I came across a card model of an old French station to download for free. It's in N Scale would you believe. Then I thought. Hmm. Some of the older Vietnam stations looked very much like French ones since they were in fact designed by the French. Then I had a quick look at some photos of old VN stations. Amazing. Very French indeed.

This is the completed French model as depicted on the website:

I'm currently building it and adding Vietnamese modifications. I'll post a photo of the completed model in the next post.

The main changes will be to add the larger extension on the other end as well and to add a station name sign as seen on Hue station. I'll probably leave the chimney's off too.

This is an early version of the station sign. Some of the spelling needs to be corrected.

Next time I'll have some more photos of the layout and hopefully a photo of the completed station in place.


See you next time....