Category: Philden Beach

The Bus Depot closes

Late on a hot August night, the small bus depot that had stood alongside the tracks at Philden Beach saw the drivers sign-off for one last time and the two luxury motor coaches quietly disappear in the dead of night.With the busses gone, the witches’ h…

Re-detailing the Cement Plant

This past week I returned to some old-fashioned model building projects. My task was to reconfigure the cement plant building from my old Philden layout so that it could be easily transplanted onto my Philden Beach HO scale shelf layout. As the model h…

Resurrecting the Cement Plant

Cement trains could begin calling at Philden Beach later in 2024.It’s been over 5 years since I dismantled my original Philden layout, (see the Philden Museum page for its complete history), during which my former cement plant had been carefully stored…

There goes the Eighties!

Okay… hands up if this has ever happened to you?Yep. I can honestly let a picture tell a thousand words with this one!This is the aftermath of an expensive Auscision Models NSW PHN power van after it had taken a fall from my modelling bench onto the …

Short passenger train limitations

When it comes to running a prototypical passenger train on your model railway, there’s only so much train you can model no matter what scale you work in! I can certainly vouch for that after assembling an Eighties era passenger train for my 3.3 metre l…

Those North Coast trains…

My layout now oozes a sense of history in its New South Wales North Coast line setting, thanks to some custom-made stick-on vinyl lettering that has dressed-up the layout fascia with some classic train names from the 1980’s.Much like I did when I decor…