The 26th annual Modelling the Railways of South Australia Convention will be held at the Medical Lecture Theatre and Tutorial Rooms of the Flinders Medical Centre on Saturday 3rd September 2022, using a slightly smaller lecture theatre than we had for 2021. Doors open at 8am for those attendees who wish to register early, or to look at the commercial stands, or to lodge models for display. Formal proceedings start at 9am and are timed to finish around 5pm. The Hospital is a big place and if you happen to get lost, be sure to ask for directions to the “Medical Centre Lecture Theatres”,
For anyone using the train, we suggest you stay outside the Hospital and walk past the entire Hospital to the Southern End. Here you will find a drive going uphill and at the top of the drive is a short-term car park and our normal entrance. This way, you won’t get lost in the multitude of Hospital corridors.
Planning for the 2022 event will be subject to any COVID rules that are in place at the time. The committee are planning for the same alternatives as in the previous year. These include full and unrestricted use of a 200 seat Lecture Theatre, restricted use including only being allowed to have a certain number in the Lecture Theatre in which case, those who register first will be given priority to attend the Convention, and if for any reason, the Convention has to be cancelled, the printed notes will be sent out to everyone who has registered or who has asked for a copy of the notes. Please note that we have specifically asked that Registration Forms be lodged with us by 18th July 2022.
The convention area can be reached from the southern end of the hospital through the original ground level entrance we have used for a number of years. A large multi-story car park is situated at the southern end of the Hospital and we are again negotiating to have free car parking available in this building. Included in the Convention fee is morning and afternoon teas, and a hot lunch. Approximately 200 pages of Convention notes will also be provided and these notes will contain a number of colour photos and plans relating to the topics being presented. Previous years’ notes will be available, including an updated index, and these notes form a considerable reference library of around 4000 pages. The first 15 years of notes are now available on CD and the remaining hard copy notes for 2011 to 2015 are currently being sold at a discount being three years of certain notes if we have them, for $65. (Including postage) Prices for the most recent hard copy notes and discs will be included on this year’s registration form which can be downloaded from this web site. The forms are located under the “Registration Form” heading. The registration forms will also be sent to everyone who has attended over the last couple of Conventions.
The program for 2022 will include the following topics: –
Rodney Barrington will be talking on the topic “When Henley Beach had a Railway”: This is the story of the single-track branch from Woodville that still runs as far as Grange and once had a branch to Hendon. Up until August 1957 an intensive suburban service ran along Military Road to Main Street at Henley Beach. Presenter Rodney Barrington was lucky enough to stay for a few weeks in 1956 in a house in Seaview Road Grange that had a backyard that dropped down to Military Road. He observed F class steam engine hauled suburbans, Brill railcars and brand-new Red Hens running along the street. Plans of Henley Beach station buildings as well as track plans for the Henley line will be provided.
Phil Groves will continue our series on South Australian Railways steam locomotives, this time covering the 300 and 400 class Garratts
The 300 class ASG Garratt were quite short lived on the SAR with six being purchased second hand from Western Australia. These were intended as a stop gap until the 400 class Beyer Peacock Garratts were placed into service. The 400 class Garratts were designed by Beyer Peacock, but built under licence in France to s design similar to the 60 class in South Africa. Phil’s paper will include numerous photos of the Garratts, one of Peter Manning’s terrific plans of the 400 class Garratt, and a plan of the 300 class Garratt showing many of the changes made to the original design before the locomotives were placed into service on the narrow-gauge Peterborough division.
For our series on South Australian Layouts, Peter Knife will give a presentation about his SAR narrow gauge layout “Minnipa”. The layout is an early -1960s re-creation of the prototype Minnipa in HOn3.5. The yard and all structures have been modelled as historically correct as possible, with all locomotives and rolling stock representing those on the Port Lincoln Division in that period. The layout encompasses long runs through typical Eyre Peninsula scenes, with a simplified version of Yaninee also modelled. The presentation will cover its construction (over 24 years), discussing choices made and techniques used along the way, as well as showcasing it in its completed (but never finished) state
Peter Lucas will be discussing Modelling the SAR in larger scales.
When you have built your dream, small scale SAR railway in your house and there is no room for any more, then your garden becomes an option. Several local modellers have been building and kit bashing large scale SAR rolling stock to run on 32mm and 45mm track. Peter’s presentation will demonstrate the larger scale options and will feature several examples of SAR locomotives and rolling stock.
Peter lives at Clayton, and some of the local modellers have live steam radio-controlled locomotives. Peter’s rolling stock is a combination of 3d printed and laser cut acrylic. Most locos are mounted on ready to run chassis or have motor blocks which are sold as spare parts.
Geoff Mathias and Stuart Gamble talk on “Train Control” will give a brief overview of operations at ARTC train Control, Mile End. They will discuss the territory covered, the methods of safe working currently employed and the working arrangements in place for Network Controllers. Train control graphs are still used to keep track of where trains are at any given time. These graphs form one of the more important tools for any model railway enthusiast when planning a timetable for a model railway layout.
Dan Carmody is making a special trip to Adelaide to give us a presentation, and because of this, we have allocated two sessions to Dan.
The first presentation/article is titled “Railways and the Military”. There are two parts to this article. Part 1 is the “Strategic Context of Railways”. In this part, Dan describes why the military is interested in the railways. Part 2 is “Australia and the railways at war”. In this section, he describes the Australian military use of Railways in Australia and abroad. The period covered will be from the Boer War through to Vietnam with a focus on WW2.
The second presentation/article is a “companion article” to the first and is titled “Military Wagons of the SAR”. This article focuses on the AC, FBA and FBT wagons and provides a “how-to” on building each wagon. Also described will be the SARs part during WW2 in building the Beaufort Bomber and that aircraft’s relationship to the FBA and AC wagons. In this second part, the presentation will focus on the building of the wagons, and the article will have the construction and prototype notes.
In addition, we will include a few articles in our notes that will not be accompanied by formal presentations.
The articles will include the following: –
Continuing the series on Railcars, Bryan Howieson has prepared an article on the Commonwealth Railways NDH Gloucester Railcars that saw service on both the standard and narrow-gauge Commonwealth Railways lines in South Australia as well as finding employment on the North Australian Railways. The railcars were used both as self-propelled vehicles and towed attached as passenger vehicles.
Des Egan has prepared an article on the V & SAR joint stock “Dynamometer Car, a vehicle that is currently preserved at the National Railway Museum at Port Adelaide. A comprehensive article including photos and a detailed HO scale plan will be provided.
Graham Ahearn is providing some additional information on Commonwealth Railways narrow gauge passenger carriages as well as a number of photos of Rail cars that will appear in our Photo Gallery section.
John Wilson is working on an article on simpler signal coders.
Ross Hurley has prepared a small article on “diode matrixes” which allows the user to press a single button for multiple point operation.
Hugh Williams has provided a further article in the series on early SAR steam locos, this one being on the A class 2-4-0s numbered 1, 19 and 20.
Other Information
As in previous years, a number of commercial stands will be at the Convention. John Gordon looks after this area of our activities. He can be contacted on essington@adam.com.au or via the Convention e-mail site.
Attendees are encouraged to bring along any models of their handiwork, especially models built using previous Convention notes.