05/01/2021

First one for the new year

     New Project.

    During Covid 19 lock down here in Melbourne is has been hard to obtain some modelling supplies to complete or start new projects for my Monarch Branch so things have been kinda quiet.

    Looking through a book loaned to me by Barry which covered the RGS I was surprised to read that the water tank at Tank Creek was not replaced with the Tank Car until 1966. What! I was planning to build the tank car version and in fact had previously kit bashed a tank car, painted and weathered it ready to fit once I had completed the scenery in the area it was planned for.

This is the unit, completed in December 2018 no less.


    Well that changed my plans big time. As I had no water tank kits to spare (one is almost ready for Gunnison) and they can be difficult to get from the states I thought I should scratch build one to fit my space already made and sceniced.

    Necessity is the mother of invention so I set about gathering some stiff brown paper with which to wrap around a sample paint pot that was almost the correct dimensions for the tank along with a pack of 2 x 10" timbers for the tank itself.

   I will let the following images tell the story of its construction.



Shingles were left over from a few kits.

Fortunately I had a Tichy Train Group Water spout handy.


   And here it is sitting in its spot waiting for additional scenery to be added. By having the scenery almost completed it has allowed me to copy the installation quite closely as the legs on the prototype where made to fit the location just like this.

Boy this new format they are using for Blogs is messing with my head, it used to be easy once.

Thanks for coming by, have a better year this year.

Rod.