I have a brother living in Australia.
Got me thinking that some authentic Australian Model R/R items might be kind of interesting and fun for my Model Railroad “down under” (ie the basement).
I’ve looked at Ebay.com.au and was very interested in some of the HO scale locomotives and rolling stock (Australian National Railways, NSW Railways, Austrains products etc.) that I saw. I particularly liked the green / yellow Australian National colours. I can not get these items in Canada.
My question(s) are:
if I would make an Ebay purchase - is the operating/ electrical system the same in Australia - or would I need to re-wire items (locomotives) for North America?
would any of the model railroaders in Australia be interested in parting with an item or two off of your layout (locomotives, box cars etc) - I’m thinking of the extra stuff that you wouldn’t mind parting with, not particularly the items that you “collect” ? (if so, please contact me by email)
what mainlines/ branchlines are found on the East Coast of Australia (my brother lives somewhere in either Queensland or NSW)
cheers,
i live on the east coast of NSW we get the green and yellow NATIONAL Railway every day. I model American I find that the locos are a little cheaper over here.
I did an Internet search for Austrailian hobby shops and found several with Austrailian specific products that ship internationally. Also a number of Austrailian locos are very similar to US/Canidian types (I think in particular ALCO and EMD types), others to British locos. I once saw a picture of a double ended GM loco that could probably be bashed from two “F” units.
I’m not Australian, but I have seen the Australian trains made by Life-Like. They’re actually no different than their regular trains except for the paint schemes and are fully compatible with other HO trains (if you use hornhook couplers). The engines are their F9 and GP38.
Thanks for all of the information - it’s been very helpful. I first saw the Australian Model R/R items on Ebay - they looked unique from others that I’ve seen, and that appealed to me. I don’t expect that I’ll bother with Ebay actually. Is the household wiring in Australia the same as in North America, or is it like the European method ?
Our household power is different - 240v, 50 cycles. Otherwise, everything is much the same. So standard US and British MR equipment runs straight out of the box. Until about 10 years ago there was very little Australian protoype equipment available, and most Australian modellers ran either US or British stuff. However, there was still an enthusiastic minority who did a lot of scratch building and kit-bashing to produce models of Australian equipment.
These days there is a lot of very good Aussie prototype equipment available, and more is appearing all the time. If you’re interested in getting some of this material, you should probably do a Google search for Australian model train shops. Be wary of Australian model equipment that looks like it is standard US model equipment simply painted in an Aussie paint scheme - it may well be exactly that. There are a few exceptions though.
Sorry that I can’t be more helpful - I model The Santa Fe in 1960.
G’day,
If you are looking at modelling any Queensland trains, I would suggest to have a look at our website www.wuiskepromotions.com.au We currently produce around 350 different items based on the Queensland Railways system. There are several manufacturer’s of Queensland rollingstock who produce fine qaulity kits. If you have a look at the site, I would suggest looking at the “Prototype Information” section first as it will provide you with around 1000 photos of Queensland Rail wagons, locomotives and what not… I would also suggest that unless you are looking at modelling in narrow gauge to not purchase any 4 wheel wagons because they generally cannot be run on standard gauge.
I mainly like the aussie locos