Hello from Johannesburg South Africa

[cm101]

Hello Everyone,

My dad and I (mostly dad) have been building South African model railway layouts for a very long time.

Our current layout is housed in a room approximately 250 sqm in size. We have modeled it to a coastal city called Durban and it's surrounding industrial areas. He was once involved in local forums and groups who would invite members home to showcase layouts but the group no longer exists so I thought it would be nice to give him some sort of online presence. Planning on setting up an Instagram account in the near future too.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts?


Link to pictures taken a couple years ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/christopi ... 810450533/

[End2end]

HOLY MOLY . That's extensive!!!
< green with envy.
Welcome to the forum cm101.

Funny, I used to use a synth called cm101

Thanks
End2end

[luckymucklebackit]

Incredible - how on earth do you keep all that track clean!

Jim

[Bufferstop]

Welcome to the forum. Tell us about railway modelling in South Africa. I spent around a year there in 96-70. SAR at that time was a mixture of designs, 3' 6"" gauge and buckeye couplers made for an exotic look. Access to our Factory site was across a fan of spurs, where fly shunting of single wagons was common, even our fortnightly tanker of LPG! The works minibus bore the scars of someone mistiming it.

[Mountain]

Someone I know used to live in Durban I believe. He used to say how the SA "Blue Train" was far more luxurious then our UK trains. I told him we did have a few trains here made with luxury in mind. I looked up the blue train to find it was made here in the UK by a company called Metro Camel, which tended to specialize in more humble diesel railcars and things like that. It is actually very interesting how many railway locos and rolling stock were built in some countries and sent to various other countries to meet their needs. Some railways imported locos from several different countries, all in different styles. It must have been a major undertaking to transport such large items between countries, especially if they were needed hundreds of miles inland.

That layout looks great! Must have taken a good few years of work to build. I like the overhead electric wires.