Yesterday saw a milestone moment achieved, with Bridgewater's new station building finally being installed.

The prototype building was burnt to the ground by arsonists in the early 1980's.

This building, was built from Evergreen clapboard siding, various north-east woodshapes, balsa, card and styrene strip.

Hi All,

A rather momentous occasion occurred recently, when my South Australian Railways Rx class 4-6-0 entered traffic.

The prototype loco entered traffic in April 1915, and was built by Walker and Co. of Maryborough in Queensland. Some 80-odd of the Rx class loco's were operated by the South Australian Railways, and were basically a jack-of-all trades, go-anywhere loco's and weighed in at 80 tonnes and were equipped with Belpare fireboxes. Some loco's received superheated boilers, however, Rx224 (as I have modeled), remained a saturated loco.

Well the exhibition season has once again drawn to a close - ending what has been a very hectic year. The layout's last show was in September, where the layout was shown at the National Railway Museum, as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations - what a venue, the museum had two steam loco's in action - 457mm gauge 'Bill' and 2'6" gauge 'Peronne', as well as heritage 'redhen'  diesel railcars 400/321 running shuttles out to the mainline interface at Port Adelaide Junction.  Anyway, below are a few photos of the layout on display.

Work has continued with the detailing of both platforms, and the car park area at the rear of Platform 1.

Included in this work has been:

• Completion of rail fencing
• Completion of pedestrian crossing
• Platform lighting fabricated (non-working)
• Platform fencing installed (where necessary)
• Installation of power poles (scratchbuit)
• Installation of CTC relay building on platform 1.

Hi All,

This here is a blog, that will follow the development of my new exhibition layout, based on the prototype location of Bridgewater in the Adelaide Hills. Originally, this station was a terminus for suburban services over the steeply graded Mt Lofty Ranges, east of Adelaide, however with the opening of a new freeway, allowing commuters to travel to Adelaide in less than 20 minutes, the passenger services were cut back to Belair (on the Adelaide side of the ranges).