This is the aftermath of an expensive Auscision Models NSW PHN power van after it had taken a fall from my modelling bench onto the garage floor. Cracked body shell, shattered bogies, busted windows, bits and pieces all over the garage floor and looking like it had just gone 10 rounds in ‘Rocky III’.

Normally I try to save broken pieces like these in my model train junk box for future kit-bashing projects. However, it was too much to even look at it. So, this time I simply lifted the lid on the wheelie bin and took a 3-point basketball shot with what you see above from across the garage floor. Off the brick wall and straight into the bin. Problem solved.

After picking up the pieces of a broken heart… (sounds like the opening line of an 80’s song from a different kind of ‘Diesel’), I took a day to get over the ‘Crying Shame’ of it all, and simply moved on from the idea of assembling an Eighties-era roster to swap in and out on my shelf layout. Although stuff like this doesn’t happen ‘Time After Time’, it still sends me ‘Radio Ga Ga’ whenever ‘Gremlins’ visit my plans and I need to turn full ‘MacGyver’ to try and salvage them, (okay, warning here, I’m only getting started). When you have a list of household things waiting to be seen to that all cost money, replacing a $200 model train carriage falls right to the bottom of the list.

My original plans were to fashion a shortened Eighties-era passenger train to run on my 3.3 metre long shelf layout to allow me to resurrect my original Philden Station building as some form of layout ‘Dynasty’.

But once you start making a list of items that you need for a model railway roster, that list grows by $200 to $500 with every line you add. With my power van looking like it had just come back from the set of ‘Die Hard’, it reached the point where I could no longer justify the additional expense for a layout that was essentially already complete.

So, after taking a day to admit that my good intentions had just been dealt a bigger blow than ‘Wall Street’, I filmed a final operating session with 4434 working the yard at Philden Beach. I also added a couple of up-and-back runs with the weathered RUB cars and an LHO van I had already acquired for good measure. At least that can provide some archival Eighties material for a before-and-after style layout video of Philden Beach at some point in the future. I think I’m just more annoyed that I had sold my green C Class loco earlier this year to afford to go down this road.

So, now it is simply a case of going ‘Back to The Future’, with Philden Beach staying set in its 2013+ era and running purely modern freight locomotives in both Pacific National and Aurizon liveries. I have a solitary 1980’s era Westrail open wagon that I had beautifully weathered which can now be recoded and move into my modern steel fleet. While the other few bits of 1980’s rollingstock I’m ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ can find new homes on eBay along with the 44 Class loco (above).

What that leaves me with is a full staging yard of modern era rollingstock, plus enough wagons to fill the sidings in Philden Beach Yard when operating the layout. My pre-ordered NPHH cement hoppers will round out my collection nicely, and anything beyond that is all just ‘Field of Dreams’ stuff anyway.

My heart is now set on adding another Pacific National loco to my fleet when the DCC sound versions of the GT46-ACe locos arrive later this year. Though modelling the Eighties did have a rather nostalgic appeal, my 2013+ era roster is ‘The A-Team’ and needs to remain the ‘Top Gun’ moving forward. There’s no ‘Fame’ in going ‘Ghostbusters’ by trying to amass a large roster if ‘Money’s Too Tight To Mention’. And I know it’s ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ for different folks, but sometimes you only get clarity on what to do when you go all ‘Karate Kid’ on your plans and say, ‘Beat It’, I’m happy to just stick with what works for me, (surely that’s enough Eighties puns for this post!)

I don’t know if a model railway is supposed to be a ‘Never Ending Story’, (apparently not), but as I close in on 10 years since starting this blog and my Australian HO scale journey, it seems that the Philden story is coming to an end. ‘I’m Still Standing’, and perhaps what is needed next, is a change of pace as I ‘Jump’ back into working on my Welsh Highlands OO9 layout and have ‘Faith’ that I’ll have it finished in time for the end of the year, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ It should have been finished ‘Last Christmas’. Until next time…

P.S. Did you count all 28 Eighties puns?

See also; Short passenger train limitations