Christmas 2017

Thanks for all the followers on the blog during the year and happy modelling for 2018. I hope to be able to finish off the work on my 1970s section of my layout in 2018

Hurry on down to Hartee's where the burgers are barbecued!

Growing up in the Canterbury-Bankstown area in the early 1970s, I remember the ads on the TV for "Hartee's", the new burger joint where the catch jingle was "Hurry on down to Hartee's, where the burgers are barbecued" sang by a cowboy. I always thought the burgers tasted better than the latest food chain McDonalds. But they just disappeared overnight and my local Hartees restaurant on Canterbury road, Canterbury was no longer there and was soon replaced by McDonalds.

It has only been the result of the internet that I have finally found the fate of Hartees but more of that later.

I decided to rekindle my youth and model the Hartees that I remembered in the early 1970s.

Above: Finished model of the Hartee;s restaurant

Basis of restaurant
I purchased a Fast Food Restaurant cardboard from Kingsway in the UK which I asked the supplier to reduce to kit from 00 gauge to HO scale. I started to build the kit as per instructions but found the kit a little large and it needed to reduce the kit by a quarter. 

Above: Original size walls of the Kingsway model

Above:cut to size to represent Hartees

Building Roof
I attempted to use the stock roof that was included in the Kingsway kit but it did not represent the roof for Hartees so a custom built roof made of cardboard and paper mache was used.

Retaurant Signage
Restaurant signage examples were sourced from the internet. As Hartees was based on the American Hardees who part owned the Australian operation with Kelloggs, I was able to find some colour Hardees photos as Australian sourced photos were in black and white. I used word to mock up the signs and then pasted them on styrene.

 

The most useful source that I found on the internet was from flickr which had a black and white ad from "The Leader"newspaper advertising the grand opening of the Hartees store in Kogarah 

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sydneyneverbuilt/19530497500/

Hardees as they were in the US in the 1970s and still going strong

source: https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2015/07/30/hardees-1970s/

The Final Fate

For those of you who wanted to know a whatever happened to Hartees or like me was too young to be able to know about the news at the time the blog the Past Lives of the Near Future has some interesting reading on Hartee's.

https://pastlivesofthenearfuture.com/2012/04/05/the-hartees-saga-part-iv-the-shocking-conclusion-bankstown-nsw/

https://pastlivesofthenearfuture.com/2012/03/27/the-hartees-saga-part-ii-canterbury-nsw/

 If Hartee's continued today it will probably be Hungry Jacks however instead of having barbecued hamburgers we are getting "The burgers are better at Hungry Jacks.

Moving to the 1970s (Torn between choices)

As the new year of 2017 commences everyone has anticipation of new things to look forward to. I wanted to commence something new to spur some enthusiasm again into completing my layout. 

Torn - Choice of two different approaches

I was torn between either completing a full double track around the room to enable continuous running of trains or starting the 1970s scenery section of the layout. 

In the end, I half completed the full double track which ended when I ran out of flexitrack around the fiddle yard area and lost momentum  so ended up starting to commence the 1970s section again. 

New 1970s section

I have yet to name this section of the layout but it will have scenery items that will bring back memories of my childhood living in Belmore and travelling along Canterbury road during the early 1970s. 

 Size

The section measures 1800 mm long x 600mm wide. 

Track layout

This will consist of double track with Peco code 75 with a oil siding in the corner of the section. Track had been laid in previous months so what was needed was to paint and weather the track and ballast the sleepers.

Terrain

I found a supplier in Blacktown, Austech that supplies extruded polystyrene which is denser than the normal polystyrene. I bought a couple of sheets a  few years ago. This will be used for the embankments where the track will be raised about street level. No more gaps are used to cover holes where there were joins between the polystyrene.

Above: Start of the embankment section of the 1970s layout

Rail and sleeper weathering and ballasting

I applied rust acrylic paint along the rails and nail heads with a light grey paint for the sleepers to remove the black plastic look.  This is where you can spend time weathering and detailing the track that can make a difference between a toy train and realism. I will probably need to do some more dry brushing with different shades of greys and browns to get the right look. 

Ballasting
I used Chucks Ballast - Martin's Creek fine on my previous layout and also on Wardell section of the layout. This is also used in this section applied on with a plastic spoon and a mixture of PVA glue with water and dishingwashing liquid applied to the ballast using an eye-dropper.

Above: Oil distribution section of the 1970s layout. with ballasting of sleepers commenced. 

 Accessibility 
I originally had the backdrop board already screwed on to the baseboard but found I needed to remove it to correct the underpass road that would represent the Arnotts rail bridge at North Strathfield. This made the layout detailing more accessible so I could access the back of the layout. I will probably won't reinstall it until after I have completed the scenery

 
Still alot to do
There is still alot to do with the scenery in the meantime I have been also been building some of the structures for this section. If I could complete the scenery in 6 months that would be fantastic.

Lets see. 

(Originally published on http://innerwesthoscale.blogspot.com/ (3/1/2017)