Australia Day and Beyond....

 I'm just recovering from the excitement of Australia Day. We went down to our local park and watched the bands and the fireworks and ate sausage sandwiches. Mmm!

I mentioned last time I had joined the Australian N Scale Facebook Group. I have also discovered a NSW N Scale Facebook Group so I've joined that as well. The two seem to complement each other.

I've been doing some work on my Barra Town layout. I try to do a little bit every day but it doesn't always work that way. I'm finally close to completing my Harry's Hardware kit but as you can see it now has a different name. A little more touching up and a few extra details (I have a dog to put on the verandah) and it should be finished.

Also I've been doing some work on the layout itself:

 

The next thing I want to do is to start work on the station area itself with ballasting, a fence at the back of the platform, a ramp onto the platform, an upgrade of the L&J Station kit etc. I have all the bits and pieces, just trying to find time to do it.

There's been a conversation on the Australian N Group about how to store your models.  I found this A4 document drawer set in Target so I'm going to try them. I have to get some foam and create some divisions and we'll see how they go. More next time.

Some modellers feel that they might not be strong enough, but the plastic is hard, and N Scale models are pretty light.

I have bought several new buildings for my Ga Hong Ha Vietnamese layout:

The really new ones are the pink cinema on the left and the "Bank" on the right. They all need the Japanese signs replaced with Vietnamese ones. There are lots of buildings in Vietnam painted pink. Vietnamese people seem to prefer bright pinks, greens and blues rather than the pale creams, grays etc we have. The models are Kato and Tomytec models, fantastic value for the price. Some models I get from local hobby stores but increasingly I get them from Japan. The local hobby shops are becoming just too expensive, sometimes four or five times the price compared to Japan even with postage. For example I bought one building in Australia and paid $35. I found out later I could have got the same building  in Japan for about A$7 or A$8. Go figure.

One more thing then I'll let you go. I bought two more Gopher Models FO coaches so now I have a set of four:

Look nice don't they.

BTW: I understand the Gophher 44s now won't be available until at least April. I hope this is not true. Earlier would be nice.

Talk to you next time.

Climbing........

 Welcome to 2017. I hope everyone enjoyed New Year.

I was climbing up on my ladder in the garage to replace a flouro tube which insisted on flickering all the time and I suddenly realised that I was looking down on my Barra Town layout.

I quickly grabbed my phone and took a couple of 'snaps'. Gives you a pretty good idea of the layout and where I'm at.

As you can see some scenery work has been carried out, but I still haven't completed the work on the curved bridge. I originally planned a curved brick viaduct, but my current thoughts are more in line with a timber viaduct which is more appropriate for a branch line. My garage is very hot, particularly with the current weather - 41 today, so I try to work when its a bit cooler, at night or early morning, but progress is slow.

I've painted the white line on the platform but it still looks a bit "thin" so I'm thinking of giving it a third coat of white. Then I'll add the yellow one.

My Vietnamese layout is basically at a stand still at the moment but I will do some more minor jobs when I can.

I just joined the Australian N Scale Facebook page so it will be interesting to see what is posted.

Also Badger Bits assures us that the 44s will be here sometime after Chinese New Year. I don't know about Chinese New Year but I do know about Vietnamese Tet (New Year), where basically everyone who can goes home to their families and nothing much is done for about 2 -3 weeks and many businesses close down for the period, so I'm sure it's the same. Vietnam Railways adds many extra trains to their schedule so that people can go home.

This means that we will be well into February before we see them if not later. Ah well, more time to save up my pennies!

And now for a couple of full size images. Several more black and white photos from 45 years ago.

Above: 36 class 3616 (the one with the Giesl Oblong ejector) on a tour.

Above left: 30T class 3090 takes water and right C38 class ready to haul another tour.

I'm going off to buy some trees for Barra Town so I'll see you next time.