Mid winter and boy is it cold....

It's getting very cold isn't it. Where I am is averaging 3-5 degrees in the early mornings. Nippy!

I have joined the NSW N Scale Group and attended my first gathering last Sunday. The original location for the meeting fell through so we visited the Tram Museum at Loftus. If you're into NSW N Scale this is the group to join. There is also a Facebook Page called "NSW N Scale" which includes group members and others.

Wow! What a collection. The members of the museum should be very proud of what they have achieved. The fully restored trams (and there are quite a few of them) looked fantastic.

We were especially lucky as we were able to have a look at the "backroom" operations as well.

We  went for rides on a Sydney tram and a Brisbane tram. The Brisbane tram took us as far as the old National Park platform including crossing the highway. Great to see all those cars brought to a halt while we trundled across the road!

I had a problem with my Gopher 44 class and must commend Phil Badger for his interest. It included visiting my house to do a swap. How's that for service? The problem was a faulty front light, but when Phil tested it we discovered it was overheating as well. Apparently at least one other has had the same problem. Also I understand the seperately supplied front buffer plate is incorrect. This is being rectified. As I haven't got to applying the detail parts and the decals yet I hadn't noticed. I've been too busy running my 4 car set of FO coaches around the layout with the 44 at the 'point' as our Nth American friends would say.

I'm happy that the 44 is already fitted with Micro-Train couplers, as I recently had the task of converting one of my 48 class. While it appears a simple task, I had great difficulty in finding a screwdriver to fit the tiny screws that attach the couplers. I have a wide collection of  'tiny' screw drivers but none of them fitted the screw exactly. It would have been useful to state what size screwdriver was required in the instructions I think.


Previously I mentioned the "other" side of my Barra Town layout being a coal mine. This has now changed. The Walther's mine building has been removed and I am currently constructing an S008 grain silo from articles in the Australian Model Railway Magazine (December 1990 and into 1991). The plan is to also build one of those newer square grain storage buildings. So it shows you. It is worthwhile to keep all those magazines. You never know when you might need them.

And now a few more photos from the Epping Show.

Tomorrow I'm converting from ADSL to NBN. Hopefully everything will go according to plan, but if it doesn't there may be a  period when I don't have home internet access so fingers crossed. Once it's up and running we'll find out just how much faster it is than the current ADSL.

That's all for this time. I'll talk to you again in July.

Cheers.

Out and About...

Welcome back. It's getting cold isn't it.

I visited the Epping Model Railway Club exhibition on the weekend and got my Gopher (Badger Bits) 44 class. I chose the original Mk1 in original colour scheme as my first. In the future I'll be buying several more but I had a budget so wanted to share my largess around rather than give it all to one business!

Apart from the locomotive I bought three building kits from Model Train Buildings, a church, a corner store and a station master's house. I also bought a brick veneer 3D printed house from Meerkat and a couple of packets of fluoro lights to be added to the Barra Town station from Kerroby Models. Enough work to keep me going until the Castle Hill Exhibition at the end of July and then the Liverpool Exhibition in October I imagine. As I've stated before, I'm not exactly the fastest modeller.

I was discussing speed of modelling with someone at the exhibition and we decided that you are much slower when you retire, not because you're older, but because you seem to have unlimited time, so do all sorts of other things like drink coffee, watch TV, read magazines, work in the garden  etc. whereas when you're working you understand that your modelling time is limited and so do a lot more! As a founding member of Procrastinators International this appeals to me.

The exhibition itself was not too bad, but I did notice several exhibitors listed in the guide not actually present and attendance on the Monday seemed to be quite sparse. One of the exhibitors was complaining about being bored. I have to say my favourite N Scale layout was "The Beach" with the scenery being very nicely done, especially the actual beach scene and the jetty. The English N Scale layout "Sandford" was also nicely done.

Scenery wise the HO scale "Southern Highlands" was very nice but trains seemed to be few and far between (like the real thing?). It was good to see "Tarana" and "Dunblurtin" again with the later having a new owner.

There were several Micro-layouts on display. I quite like the concept so enjoyed seeing them.

The usual suspects were in attendance as far as commercial stands were concerned but I would have liked to have seen Frate-N and/or Peter Boorman and of course we never see Aust-N-Rail. Unfortunately none of the other commercial stands had any of these products either. I'll just have to wait till October. I'm just wondering whether manufacturers/distributors who know they are not attending a particular exhibition could appoint another N Scale exhibitor as an agent. A sort of N Scale manufacturers/distributors co-op. I understand that people can't be everywhere, but some sort of loose arrangement would see more N scale products in front of more punters and that can't be bad.

The best part of the week was that I actually ran a train all the way around the main line of Barra Town. I still have the sidings to wire up both in Barra Town yard and at the coal mine but for me this is quite an achievement. I'm not known for my electrical prowess. I'll have to design and build a control panel as well. Ah, no rest for the wicked!

Also during the week I sold some of my HO Australian locomotives, the money going towards more N scale. I decided that at my age it's  about time I standardised on one scale or I'll never get anything finished. In the process I scored some NSW 4 wheelers and some European end platform coaches which I'll probably convert to early French built Vietnamese coaches or one of the ways and works vehicles that some have been conerted to.

All in all quite a productive week in my continuing adventure.

Until next time...

Travelling........

Welcome to winter....

I've been away for a couple of weeks. My wife's father passed away at the ripe old age of 97 so we had a hurried trip to Vietnam for his funeral. The first 4 days or so were taken up with funeral and family matters so we only had a few days to relax and a couple of days in Saigon before we returned to Australia.

Even though we were only there for two weeks we got to to travel on several trains and of course I took lots of photos as I always do.

Of course the trip seriously curtailed my modelling plans for May, including a couple of more posts on this blogg, so apologies to you, my dear reader, for only one post in May. Hopefully I can get back to more frequent posts.

 

 

Above: First photo shows D13E 705 ready to depart platform 3 at Saigon Station at about 10.30 at night. The second photo shows the same train arriving at our destination, "Thap Cham" some seven and a half  hours later.

This is the train engine for our passenger train taking us north from Saigon to Thap Cham. It's a D13E class, an Indian built ALCO. About half way between a 48 class and a 45 class and metre gauge. Known as YDM4 in India. Because we were in a hurry we went straight from Saigon Airport to Saigon Station and basically took whatever train we could get. It meant an overnight journey sitting up as there were no sleepers available, arriving at our destination at about 5.30 in the morning.

Above: The train that took us back to Saigon hauled by modern Vietnam built D19E class # 956

I have been doing a little bit of work since I've been back.

First I finally got the logos onto my pretend NSW passenger train the "Western Explorer". (see below). Currently the train has 4 coaches and a baggage van but I might add one or two more coaches. They're actually US coaches but they do look a little bit like "Indian Pacific" or Ghan type coaches. I also have a Peter Boorman Southern Aurora kit to put together so maybe that will be added to the set at some stage.

 

Also to be added to the train is a scratchbuilt "BKF" car carrier. I've started the model but it's slow work as the original vehicle is quite complex so I have to think of ways to make the model as I go along. My original plan was just to repaint a Kato Japanese car carrier but you just can't get them any more, so I bit the bullet and decided to build my own using an old US 50 foot boxcar chassis. I know that these particular vehicles were not used as MotoRail carriers but it's the right length and maybe one was used once. There's always an exception to the rule!

I've also (at last) started the wiring on the Barra Town layout. Very slow because it's so cold in the garage these days!

I bought some more Noch grapevines and they are to be added to my farm on my Ga Hong Ha Vietnam layout. I also have in my head a plan to build a small extension to the layout so that I can add a full Buddhist Pagoda. I have the 5 steps building but I need a couple more. While I was in Vietnam I bought several brass Buddhist figures that can be used outside the pagoda as well. They need to be painted white in the Vietnamese style.

Well, as Peter Cundell used to say, that's your lot for this week, so until next time, enjoy your modelling.