Sunday, October 9, 2011

Who knew....

...You could suffer model railway withdrawal.

Having moved away from from my layout I'm kind of missing it. No longer is it practical to go to the shed and do "something" for a while. At the moment I'm reduced to staring at a length of track with a 38 with a couple of cars on it.

Last Monday I started on what will be a small portable shelf layout 2400mm x 200mm. It will have a very simple track plan. A passing loop, one siding, small station platform, broken down A1 Station building and loading bank. Probably end  up a diorama more than a working layout.

The plan is to have it look good enough to place in the living room of the new house, so it will end up on display to any and all. It's going to be a large task for me given the lack of progress on Carcoar and the rest of the layout scenery wise.

In other news, Yesterday, my Father and I started the construction phase (3 weeks behind schedule) of the new layout extension with mixing and pouring a third of the new concrete slab. It went quite well with just the two of us pouring and levelling 1.2 cubic meters of concrete in 2 hours and the rain held off allowing the concrete to set enough. Next Saturday will involve another delay to the project. We will be off to Crookwell for a meeting of the GCHR. This group has just been raised from the dead and with it once again holds accreditation to use track vehicles (trikes) for members only at this point.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

2011 AMRA Liverpool Show

I drove over to Sydney early Saturday morning with my Father to this years Liverpool show. We arrived around 11:15am. The was still a large que waiting to get at the time but the line moved quickly.

I made a bee line for the Austrains stand for the new KB, LHO and FS carriages. I had nothing to fear, there were plenty to go around. Also got some of their 2AN bogies (the ones with pick-ups) for a LHO project I'm working on. Next was a visit to Antons Trains and got a turntable motorising kit. I have to say what great service I received from Anton, his product knowledge is very helpful.

Across the way was Bergs Hobbies. This is a time where I would win lotto to get the whole range of NSW passenger cars they custom build. Very nice!

Had a quick squizz at Eureka's upcoming models.

Then over to Casula Hobbies for their wheels sets. The plan is to experiment with Austrains recently released NSWR Steel S cars. The cars have 11mm disc wheels but the bind on the brake shoes this arvo I tried a 10.5mm wheel. Sure enough it fixed the drag issue and made no noticeable difference to appearance...However! The lighting pickup have to be modified as Casula's wheels are not insulated mid axle, meaning the bogie now only pick from one side of the track.

Picked up some books and DVDs from ARHS and other retailers.

Arrived at the Auscision stand to find they will be releasing NSWR fully built and painted grain silos. Namely S008, S016 and the larger S024. This mob is going to keep me broke for a while. Also got some coil steal loads and cradles.

All up we spent 3 and 1/2 hours at the show walking around checking every stand. Truly this is a great time to model railways with the RTR available and kits.

As usual there were the high quality layouts in attendance. Arakoola an O scale display topped my list of favorites. Made me think about changing scales. Then the ol' favs Dungog, Brunswick Park and Jembaicumbene. Wallerawang is coming along nicely, the Guildford group have done great job on this layout.

Another plus of the day was the crowd seemed a bit smaller, either that or the floor plan was better organised.

All in all 9 out of 10, well one AMRA.

Next month Wagga Wagga.