Craig's Shed: The Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition Wrap

Monday, May 9, 2016

The Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition Wrap

Holy Heck! Were there some people coming past our display in the morning on Saturday and also mid morning on Sunday? Ran into plenty of the regulars, Some old mates, some new mates from the modelling night I attended the night before and lots of people Joe Public.

I think the best layout was Giligulgul even though it was just doing some back and force shunting. The lighting of the display and the detail and weathering on the layout was pretty good. Another good one was Puffing Billy as well Gloucester Street brought back memories of my childhood a I used to get off there to go to school.

The guys and girls from the Modelling the Railways of Queensland Convention made up 30 Jacaranda trees for me and presented them to me in on Saturday arvo. So these will go a long way towards the approximate 5,000 that I need to install on the layout to finish it off. I also purchased 6 nice reasonable large trees from Dave McPhee’s stand – the Modeller’s Warehouse, and another 9 trees for pretty cheap from the stand next to him – Craftsman Scale Accessories. At this rate, my grand children will still be buying trees.

Saturday arvo we had a bit of a laugh at Peter (Giligulgul’s) expense. As he was describing something to a crowd of onlookers, looking at the layout, looking at crowd, looking at the layout, looking at the crowd – we turned his layout off. When he looked back at the layout – the layout was black. I’m sure his face must have turned white. He then looked back at us and saw a few guys rolling on the floor laughing and he immediately knew what had occurred. Colour soon returned to his face. The crowd also new what had occurred as we were making a few hand gestures behind Peter’s back. Who needs enemies, when you have mates like the Tuesday Nighters! Peter is a guy who like me, doesn’t get even, he gets one up. He has already advised me to watch my back. So this should be fun.

It was quite appropriate that our Structure Building stand was located next to the Gloucester Street layout by the Love's as where I was sitting was the approximate location in relationship to Gloucester Street station of the Park Road Shed that I had on display. I had quite a few people walk past and say, was that the Park Road Siding Shed – or was that the Stephen’s Transport Shed. The answer to both was a certain yes. That is a great incentive to keep building models when the ones that you currently build invoke memories in some of the older viewers that allows them to recognise what the model represents.

On the shopping front I also picked up 3 Kg of ballast which should enable me to ballast Nammoona Ballast Siding and Glenapp Loop and The Risk. I could also get to do the top deck of the helix around Ron and Marg’s B&B (the one in which PK frequents). I also picked up the a 2.5m back scene from Wuiske on the Friday while they were setting up. I also put an order in for about a dozen water tanks from Wayne which will help detail some of the Track Gang camps.

On Saturday all I did was cut out and assemble the components for the small electronics hut for Cassino on the southern side of the overbridge. I also cut up the four side for the shed on the top of the track side hill right next to that electronics hut.

Sunday at the show, I started early with my rounds. I scouted round and took a few photos. I sold a couple of wagons to a mate from the Club that could not find what he wanted at the shops. I eventually purchased another Shell tanker wagons in a three pack of tankers from SDS. I also picked up an Auscision yellow/gold storage box for Brendan. I also picked up another second hand 3 way point from Col’s Railway Equipment for Grafton Loco. This point will replace a Shinohara point that takes up too much room and I can extend the three sidings by about 5 inches each, more comfortably fitting in the locos in that siding.

On Sunday I finally completed the second shed I was building on the weekend. I cut the 8 windows in the shed sides, glued it together and fitted a removable roof. I then started on making some tanks to be used in my scratch built milk tank 20' containers. I had some 20mm OD conduit that I cut into a 62mm in length and squared up the ends with a large file. I added 2mm of styrene to the ends of both pieces of conduit. Once the glue dried, I filed that styrene end addition round and then tapered it to a cone on the end. One is complete and it looks pretty good.

So the question is what do I do next year? Do I build another shed from the Park Road stable, or some other buildings. Plenty to think about before then.

The road overbridge at Gloucester Street Station. I walked up and down those stairs hundred of times before it was closed and we then had to go to Vulture Street instead.