Redlands Model Railway Exhibition

Saturday this week I went to the Redlands Model Railway Show.  I was on the NMRA stand up on the stage doing some work on one of my scratch built QR HO wagons.  I was ripping off the styrene tie down rods that I had previously fitted and replaced then with 0.020” phosphor bronze wire.  During the day I completed just one wagon.  Although I did bend up the tie down rods for the second wagon.  I just did not get around to fitting them.  I was struggling a bit as I did not bring my reading glasses which I now use for close up modelling. 

The exhibition was pretty good.  We had the usual shops and a small number of very good quality layouts.  There were also a number of standard quality layouts that we see around at the exhibitions.  We also had Jonathon and Darren taking the lead doing the other demonstrations and a couple of other NMRA  guys doing what we call ambassador work talking to the public.  When I went roaming the layouts, I may have seen a couple of mutton birds on some layouts.  One was on Walloon and the other was Philden Coast.  It might have been pretty appropriate for that layout as in the background was Mutton Bird Island.

I caught up with quite a lot of people I had not seen for a while and had some good chats.  Hopefully the organisers were pleased with the turn up.

Tuesday night this week we visited Garry’s place just down the road.  He has just started building a layout inside his house in a spare room off his lounge.  I think it will be very nice to operate, but he has plenty of work to do to complete it.

On Friday I did some running around and purchased some parts to allow me to assemble a set of 1:1 level crossing lights and have them moved around the back yard.  I painted the post and base this arvo.  I will eventually get around to wiring up the electronics controlled by an Arduino.

Today after I spent most of the day at a local school fete (the primary school that my kids went to) I came home and completed the second QR HO wagons and its tie down rods.

I’m back to work this week, and I will have to complete our itinerary to the Sydney Convention during the week at night and then fill out my various entry forms for the modelling competition.  Four weeks to go.