2026 Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition Report

I’ve got to Sunday this week and I cannot remember what I did early in the week.  I’m not sure if it was because I was so busy, or I did not do anything.  I do remember that on Thursday I visited Geoff and picked up two bench seats that we sit in front of our Structure Building Stand  at the AMRA Brisbane Model train exhibition.  I know that on Friday Arthur and I drove to the other side of the world (well Brisbane) and set up our stand at the Brisbane Model Train Show.  On Saturday and Sunday I rinsed and repeated, by picking up Arthur and taking him over to the Brisbane Model Railway Exhibition and even brining him home, even though he tried to stir me with an XPT sledge.  Those close to us will know about this.  And here is my, thinking that I put all of these XPT innuendos to bed.  But I guess not.  Next to us at the show, was the RMCQ N scale layout.  I lost count of the number of times that people said, look left that is an XPT running on the layout!  This was usually followed by accusations that my HO XPT does not run.  Well it bloody well does!

There were a few observations from the show.  There were truckloads of people there on Saturday.  Geoff’s bench seats got quite a workout sitting in front my myself and Arthur at our stand.  They were occupied all day.  I did very little modelling all day and talked myself hoarse.  I did make two telegraph poles with 12 insulators on two cross arms, and built 5 clotheslines.  I almost needed a sling for my arm, as I raised it to wave to heaps of people that I knew as they walked by.  I must admit that when people were looking at the various items on my modelling desk, and in particular my small clothesline scene built on a 90mm end cap, I turned on the switch and the clothesline started to rotate along with the mother handing off of the clothesline.  It brought so many smiles to people’s faces, who then showed their partners, their kids and grandkids, or their parents and grandparents.  It was great seeing all the smiles and that started numerous conversations with the public.  I built this model for the NMRA convention last year for the 90mm cap challenge.

Sunday (today) was no different.  Plenty of people through the doors.  I had a few people ask to get copies of a few clotheslines from my stand, that I had already prepared and also asked to get some other detail items that I had previously build for the layout.  Today’s modelling efforts included scratch building just two windows for my Old Casino Station building.  Pretty poor effort, but everyone had fun.  I'm signed up for next year's Exhibition on the 3rd and 4th of July at the same venue.

I do have a vague memory that earlier in the week I put together all the items that I needed to take to the AMRA Exhibition.  I think I have a few tasks for next week to finish off a couple of items that I wanted to do at the Exhibition but ran out of time talking to the public.

I do have a vague memory that earlier in the week I put together all the items that I needed to take to the AMRA Exhibition.  I think I have a few tasks for next week to finish off a couple of items that I wanted to do at the Exhibition but ran out of time talking to the public.

Home and Back Doing Stuff

Well Monday this week was my travel day.  It started with bunking out of our hotel room and storing our baggage.  Then a bus trip to Central, then tram trip to Lillydale.  I had never been there.  We then caught the same tram back to Central.  This was followed by a Metro trip from central to Martin Place for lunch and saying good-bye to our son.  My wife almosy had kittens when she jumped onto the escalator at Central for the metro.  It must be about 40m long.  We then walked back to our hotel, picked up our luggage, and then took a bus back to Central.  The XPT soon arrived and we boarded our sleeper.  You get a welcome package on boarding and a complementary light breakfast in the morning.  The trip was good.  However, we lost about 30 minutes near Wyee and the train manager over the PA system said there was a signal fault.  Our tardiness blew out to about 37 minutes, and hovered around there.  It would come in to less then 30 minutes, and then creep out to 40 minutes and then then we got into Roma Street about 30 minutes late.  I think I woke up for every station that we stopped at throughout the night.  At Roma Street, we decided to catch a train to Altandi and then a bus home from there.  As we were training it through the southside, the XPT was due to be heading outbound at that same time.  However, we did not see it, as it might have been delayed by the cleaning duties and then finding a new path through the southside on the dual gauge.  The first bus outbound of the morning is not until after 7:00am in the morning, which is pretty poor.  Late in the arvo on Monday while travelling north on the XPT, I saw the candy XPT speed past on its way south.  It was most likely the train from Grafton.

On Wednesday I started doing some modelling.  I was adding 5mm of foam to some of my model modules.  I then tried to terra form the foam to incorporate the various levels of track and scenery.  I now have to adjust the locking mechanism on each of the model modules to the previous module for the modules with the foam above the baseboard.  More work needs to be done on this feature.

On Thursday I hit the kitchen and family room floor trying to confirm the track layout that i will use at the rear of the modules, where the dual gauge splits into standard gauge tracks and the narrow gauge tracks.  I have one version of the trackwork, but I think I might investigate other versions of this over the coming weeks.  I will transcribe the trackwork onto my paper copies of the track work that will fit on the Model modules.

Saturday was a trip to Paul’s place to continue the work on the NMRA Div 1 FreeMo modules.  I had created a set of steps with railings for one of the houses on a module.  The kit we used did not have any back stairs.  After placing then and confirming that fitted in pretty well, I asked Clinton to paint it up and we then glued it to the module.  I had also previously assembled and painted up some ladders to be used around some houses on the modules.  I spent some time adding various people, animals, and other detail items, like cars, seats and BBQs.  I had made some lines for the clotheslines out of phosphor bronze wire.  Alisha had made some clothes to be added to the lines on the clotheslines.  There are now plenty of funny little scenes on the FreeMo modules and I dreamt up a number of 3D printed detail items that could be created to add to these scenes in the future.  If my man gets around to 3D printing these detail items, then I think he will sell quite a few of them.  At the end of the day we gave the 8 corner modules a coat of black paint on the fascias and boy, didn’t that bring the focus from the module in general to just the top of the module.  It was like turning on a spotlight on the top of the module.

There are a couple of items that have to be added to my next building list to be added to scenes on the FreeMo modules at the next working be session. 

Today I went to Jaycar and purchased a couple of RJ45 sockets to allow me to break out the wires from the RJ45 plug that gets put into the socket.  I plan to create a sample connection to the first 4 signals on the new exhibition layout as a demo for later in the year.  I just have to check if I wired the signal on my signalman’s control panel as common anode or common cathode, so I can build my signals for the layout the same way.  Maybe I needed to write that done somewhere when I first put the control panel together.

A Side Trip to Sydney

Well this week started off real early with a 3:30am rise in order to get to Roma Street Station for an XPT ride to Sydney.  We went to have a week in Sydney and visit the son whom now lives down there, and to spend our Anniversary date down there.   The XPT was very slow out of Brisbane to Yeerongpilly.  I could have almost walked there faster.  I think the reason was that QR had stopped trains running from Salisbury to Moorooka on the Down line, due to a new bridge being constructed at Moorooka over Stable Swamp Creek.  So QR suburban traffic was running on the dual gauge and we were trying to run in the opposite direction at the same time, so we had to wait for the line to clear.  At about half-way down to Sydney, the train manager approached us and the people on the other side of the aisle and asked if we wanted to move to a sleeper compartment for the rest of the trip.  We said yes, as we could spread out more.

Looking out one side of our compartment.

Looking out the other side

We did not cross any other traffic until about 1:45pm when we passed a northbound steel train near Wauchope.  The next cross was a northbound XPT in a loop at about 1:54pm.

The northbound Casino XPT

At Taree I checked out the new staging area for the new intercity trains.

We were mostly less than 20 minutes late all the way south until we got to Newcastle.  We had whittled the deficit down to about 6 minutes late at Newcastle, where we had to sit behind an interurban down to Sydney and again from Hornsby to Strathfield.  We ended up only about 20 minutes late into Sydney.  As we walked along the platform to collect our luggage, our son met us on the platform.

We’ve had a great time in Sydney.  Lunch with the son in Sydney on Tuesday, and Wednesday over to Manly and Watson’s Bay.  Thursday I trained it out to Blacktown and spent about an hour and a half talking to Maria at MRRC.  I then caught a Blue Mountains service back to Parramatta to visit Bergs Hobbies.  I then caught the train to Liverpool and again spent about an hour and a half talking to Joe at Casula Hobbies.  The modelling items I wanted to pick up in Sydney were obtained and I got a few other items.

The diagram showing trains near Parramatta station

Thursday was a trip to the Blue Mountains.  While waiting for our train to depart Sydney Central, I heard an announcement on the platform that there was a change of platform for our train.  What?  We were already on it.  So we left the train and proceeded to platform 6.  There was no train announcements, just a platform announcement.  So again we left about 12 minutes late and got to our destination about 7 minutes down.  We checked out the tourist walk to the 3 sisters, and plenty of shops at Katoomba.  We then caught a 4 car train to Elura and checked out the shops and caught the next 10 car train back to Sydney.

Saturday started early as I watched the Socceroos on TV, it would have been too cold to walk to Tumberlong Park where lots of people assembled for the broadcast.  We then went to the Glebe markets and later in the day we went to The Rocks Markets to check out the local merchants.  I was able to attend most of the NMRA Div 1 Meeting virtually in the morning/afternoon and also the British Region Brew and Natter in the evening.  We were lucky enough to see a cruise ship leave the Internation Cruise Ship Terminal in Circular Quay just after 4:00pm.  There was a bit of a network shutdown in Sydney on Saturday so we couldn’t catch a train from Circular Quay or a Metro from Martin Place to Central so we had to catch a bus back home.

The moorings being released

The ship disappearing behind the Opera House

A quiet day today at the local shopping centre having a look around before we prepare to come home tomorrow morning.  A very nice week.

XPT Fun and the Layout Model is Shown Off

Late on Monday I went to the shed and ran my XPT from Grafton to Fairy Hill and return.  Then I ran it to Kyogle and return just for kicks.  I think I noticed an issue inside my helix.  So I investigated.  A section of track had lifted, so I glued it back down on Tuesday morning and put a weight on it as the glue dried.  The next time I powered the layout on, I forgot that I had a weight on the track.  I got a short – Doh!  I realised so I then removed the weight and that section no longer had a short.  The XPT then ran smoothly through the helix section.  I also identified two sets of points at Kyogle where the XPT was jumping when it was travelling through that location.  So I shimmed the check rails with two slivers of 0.010” styrene and that seemed to help wonderfully.

On Tuesday evening amid all the expectations of the Tuesday Nighters, I successfully ran the XPT from Kyogle station back to Grafton Staging.  I was then asked to run it back the other way.  So I ran it from Grafton Staging to Border Loop.  I identified an issue with a set of points on the southern end of Border Loop.  The rail had come adrift from the throw bar.  So I attempted to push it back in.  That seems to have done the trick.  I also identified that two particular coaches on the XPT, the centre one and the last one seem to be causing random derails.  I had a suspicion that the bogies had wheels out of gauge.  On Wednesday morning I got the NMRA track gauge out and sure enough some wheels were out of gauge ever so slightly.  So I did a bit of adjustment and put the coaches back on the train.  Later in the arvo I had some time and ran the train from Border Loop back to Fairy Hill crossing loop before reversing it again and sending it back to Border Loop.  I still seem to think that I had a couple of other bogies that are out of gauge ever so slightly.  I will eventually check them all out.

Earlier in the day I cut up some pieces of styrene, including ‘I’ Beam, ‘H’ Beam and various slabs ready for painting.  These will help make up various steel loads for numerous open wagons.  It will also help provide some loads that someone wants me to make for them.

Saturday was Club Meeting day.  I decided to take the scale model of my future layout to the Club for comments.  It sat on the back seat of the car.  I fielded many questions throughout the day about what it was.  

The model of the Modules for the future exhibition layout.

While at the Club, Greg showed me some 3D printed signals that he put together with some brass tube used for the post.  I purchased a tube cutter from Bunnings today and then went to Jaycar and picked up a stack of LEDs for the signals that Greg will eventually print for me.  I have assembled the first trial signal that Greg printed and gave to me yesterday.  It looks pretty good.  I will eventually get around to making the RJ45 connection from my control panel to the signal as another piece of my layout puzzle gets materialised.

The Week That Wasn't

This week I have done relatively little modelling except from building a couple of small detail items for the Div 1 FreeMo modules.  I have built a set of back steps from styrene, and then added a railing to the steps from styrene rod.  This will go out the back of a house on one of the modules.  Next modelling activity was with some fine phosphor bronze wire lines that can be added to a number of the clothes lines sitting in the back yards of various houses on the modules.  I also put together various types of ladders from kits that I had sitting around in my spares bucket.  One of these ladders will allow the guy currently sitting on the roof of a house to get up and down to/from the roof.  This guy is installing the TV antenna on the roof and he is connecting the co-axe cable

However, today as I started to clean up the shed in preparation for the meeting this coming Tuesday night at my place, I realised that I had promised to create a few detail items for one guy to pick up at the upcoming Brisbane Exhibition.  I spoke to him at the last Buy and Sell for our Club, and I did not have any of the items that he wanted on my table.  But I am now working towards fixing that issue.  I created 5 long and 5 short steel wire loads for various HO wagons.  I think I had sold the last of my long loads at the Buy and Sell.  I then made a large batch of 4” x 4” pieces of wood (to be used as dunnage), and painted these to install in a large number of steel wagons or open wagons, so various steel loads can sit on them on.  This allows the forklifts to get under the loads to help with unloading.  These have been made to go inside my steel wagons for NSW and QR.  I have currently made up 4 large pipe loads of various sizes and painted these.  I have also made up 3 x 6m loads of small steel rod bundles.  These were also painted today.  I need to make up some steel plate loads and then add some “I” and “H” beam loads.  That is this week's job. 

I had plans of adding the various windows to my Old Cassino station building this week, but I did not get motivated to do any work on that project. 

On Tuesday this week I will also add an extra NCE Throttle to my layout, as Darren recently picked up two NCE throttles online, and I went halves with him - so one each.  This throttle will not be radio.  However, after I take the throttle apart to check that it has a JST plug inside, I might eventually treat myself with a Wifi-Trax wifi module for this new throttle.  These modules work pretty well and are relatively cheap compared to installing NCE radio into a throttle.

Working on the Modules

This week I have been working on my mini modules.  All are complete and tried to fit them all together.  I added some guides to one end of each module, so it slips inside the next.  I also purchased some packets of small pegs from a local $2 shop.  These allow me to ‘clamp’ or should I say peg the modules together as they are assembled.  I added foam to the modules along the front of the layout – the equivalent of a 2” sheet of foam.  Then I needed to added transitions back down to just baseboard level.  The 2” foam was so that I could model a creek running underneath the track in one of my modules.  After adding foam to my mini modules, I then realised that I can remove this foam from all but the module with the creek, and just add it to the module with the creek to it.  I will make this module have legs that 2” shorter than the rest, to make up for the 2” of foam on top.

All the left hand end front scale modules

This shows where the Branch line comes off the main module.  In the background is the Old Casino Station building before the left end extension was correctly sized and built.

This is where the branch line joins back up to the side module to then go around to the rear staging.

On Tuesday we went to Bob’s place for our fortnightly meeting.  We had a very nice civilised view of the Brisbane River and all the city cats going for a run up and down the river.

I also got around to scaling out the measurements for the extension to the Old Casino Station building.  I then got around to cutting out the doors and windows.  This week I will have to go looking for my box of windows and see if I have enough to fit in the current window openings of the building.

Saturday was a working bee on the Division’s FreeMo modules again.  We did some nice work.  As usual we had plenty of laughs and a good deal of work did get done.  Never as much as you expect.  I think some of the items that we added will create some interesting scenes that people will talk about.  I came away from the day with a list of items to build, or acquire before the next working bee so I can install these onto the modules on that day.

Styrene Building and Planning for Some More Styrene Building

After borrowing a packet of Styrene from PK on last Sunday afternoon, I got started cutting it up on Monday.  Initially I put together 4 frames and the packet was gone.  These frames were for my 1:10 scale models of the modules for my future layout.  On Tuesday afternoon I received a text that my styrene order had come in.  That meant that Wednesday morning was a drive to Corinda station followed by a train trip to Ipswich. 

Previously at Ipswich station there was this strange signal on platform 2 that I had talked about before. 

The signal on the left has a weird route indicator on it.

When I was coming home from Ipswich, I saw a "Special" come into platform 2 at Ipswich and sit there.  Platforms 1 and 2 were closed as they were painting the platform, so we were on platforms 3 and 4 for our trains.  I saw the signal in question on platform 2 light up, with the route indicator first, then it went from red to yellow to green.

The 'Special' train was going from platform 2 to the Down Main.

While I was at Ipswich I picked up 5 packets of styrene and when I got home, I made up another 6 scale model modules.  Attention now must turn for my non-standard modules.  So at this point in time, I have assembled everything except the last module for the branch line around to the stabling/staging.

Today was the day that I added legs to all my scale model modules for my new exhibition layout.  They look quite good.  I still need to build the last module.

I received an email from Brad in Lismore on Monday afternoon helping me with the size of the extension on the Old Casino station building.  He said that there were 18 sheets of iron on the roof on that section of the building.  That was a great start.  With each sheet being 760mm when overlapped, that made the station building extension about 12.16m long.  In HO scale that is 139.6mm.  With 2 doors and three windows to include in the front of the building extension, I can now try and guess the actual size of each item and the spaces between them all to fit into my 139.6mm.  My initial calculations with a few tweaks, has the building coming out to 140mm in size.  I will draw that up this coming week and see how it looks compared to the photos I have and see if I need to adjust anything, before I commit to cutting up a piece of styrene.

Thursday I had to ring Anthony and pull out of his Saturday Afternoon Ops session due to my persistent cough.  I suggested that Darren could fill my place, if he was so inclined.  After some new medication on Thursday night and Friday and Saturday, I still ventured over to the Bayside Exhibition on Saturday morning where I ran into Darren and Brendon on their way to the Ops Session.  I also had a nice chat to numerous people at the Exhibition, some Bayside club members, Logan Club people, Action Club people, some mates I ran into people walking around and a number of various shop owners at the Exhibition.