Ipswich Model Train Show 2012

On the Saturday of this weekend I made my way up the Highway to The Workshops Rail Museum, at Ipswich, as this was the weekend for their annual model railway exhibition. Our Club was in attendance with their HO layout - Brendale and I decided to lend a hand on the Saturday with the running. I took along my paper train from my layout, along with a few locos and gave them a run, once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. We had a good turn out of members to assist on Saturday, with US, UK and Australian trains running throughout the day.

The layout with a US loco sitting in a siding.

 

At one time we had three trains on on the inner loop chasing their tails. Isn’t DCC great for this with three separate drivers, just slowly following the train in front at a safe distance.

 

One of the Tuesday Nighters – Lefty was caught watching a NSWGR train in operation on Brendale. He denies it, but I have the photo as evidence. You can just see the loco coming into view above his hand.

 

In attendance at the show, were a number of local manufacturers, like Peter Boorman’s Workshop (who had his HO scale Gantry Crane on display),

I just love the model with all the detail.  My scratchbuilt version runs a poor second to this.

 

Also there was Harold from Modratec with his signal frames.

These can be interlocked.  Just brilliant.

 

Adam and Jade from Wuiske Models with their new QR wagons. I saw seven packets of then on the Logan layout <948>.

Quite a nice investment in this photo on the 12mm gauge.

 

Also there was Dean Bradley who was at the last Armidale Convention and hopefully at the next one in 3 weeks time, the owner of the showing off his weathering prowess. He had some very nice wagon and locos on display.

I love this open wagon with its dents and rust.

I also would like a few of these banana wagons.

Can't you just smell these sheep?

This is how it is all donw with his range of pigments.

 

I was also quite impressed with the Oil Siding on the Logan Club’s layout.

A nice little scene here.  I'll take two for Cassino!

 

A mild storm came through at about 4:00pm an hour before closing time and scared off all the visitors. It was still raining as we made our way back to the car in the car park with all our gear. 

 

While at the show, I was putting out some feelers for some friends who scratch build their own points. I just wanted to know if they were eager to take on a challenge of scratch building some dual gauge points for me – again for my top deck. I need two so I can finish the running all the way from Acacia Ridge to South Brisbane. I think this task is beyond me at this point in time. I might be able to copy someone else’s point down the track, but I don’t think I can create one from scratch. I will eventually need 14 dual gauge points for Clapham Yard and Fisherman Island’s Yard.

 

I have a recollection that on Tuesday this week I was talking to a mate David in my shed, advising him on how to install point control on his layout in his shed. So planning is underway for the installation of an NCE Mini Panel, a number of local control panels and quite a number of Digitrax DS64’s to throw the points. That mimics what I also need to complete the top deck of my layout.

 

I am also trying to determine what I will enter into our Club's Christmas modelling competition.  I have a couple of half complete projects, but I'm not sure if I can get any thing ready by then.

 

Next Sunday, we are holding a Club Open Day with a Buy and Sell from 11:00am. I will be selling some gear from one of our members.  maybe I will see some of you there.

The Model Railway Club

As mentioned last week, I was going to write about the model railway Club I visited in London. That was The Model Railway Club. They were founded in 1910. That is 102 years old. That is pretty impressive. Their Clubrooms are advertised as being open on Thursday nights. I happened to arrive in London at about 3:00pm on a Thursday. I was staying two streets over. Talk about lucky. I took my camera and headed out to knock on their door and this is what I saw.

 

The Front Door

 

They were a very hospitable bunch and welcomed me into their Clubrooms and showed me around. They had an American shunting layout called Putnam with an NCE Powercab running it, also a 7mm scale layout called Happisburgh Goods consisting of a few modules which was being worked on, and a 4mm layout called Centenary Park Road (I think?) that they guys were laying track on. But their largest layout by far that was setup was a 2mm scale layout called Copenhagen Fields. This layout looks like N scale, but consists of all hand laid track. The buildings were great. It was actually a model of the area nearby and its main road was Caledonian Road which is also the name of one of the stations. Here are some photos:-

For the curves of scene, the guys used brass strip which they bent in a machine they made.  very ingenious, and a lot quicker than hand laying 2mm scale track.

A view of the multi level layout from the front.

A scene that shows of some of the buildings.

A close up of some shops along Caledonian Road.

Rows of apartments.

Another view of the main street.

It all started with a scale model of the layout showing the various layers of track.

All the track was hand laid.  Not all points were working.  Some were just there for show.

A very nice piece of construction.  The local church.

Track at multiple levels and structures in the front and in the back, along with very nice scenery.

 

On the tour of the rooms the guys showed me a model of the 2nd ever S scale loco ever built.

The S scale loco.

 

They also showed me of all things a model of a local steam loco a PB15 also in S scale.

 

A PB15 in S Scale.

 

Their library was huge. It was housed in a large number of brown built cabinets in a separate room.  There were I think three guys cataloguing books.  I stayed and chatted for about and hour.  I was invited back with the family on the following Sunday as they were working on an exhibition layout prior to an exhibition the following Saturday, but I was out doing sightseeing with the family and could not get back there.  The visit to the Club certainly was an eye opener and very enjoyable.  Highly recommended.

All Back to Normal Now

The last three weeks I’ve been in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England with the family to attend a family wedding. Well we are all back home now but still tired. We all had a great time and took lots of photos. The answers to last weeks questions were:-

 

1 – Lansdowne Road Station, with a DART service and a longer distance service crossing. We stayed about 100m down the road.

2 – Central Station in Glasgow

3 – Edinburgh Waverley Station from the over bridge.

4 – Edinburgh Waverley Station from the over bridge.

5 – Future Light Rail being installed in Edinburgh.

6 – Edinburgh Waverley Platform #2 before a long distance service from London arrived.

Here is a picture of that train arrived

7 – On the service from Edinburgh to London King’s Cross.

8 – Turntable somewhere south of Darlington between Edinburgh and London King’s Cross.

 

We travelled by all modes of transport - Bus, Train, Tube, Barge, Inter Country Ferry as well as plane.

 

Now I’ve seen the Model of the Lima carriage cleaning accessory, but I never knew that real versions of that piece of infrastructure actually existed. Well it does and I now have photos of a couple of versions.

The carriage washer

The same one further along.

Another washer.

And Another.

 

We also went past the York National Railway Museum.

 

This is as close as we got to the museum.

 

My next update will have some photos from a Model Railway Club I visited while in London.

Photo Update

I thought I'd post some photos for people to guess where they were taken?

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Damn Internet

It has been a while between drinks and I have broken my long line of weekly posts.  I have not had internet access for quite some time.  I'm currently on holidays with the kids as it is school holidays in Qld.  But I'm back online for the moment.

 

As mentioned in my last post (a few weeks back now), the next Tuesday was a gathering of the Tuesday Nighters at my place. We had a good turnout, with two regulars missing – one supposedly on call, an the other recovering from an operation. Pretty lame excuses if you ask me. Any way, we spent many a minute speaking about those not there behind their backs.

 

We had Brendan fresh back from OS showing off his nice GSV’s. He placed them on the top deck of my helix, and they started to roll down hill. They did look pretty good. We discussed the old time trick of populating these wagons with cotton balls to simulate sheep inside. I suggested that that may not work in these wagons, as the steel rails are so fine, you can see right through. The wagon may then look like it is a wagon full of cotton balls and not simulated sheep.

 

Peter has his collection of Oak Milk wagons. They also looked very good. I’m waiting until someone brings out some Norco wagons, as my three dairies that I’m modelling (Murwillumbah, Old Cassino and Kyogle) are all Norco Dairies. Does anyone know what is on the horizon?

 

Peter also made use of my Powercab, to find out what address he had set his Eureka Cream and Green CPH to. It ended being set to Long Address 6 or ‘06’. We then set Peter’s NN class 1311 to that address. It was set to 3. I really need to commit to memory, CV62 = 0 to turn off acknowledgement on a QSI sound decoder. I can never remember the next time I need to change someone’s loco.

 

The main reason for the get together was to get everyone to check out the top deck extension at South Brisbane Interstate and Park Road Sidings. The guys were also trying out my small stools for getting a good visual access to the top deck.

 

A photo of the three levels of deck, Cassino Meatworks on the bottom, Fairy Hill Loop in the middle and South Brisbane Interstate on the top.

Photo of top deck at eye level.

Top deck of South Brisbane Interstate in the foreground and Park Road in the background from the stool.

Other conversations during the night centred around Lefty stuffing his ribs, Brendan’s Ski holiday, DCC Snubbers, different types of busses on the NCE DCC setup.  A great night I think.

Last weekend I was at a wedding so that totally stuffed my weekend.  It was a great weekend. I also might have some interesting photos to post in the next few days as well.