NMRA Meeting for Div 1

We visited Shelton’s place on Tuesday this week.  He had some minor track realignments in his layover tracks or staging area.  He has two tracks where I thought there was once 3, but I think he can install four tracks in the area.  This would allow him to have a few more trains just sitting there that can enter and leave the layout to run past.  It will also give him more variety as he does a lot of breaking up and reassembly in his various sidings.

On Saturday the NMRA division 1 group went to a local business that was run by one of the members (Gary) and more than 30 people turned up.  We also had someone from Bundaberg live stream in, along with a group of people from Lismore.  So we used technology to allow people who could not travel to us to also attend the meeting.  We had Gary run us through some of his fantastic machinery.

There were other presentations during the day, I did one on building loads in particular the rail loads for my rail carrying AKFX wagons, but I also showed off a couple of steel carrying wagons in NSW NOBX wagons and some QR HWO wagons.  The reason was to show members how simple it is to add a load to a wagon.  In my session, I showed some rail stacks for my AKFX wagons in varying states of completion.  I had 4 lots of rail all painted and completed.  Another was completed but not painted and two more were just frames, with the central rail and the two outer rails in place.  On one of these frames I installed 6 more lengths of rail on one side of the frame to give an example of how I do that work.  I then painted the unpainted completed rail stack and that took all of about 30 seconds.  We had a presentation on making conifers by using the twisted wire and hemp method using some ready made tool.  The outcome was quite realistic.  My issue is there are not many of those types if trees around the area I model, so I can't make many.  They are certainly a north American tree.  Gary then gave a very interesting presentation on weathering with paints and pigments and he also has a collection of chalks and pencils.  The couple of wagons that he did do some work on turned out very nice indeed.  I also spent about 3 minutes at the very end, giving a demonstration of the Frosted Glass spray can just giving a dull coat to four pristine wagons.  To me every wagon needs to be weathered somehow and nothing should be presented on a layout in pristine format straight out of the box.  It needs some form of enhancement.

Today I spent a small amount of time at the modelling desk.  I added the 6 other lengths of pseudo rail to the half completed rail stack that I started at yesterday's modelling clinic, and then completed the second frame.  I then painted both of these and I just need some 4” x 4” dunnage to separate the rail stacks in my wagons.

As my can of Frosted Glass had run out I visited Bunnings and picked up a new can.  The old one had lasted a couple of years so I can do a lot more work on some wagons my wagons in the coming weeks.  But I could not wait and once I got home I gave about another 10 wagons a bit of a dust up with Frosted Glass.