New England Model Railway Convention Week

On Monday a crew of us went on an outing.  The southsiders caught a train from either Kuraby, Altandi or Sunnybank and ended up at Roma Street Station.  We then went and picked up PK and Clinton and we ventured out to Kippa Ring by train.  We then caught a bus from there, along the water front at Redcliffe and across the bridge and into Sandgate.  From there we had coffee and then caught the next train out to Shorncliffe, before catching that same train back to the city and out to Cleveland.  There we went for a walk and found a nice cake shop and had some lunch.  Then back to the City (or near enough for 3 of us at Park Road Station).  I caught the Gold Coast train to Altandi, while the two others caught the Beenleigh train.  

Tuesday night 10 of us met up at Glen’s place for a run in his shed followed by adjourning to his dining room table for coffee and supper.  We were solving all the world’s (and NMRA’s) problems on that night.

So shed activities were slow to start this week.  On Thursday I adjusted the already laid 12mm track to Rocklea by about half an inch, and added in all the new standard gauge track.  I still have to splice in one more piece of track, the splitter for narrow gauge and standard gauge on the south side of Rocklea Sidings.  That is just a Dremel cut next Tuesday.  Then the trackage will all be tested and the point motors will also be tested again following the changes I made on last Thursday.

Friday was driving day to Armidale for the New England Convention.  PK and Glen rocked up at my place early, and we hit the road.  At Warwick, we caught up with the other 2 cars in the convoy.  More food was consumed at Glen Innes, and as we were leaving the hail hit us.  It poured most of the way to Armidale.  We had dinner in the Bowls club and caught up with many faces we had not seen since 2 years ago.  Saturday was presentation day.  I was second up straight after morning tea and before lunch.  The room was packed.  I also attended some good sessions.  It was interesting that there was some tie in between the sessions that I attended.  The Dinner on Saturday night was very nice.  Good company and great food, and average speaker.  Sorry I couldn’t resist Marty. Hehehehe!  At the Trivia contest our table did rubbish.  Glen called himself a NSW driver.  His knowledge of NSWGR history was crap. 

On Sunday I presented again, this time first up in the morning.  Again, the room was pretty much full.  The other sessions I attended on that day were enlightening.  So a great convention over all.  Thanks NEMRC for a great Convention.  We want to be back in 2 years time.  We then had a few beers at the Bowls Club, followed by the usual dinner at the White Bull.  We booked a table for 16, but 29 turned up in our side of the bar, and there were a few others, maybe 6 on the other side of the bar.  We did a bit of table rearranging to cater for the 29 that we had for dinner.

Tomorrow is visiting visiting Rohan day followed by our convoy’s drive home.  Let’s hope that the New England Model Railway Club will arrange the next convention in 2 more years.