NEMRC Continued - Day 2

Last Sunday I got up early so I could tune into the NMRA-X presentations.  But I could not find them on Facebook.  I have no idea what was going on.  Anyway we headed over to the New England Convention and when the Bowls Club opened its door, I set up in my room for the presentation which was first up.  I plugged my laptop into the PC available for the presentation, and streamed via Youtube the NMRA-X presentations for the hour or so before my presentation was due to begin.

At presentation time, a few stirrers made their presence felt with a few smart remarks coming from the first two row on the right hand side of the room.  Mostly Division 1 members.  Damn Troublemakers!  Hopefully those in attendance had a laugh.  The room was pretty full and hopefully I was able to get my point across and inspire a few there to attempt to bring their layouts to life.  For the rest of the day I was up stairs at my desk with some of my detail items on display. 

At the end of the convention we met up for a few drinks in the Bowls Club.  We then made our way back into the Convention room and had a few more.  Geoff has made arrangements for us to have a table booked for dinner at the White Bull.  Originally he had about 14 places, but that was expanded to 20.  When we got there, the place was full.  Our Table booking full and there was eventually about 43 people from the Convention having dinner there.  Boy was the place busy. 

A few of us unwinding post the Convention

Dinner on Sunday

The convention had some good layouts in attendance.  An O scale layout was very nice.  Lismore Wharf from peter Boorman was also very nice.  I got some very nice photos of both.  Below are some shots of the O scale layout.

These photos of the Lismore Wharf Layout.

We had a great time at the Convention and we will all be back again.  Thanks to the Convention organisers, the shops in attendance, the presenters, those going displays, those that made dioramas, those that brought along models and those with layouts.  All these contributes to the success of the convention.  Well Done.

NEMRC Continued - Day 1.

Let’s back track a bit.  Here is a photo of some of the stayers from Friday Night at the Bowls Club.  Checking out the facilities for the Saturday.

Friday night at the Armidale Bowling Club.  Photo by PK.

On Saturday I registered and then set up my stand up stairs.  My First session was on Signalling by Dale Richardson.  I can’t afford to signal all of my crossing loops.  I would need to win the Thursday Lotto jackpot to afford it and I would then need a team of signal engineers to install it all.

Given that Phil Flynn presented to the NMRA DIv 1 his presentation at the September meeting at Logan, I didn’t bother to go to that session.  But maybe I should.  Apparently my name was up in lights.  He had a road side advertising board with lights highlighting Craig Mackie’s Pallets – or something like that.  Don’t you just love mates.  I did a bit of a tour of the shops and the other clinics, as well as sat at my clinic stand.

Who doesn’t love a good Operations presentation.  We gad two at thew recent October Div 1 meeting.  Stephe Jitts talked about operation son his layout – the KVHR.  That was followed by another mate Malcolm Jenkins on Arduinos.  I have a few Arduinos incorporated on my home layout.  They are a good friend of the modeller.

Last session for the day was ‘The Intermodal Revolution’ by Josh Beveridge.  Again a very nice informative, intriguing talk. 

Again I went upstairs to the clinics, and might have had something to wet the whistle, and had some good conversations until time for our formal dinner.

Dinner was very nice.  We had our usual Queensland Table and boy did we have fun.  We might have had a drink or two also.  There was also a sheet of trivia questions.  We didn’t end up in the top 3.

During the dinner they also announced the winners for the 12” x 12” diorama competition.  I gained a Highly Commended Award.  I can’t remember who got third place, but second went to Mr Plywood central – Martyn Jenkins from the Gold Coast.  First place went to Arthur Hayes the Division 1 AP co-ordinator.  What would you expect from the guy assessing those submitting the various SOQ (Statement of Qualification for those trying to get some Achievement Program Certificates).  It was just brilliant.

The Convention Dinner

A shot of my Diorama, from someone from one of the Facebook groups.  Thanks to the poster.

Martyn Jenkins' diorama.  Photo by PK.

Photo of Arthur's diorama.  Photo by PK.

The night might have kicked on after the dinner.  We may have gone up stairs and sat in on some more discussions on various topics.  We then went back to the motel room and maybe had another liquid refreshment.  Did we say that we had an esky with us?

More on other days' events over coming days.  I need to catch up with life.

New England Model Railway Convention at Armidale, NSW

Tuesday night this week, ee journeyed down to Darren’s on Tuesday night.  The occasion was because Andrew Campbell and his brother came up from the coast for the evening.  We split into teams and ran a couple of trains.  What a great night.

Friday was my son’s graduation assembly at school and spirit handover event.  That was running late, so my commencement of my trip to the Armidale Model Railway Convention was delayed by a half hour.  PK and Geoff C came to my place and we drove down together.  The first issue came at Aratula.  There was water over the road.  Cars were pulling over.  We could see some cars going through, mostly 4-wheel drives larger cars.  The water was at least 6” deep, about 40-50m across.  Other convention attendees advised that when they came through a few hours earlier, that the water was lapping the road.  So we passed the cars starting to pull over at the water, but we proceeded forward.  A semi-trailer was coming the other way.  So we let it come through the water.  I think the semi was being driven by Moses.  The water parted as he absolutely ploughed across and because of that we could see the road again.  But we could see the waves of water starting to come back across the road.  I floored it and we made our way across the water just as the waves washed back across the road.

We had no other issues on our trip to Armidale apart from some cars doing 50km/h in a 100 zone.  Really!

So we made it to the motel, PK and Geoff C checked in and we then walked through the hole in the wall and went to the Bowls Club to catch up with the other guys from Qld.  We met a few people we have not seen for maybe a couple of year.  We also met some new friends from NSW.

Saturday morning came around and registered for the Convention and caught up with many more friends not scene over the last few years.

If you want to find out more about the convention you will have to wait until tomorrow night, as the guys are waiting to head off to dinner.  So I will close this blog entry.

Preparation is Complete - Just Counting the Days to the New England Convention

Saturday this week was the NMRA monthly meeting.  I went there along with just over 20 or so others.  There were some very good presentations about JMRI operations (by Duncan) and ABLO (by Anthony).  There was also a session by one of our local MMR’s Arthur on the Structure Building AP.  They were all very good and worthy of a larger forum.  We had a few laughs talking to the guys as well.

When I got home I started on some of my tidy up tasks for building a few HO clotheslines.  I also painted these a galvanised silver colour.  However, the main task of the later afternoon was removing the wooden edges on my New England Convention diorama and cleaning up the edges and making them square.  I also painted the edges of my diorama a nice black colour.  On Sunday I went back to the diorama and fixed up a couple of small indents on the sides and painted those black again.  I also painted up about 60 pallets of various colours and made up 10 N scale clotheslines and painted them.

I also packed up everything so the car is ready to load on Friday morning.  I found a storage container to put my diorama in to keep it safe for the trip.  I won’t be away until about 1:30pm in the afternoon as I have another appointment in the morning.  But I will have two travellers to take with me Armidale (PK and Geoff) and they should keep me entertained for the 5 and a half plus hour trip.

Next weekend’s Blog update will be made from Armidale and might include a photo of my diorama, and hopefully will include some other photos of other dioramas that attendees have brough along.  I'm hoping that there will be a good few dozen of them.  I hear that Kevin’s (apparently undersize) and Arthur’s dioramas look pretty good.  I’ve sort of seen Marty’s and his looks pretty good as well.

More Clotheslines

I had lots of plans for this weekend.  But they didn’t all eventuate.  I had some work related activities on Thursday and Friday night that involved a few drinks.  Saturday was Club meeting day, so I went to the club and had a good time talking to the guys there.  I also cooked the lunchtime BBQ.  Before the Club meeting, I was watching one member run his NSW train with 2 x 81 class locos on it.  He was having trouble with it not moving.  I had seen that before, so I checked out the locos.  I thought that one loco might have lost its address or lost its consist address.  The lead loco was just not running and had just seized.  The motor was trying to turn, but the wheels wouldn't budge.  I took the loco to the test track, took the top off it and watched it as we tried to move it back and forth.  The wheels would turn about 3 mm and then lock up and the ammeter on the DCC workstation would just go through the roof as we moved it from forward to reverse and back again.  Not good, given it is a new SDS sound equipped loco.  So that member will be contacting his dealer on Monday.  Just before I left the Club I got a call to order some more clotheslines and tarpaulins.  So on Saturday night I cut out and wrapped up about 40 tarpaulins.  

Sunday was Bathurst day.  So I spent it in front of the TV watching the great race.  While there I cut up the components for some N scale clotheslines.  I also cut up and assembled 20 HO scale clothesline posts.  I have started on the top part of the clotheslines and I should finish these by mid-week after I pick up some more styrene tomorrow.  I couldn't be bothered in heading to the hobby shop today.  I did already have about 8 clotheslines that needed to be painted so I did get the paint out later in the afternoon during one of the safety-car periods in the great race and painted the first 10 clotheslines posts and the 8 clotheslines tops I had already completed.  When the race completed, I painted the next 10 clothesline posts.

I did have a list of tasks to complete for the diorama I am taking to the New England Convention at Armidale, but I did not do anything on that front.  I do not have too much to do to complete it.  However, there is always next weekend.  I was planning on also painting about 40 to 50 pallets in various colours, however the morning was rather wet, so I decided against doing any painting in the morning.

On Tuesday this week, we went to Kevin’s place and checked out his layout progress.  He is concentrating on his logging area at the moment.  We all then had a discussion about the size of the diorama for Armidale.  The rules state that they were to be 12 inches or one foot x one foot.  Some of those in attendance and I will not name Kevin directly, are making their diorama 300mm x 300mm.  That is undersize, so I think it should be excluded from the competition (Hehehehehe - what are friends for).  If he wants to make it 304.8mm x 304.8mm then he would be OK to enter it into the diorama competition.  So there was a bit of jovial debate raging.

Tomorrow I have a full day planned.  Do my Tax, look at a couple of new cars for the boss and then pick up some more styrene from a local hobby shop.  I might then start completing the next few clothesline tops, and maybe paint some pallets.  On the subject of clotheslines, it seems that PK might actually be progressing his outdoor clothesline, so he can eventually line his shed and maybe start his layout.

Shed Progress

This week, I have been pottering along continuing to work on my Fetters Shed.  I can advise that all the walls are complete.  The roof structure was built.  The four doors were built and everything was stained with a mixture of ink pad ink and metho.  When the components dried, I glued the four sides together.  Next task was to cut out some corrugated card as individual sheets, and then I painted both sides of these sheets a corrugated iron colour.  Once the sheets dried, I glued them to the fettlers shed.  The sheets were trimmed to size.  The last job was to attached the doors so they all worked - to some extent - yes they can swing open a bit.  I then cut up some styrene strip to create some wood slats for the doors.  A place was found on the diorama and the shed located.  It then had a few weeds placed around it and it was slightly weathered using the Tamiya Accent Colors. 

I also added some trees and weeds to other locations on the diorama.  I also made some street signs and installed them on the layout.  The last thing that has been added is a few railway personnel.  There is still some work to do, as I still have two weeks before time runs out.

A shot of the shed frame and the roof

This is a shot of the shed with the roof on top.

A completed shed, with doors installed

A slightly expanded view with some of the local crew discussion an issue with the track

A view of some of the rest of the module.

Modelling Update

We went to Shelton’s place last Tuesday and had a nice evening talking about model railways.  I think there was about 8 visitors, but we just sat in his pergola and talked, and dunk tea and coffee and ate.  We did not get to his shed to view any layout progress.

On Friday I was struggling with motivation for progressing my diorama for Armidale.  Saturday was the NMRA meeting at the nearby Logan Club.  There were four very good informative presentations on during the day and a fantastic lunch provided by the Club for those in attendance.  I do enjoy checking out the old HO layout at the Logan club as I was a member there about 20 years ago when it was constructed.  It certainly has had some very nice work done to it.  One presentation was by a friend Phil Flynn.  He is also making a small diorama to show off his “Lighting without Wiring” and particularly without soldering presentation.  Phil is presenting this session at the same time as I’m presenting mine at the October New England Convention.  So I was very happy to sit through his session.  So Phil's presentation triggered some thinking about how I was going to implement some interesting scenic effects on my layout.  Given I work in the IT sector, and have access to various fibre optics and understand their basic working principals, I knew what Phil was talking about, but never put 2 and 2 together to come up with a very simple solution to what I want to do in a section of my layout near the old Community Hall just off Fairy Lane.  Phil helped me solve a problem.  More on that when I schedule that work in November and December.  Sometimes you are just looking a solution right in the face and you do not see the answer.  Phil made it obvious.

On Saturday evening a few of us that used to work together in the same team over the last 10 or so years and my mate PK, went over to PK’s side of town to attend a belated 50^th birthday party for one such work mate who moved on.  He just happens to be the husband of a lady in my team now.  It was a very nice night.  PK and I went halves in a 1:24 scale model car just like the make and model and year that is in his garage that he has restored.  I think it will be a great journey for him to build this model with his 10 year old son, and who knows what will come out of it.  Maybe he and or his son might enter the ranks of becoming another modeller.  The only issue was that we ordered the kit from a Sydney based hobby shop with express postage and 4 days later they said it is in the mail.  OMG I’d have to know what standard delivery is like, if this is express post.  You also guessed it, it did not turn up in time for teh party to give to our mate for his present, even though PK was advised on Friday that it was to be delivered that day.  That turned out to be Monday in a later email.  I guess Thursday’s public holiday did not help.  Once this model has safely arrived, that shop might get a blast or two from PK about lack of customer service, with a lecture on Express Postage.

Today however, I did get around to sitting at the kitchen table and I did some work on the diorama for Armidale.  Just before lunch I went for a walk around the block to take a photo of a particular sign that I will be (well I have already) produced in miniature form on my diorama.  Further works continued on completing the fencing and work has now commenced and will be completed next weekend of a scratch built fettler’s shed.

So I still have plenty to do, no motivation to do it and not much time left before it needs to be completed.  Oh well things change.