Collecting More Rolling Stock

Even though I still haven't begun construction of the actual layout, there's still lots of things to do that go towards the eventual goal of having an opperational layout, and that's collecting rolling stock.

As well as buying an NCE Power Cab, the Epping Model Railway Exhibition also saw a triple pack of Austrains FME LCL container flat wagons come home with me. These are very nicely detailed, and the wagon itself being of mostly metal construction are very nicely weighted. The LCL containers which are removable are very fine in detail and really are a very nice piece of work.

As well as the FME's, the past few weeks have see me scouring the dreaded Ebay for all manner of things, but mostly brake vans. With the era I'm modelling each train has to have a brake van at the end of it, so to even have a modest amount of trains running I'm going to need a good supply of brake vans.

So with a little bit of luck and some last second bidding I managed to get three Powerline MHG brake vans in the past few weeks. Now these have been on the market, on and off for nearly twenty years with no upgrades, so do not represent the latest in detail standards being achived by people like Trainorama, however they can be found for around $20.00 if you are lucky, as opposed to the upcoming Trainorama MHG's which will be about $120.00 a pair.

Now the Trainorama versions will be spectacular going by the advanced samples, and I will definitely get at least one pair of these, however the three Powerline one's I have bought will allow me to do a bit of modifying and actual modelling to try to bring them up to as close to current standards as possible. It's nice to be able to buy RTR stuff that doesn't need any real detailing, but where's the fun in that all the time!

Besides with work on the layout not yet begun, it's good to have a few other projects to work on through this cold and wet winter we are currently experiencing.