Long Time No See!

Gee has it really been three months since my last post?

Whilst I've been keeping up with my fellow blogger's and their progress, I've made very little of my own on the train front. Life's other little priorities have been the main reason for my lack of progress, mainly because things like bathroom renovations have been going on, and whilst this is a good thing for the whole family (once they are finished!), it meant a transformation of the spare room into storage central for a little while making any form of modelling almost impossible.

However, I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, and with the spare room needing to be a proper spare room once again for visitors next week, modelling life should return to normal soon after that.

This weekend is also the Epping Model Railway Exhibition, and I spent a few hours down there this morning looking around, catching up with some fellow modellers and old friends, and just generally having a relaxing wander around. I got there about forty minutes before opening time, and the line up was quite small at that stage , and with tickets being sold before opening time we were ushered into another hall to wait for 10am, which beats lining up outside in the cold.

There were separate queues, one for the main exhibition hall, and one for the second hand stall. There must have been about a hundred people lined up for the second hand stall and about twelve for the main hall just before 10am. I took the relaxing approach and entered the main hall and had about half an hour of looking at the layouts and trade stalls with very little other people there, whilst looking through into the second hand stall where it looked like peak hour on the trains!

I wondered up there around midday for a look, and there was still some bargains to be had, even after a couple of hours of frenzied activity. An as new Punchbowl Hobbies 40 Class for $90, various packs of NSWGR K, S, U etc wagons with various tarps and loads for about $30 a pair, a set of four assembled and weathered LCH's for $60, and a few brass models including a Bergs 57 for I think $500 which seemed like a very good price to me? Not in my budget unfortunately otherwise it would have had a new home.

I did ok though, picking up a pair of IDR KF/CKF flat wagons, an In Front Models ABV Van, an AR Kits MLK, a Road Rangers '62 XL Falcon Wagon in Broadmeadow Green and '58 Holden FC Sedan in Fountain Blue, and my dear wife upon seeing the "cute" CHG Brake Vans on the Eureka stand kindly asked if they "suited my era" and after a smile and a yes from me bought a couple. So all in all it was a nice way to get back into all things trains.

I took a few photo's, but being decidedly sub par with my photography skills have loaded up a few that turned out ok. Three are of a logging style layout, which once again blew me away with its sense of depth, and really drew me into each scene with the stunning detail and that look of everything being in just the right place, just the right colour, with the right texture, and the big thing was the use of the vertical, which is not easy to do when modelling your typical wide open spaces Australian layout.

In any case, that's about it for now, and hopefully I can report on some actual personal progress soon.