Garage Layout

Did some cleaning out of a recently vacated garage @ mums place now requisitioned for official railway stuff by order of management, now that the "temporary" 4 year old shelves have been re-setup Its time to consolidate the fleet from the stashes around the property, One stash being a very backbreakingly small tent in the bush next to the layout, the thrill, anxiety, dread and doubt wondering if a falling tree will crush my trains at any moment. Its a tad like lotto only you get to reassemble everything again. Luckily this did not happen. However being made of ABS and over engineered in terms of strength and thick overscale thick walls a train shell loaded with a heavy motor and batteries falling onto the concrete floor at most will scratch the paint & bend a handrail or two. 

As evident in the picture I had to double stack the trains behind each other, I've still a few locos around the country that I need to collect one day. I intend eventually to have the shelf run the length of the wall and at least a foot higher than present.

The eventual goal would be an inside loop of track running around the walls so to facilitate indoor running, with a few sidings to hold various rakes of wagons without constant uncoupling etc.

Taupo Hobby Expo 2013

The Taupo Show just been was a huge success I think in terms of generating interest for NZ120 (NZR Modelling for the common man in the real world). Lots of interest in both the new AK Carriage & the new DL Class Locomotive. I think networking & able to chat to those interested gained me some very good ideas for the future in terms of new designs & what to produce in terms of decals.

I think condensing 3 working trains into such a small concentrated area worked really really well, children were able to see everything without needing lifting up so quickly made the layout quite a popular spot!

Many thanks to Shapeways for sending the "Get the Spark, meet the designers" banner & including a handful of printed designs that really helped the public get to grips with 3D Printing & what it can do right through to the Shapeways shop & seeing the resulting 3d Printed locomotives actually running in front of their eyes!

A friendly visitor (really wished i took photos & wrote his name down) kindly showed me 3 steamers he purchased from http://www.shapeways.com/shops/kiwitrains & added some quite amazing detail too (Ka, Ab & Wb) beyond anything I've personally seen before in NZ120. He also mentioned he was building a recently purchased Wab, if you could contact me with some pictures I would love to show them off for you on a future post!

"I'd recommend buying a DL, if you can find a really cheap bachmann chassis that fits you will find the problems that follow make it quite a prototypical model..."

Showing off the "marketing", the black finish on the side of the layout is "black satin" mixed up by Resene Whangarei. Then perspex screwed onto the side.

The DXR, 6 Zm's & 1 Zh ran for the entire show both days without any issues, although whilst cleaning tracks I managed to knock the entire train off the tracks while in the tunnel of all places!.Unfortunately I have no pictures or movies of it (odd but it is only a *disiesel*).

Static Grass purchased at the show makes an appearance on the layout.

More Grass..

Showing Trackgangs "Concrete Buffer Stop"

I'd recommend buying em, not only do they really look the part but are weighty enough to take all the knocks!

Buy em here http://trackgangproducts.co.nz/product/item/1513

Showing Kiwitrains Ka & Ja do some loops on Trackgang's very new portable NZ120 layout!
The Ka clearly needs more attention in regards to taking 1.5mm off the top of the chassis and allow the top shell to fit properly. Still even in its current state the Ka fully streamlined as they first originally appeared is by far my most favorite NZ120 locomotive!

Some TT Figures, including a crazy german trying to get the crew fired for drinking on the job..

A contact for TT 1:120 scaled products, such as figurines(like the crazy german), cars, trucks & much more!

"The Model Shop", Peter Knipe (090 827 6527) New Lynn, Auckland.

The Hornby O Gauge Group, this is for my father whom couldn't make it to the show

Beakaboy took this, Marklin 1 Gauge!

New Layout for the Taupo Hobby Expo 20 - 21 July 2013

With winter brings more time inside for layout building, designed to showcase the deluge new train models whilst remaining portable. I used unitrack soldered together & glued to the polystyrene (1.2 x .6) supplied by Russell & trackgang. The 2 sheets of polystyrene by pure fluke happened to fit on the back seat of the jaguar & with room to spare, so it's easily transportable. The clear perspex will be shortly sourced & fitted on all sides thus preventing locos from jumping to the floor & also providing adequate protection of scenery whilst transporting. The layout is very much a work in progress, Sheet #2 has been ballasted & airbrushed with more airbrushing of oil still to come. Green bush is going to make up most of the scenery once i'm finished. 

The layout will be on display along with all my nz120 models. A very first public viewing!

The show details are;
20-21 July 18th Hobby Expo, Taupo Model Rail Club, Events Centre, Spa Road, Taupo

Sheet #2, featuring the steam engine display

Sheet #2 from other end

Sheet #1, featuring a double slip thus allowing 1 or 2 trains to run.

Showing off the groundwork.

Streamlined Ka has a chassis arriving from the states enabling some doubleheading with any luck!

The Wb has a front pony truck added & couplers. The rear pony truck can't happen with the Farish & the wheel base is simply wrong anyway.. 

The "diseasils"

And a video showing operation.