Showing posts with label exhibitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exhibitions. Show all posts

Friday 13 October 2023

2023 BRMA Convention Brisbane


The weekend of September 22nd to 24th 2023, saw me attend the British Railway Modellers of Australia convention, held this year in my home city of Brisbane, Australia. The coming together of modellers from across the country was held in the top floor convention rooms of the Pacific Hotel in Spring Hill, which just so happened to overlook the Roma Street Parklands and Brisbane's Roma Street Station.


Along with filling the honour of being this year's Keynote Speaker, I also manned my own bookstand over the course of the Mini-Expo on Friday afternoon and throughout Saturday's program.


I must thank the convention's organiser and BRMA Queensland Representative John Rostron, for all the behind the scenes work involved in putting together a successful convention program. Along with his assistance in helping me to set-up on the Friday. I'm sure I was one of my taxi driver's more interesting pick-ups for the week, given that I had two large boxes of books, a small layout module and a bag of lighting cables to fit into the boot. But it made it easy for John to spot me as I pulled up outside the Hotel's foyer!


In the lead-up to the event, and in the midst of preparing my presentation notes, my wife Denise and I also happened to become proud first-time Grandparents to a lovely little Grandaughter, Zailee. The excitement of becoming a Poppy, combined with the exhaustion from having just released a new book the month before and attending two model railway exhibitions with the new layout over back-to-back weekends, meant my mind was well and truly fried by the time the BRMA Convention wrapped-up.


Remember this little addition to my original Philden layout?


The weekend afforded me the chance to meet with some wonderful modellers from around the country. It was nice to have met fellow modeller Gavin Thrum who had flown up from Adelaide over dinner, and be set-up alongside UK model producer John Wiffen from Scalescenes for the weekend.


That's me alongside John Wiffen (right) from Scalescenes who produces amazing downloadable kits.


Part of my Keynote Speaker address shared some of my highlights and near misses over my 40 plus year fascination with trains. Including this screen grab I shared from back in 1989. I thought I could beat the crowds and get a photo beneath the famous Flying Scotsman locomotive's nameplate, by standing alongside the track and having a friend take the photo as it rolled slowly past.

That's right... take a closer look at how close I came to being hit by a train when I was just 17. And to set the record straight for all the do-gooders out there, this was back in the days before Workplace Health & Safety existed, and it was pefrectly acceptable for a trainload of passengers to just disembark at Seymour Railway Station, and wander all over the tracks! Anyway, as I explained in my address, compared to the whistle blast from a Victorian Railways R Class steam locomotive, the Scotsman's peep-peep whistle went over my head like a canary that had lost it's voice. I'm sure I recall feeling something having brushed my back at the time...


Thankfully I've survived this, (and other close calls), long enough to have penned 22 books throughout my career as an Author. Being asked to be the Keynote Speaker for the BRMA Convention, was a huge honour. To be recognised for my contribution to the hobby through my Philden Model Railway Presents books, my other railway books, this blog and my years of modelling is something I shall be forever proud of.


Part of the tradition for the Keynote Speaker, involves presenting the trophies for the modelling and photography awards at the Gala Dinner on the Saturday night, along with enjoying a sit down five star dinner in the Pacific Hotel's ballroom.


And goodnight Brisbane. We'll see what eventuates for 2024...


And to complete a truly month-long model railway immersion, I spent the week immediately after the convention wrapped-up, finally being able to work on my own model railway layout. While it was waiting patiently downstairs in the garage following it's outing to the Sunshine Coast Model Train & Hobby Expo early in September, I took the opportunity to fix, cut, add, repair and touch-up anything that I'd been meaning to get around to, without making a mess upstairs in our apartment. If I'm about to sit down to commence writing my 6th and final Philden Model Railway Presents book, then it goes without saying that I needed to have everything revamped that I am going to write about... revamping.


The result is a much more polished layout. One that I'll now need to be happy with for many, many years to come. However, raising the bar with this layout has come at the expense of some other long stalled projects... You can't model everything, I said so in my own Keynote Speaker presentation. And the time has come to make some big calls about what I can and can't balance alongside enjoying my now complete NSW North Coast layout, my newfound Poppyhood status, and returning to writing fiction early in the New Year. I've had to admit that I can only afford to put any rare modelling hours towards a small single project that can co-exist alongside my Philden Coast layout. Over the course of the next week, I'm going to be pulling up stumps on another layout project I've just lost interest in, and now haven't the time nor desire to pursue.


I'll save that news for another post, but for now... the sight of myself enjoying a British Modellers Convention should be a strong enough clue as to what that second small layout project will be. Until next time...


Saturday 9 September 2023

Exhibition #10 Sunshine Coast


My Philden Coast layout is safely back home after travelling to its second model railway show in the space of two weeks. This time I ventured north up the Bruce Highway for the Sunshine Coast Model Train & Hobby Expo held on Saturday 2nd September, 2023.


This unique little one day hobby show is put on by the good folks of the Caloundra Church of Christ, and this year marked only the second occassion that the event was held in the Church building at Dicky Beach on the Sunshine Coast (pictured to the left). Being a Saturday only show that doubles as a community fundraiser for the local Church, the Expo is put on by Eion Wolter, who was once responsible for the former Stafford Heights Baptist Church Model Train Show in suburban Brisbane, which I attended back in 2018. There was some irony in returning to Caloundra for the day, given that when I lived in Caloundra I always needed to travel south with my layout for any exhibitions. Yet for what at one time might have been considered my local hometown model railway exhibition, I found myself doing the reverse and returning to the city I'd recently moved away from!

Recent work commitments called for me to load the layout into the car the night before, and travel up very early the next morning to set up.

I wasn't the only fellow modeller doing so, as I followed two vehicles from the highway exit into town that also pulled into the Church grounds infront of me. There I was greeted by the boat modellers who were setting up their displays outside along the covered entrance to the buildings, including this impressive 2 metre long model of a US Navy Tennesee Class battleship, (pictured to the right), that seemed to reveal more detail the longer you looked at it!

Fellow modeller and good friend Anthony Veness was my partner-in-crime for the day!

Inside I was soon met by my assistant driver for the day, good friend and distinguished modeller Anthony Veness. After a quick set-up and walk to the Dicky Beach shops in search of some breakfast, we had two NCE Power Cab controls plugged-in and at our mercy for the day in time for the show's opening. It was Anthony who had finally convinced me a few years earlier to make the switch to DCC control for this layout, and the twin throttle socket at the front of the layout enabled us to simultaneously work Philden Harbour Yard with separate locomotives for a short while. Until it became obvious that the combined span of our backs were blocking half of the layout's view... So from that point on we either alternated which locos we ran in and out of the yard, or stood at opposite ends while the other did their thing.

Outside in a separate wing of the building there were a few traders set up for the Expo, one of which was Matt Heness and his stall Col's Australian Railway Books & Hobbies. If you look closely at the picture to the left, you'll see a stack of my Philden Model Railway Presents books lining the table. If anyone asked how I did this or how I built that, I could direct them Matt's way in the hope that they might pick up a copy of my book, and instead concentrate on running some trains.

It was nice to have some Expo attendees stop and ask if I "was the one who wrote those books." And nicer still whenever someone asked if I'd kindly sign their copy.

There was a moment of early morning commotion on the layout, as Anthony fired up the first of his SSR locomotives he was running for the day in GM22. At the other end of the layout, I was left flabbergasted when I suddenly lost control of my Pacific National NR22. It turned out that both our locomotives' addresses were programmed as 22, and rather than attempt a quick reprogram infront of a small crowd of bemused onlookers, I simply packed NR22 away for the day so that Anthony could instead run his SSR fleet.

SSR's T363 was the yard shunter for the day in Philden Harbour.

I think Anthony enjoyed running his SSR locomotives throughout the day!

T363, 44204 and the short address bandit GM22 in the refuel tracks.

Despite the duplicate short address issue, the only other problem we faced in the morning was that the couplers on my pair of older Auscision NLKY vans proved problematic at times with the true scale couplers Anthony had fitted to his SSR locomotive fleet. We perservered for a while and eventually left them parked out of the way, or only ran them with my BL and C Class locos.

I did also manage to take a walk around the other layouts that were on display, and took a few pictures of some layouts I haven't shown before. Amongst them were these examples that caught my attention.

Beside me were these 2 brilliant little pizza box layouts.

Eion Wolter's layout "I hide them, you find them" is always a crowd favourite.

Cleat County has made a few appearances now in shows around south east Queensland.

And this gentleman's nice layout that I missed photographing the week before at the Redlands Show.

It was around this time of the morning that a migraine headache struck, and I needed to resign myself to resting in a chair behind the layout for most of the day. The good folk of the Church put on a special exhibitors tea, coffee and sweets stand throughout the day, so after taking some ibuprofen and drinking plenty of water, I eventually came good with a few cups of tea and a bikkie or three by the end of the afternoon. I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't been for Anthony taking over the running of the layout and answering questions from the public throughout the day. Another friend Steve who had stopped by just to take a look at the Expo, also got commandeered to take over a throttle for a short spell. So thanks fellas!

A pair of Bumblebees taking in the breeze on the Philden Coast...

...and a full yard by the harbour to round out the day!

After Anthony had helped me load the car, it was a tiring drive back south to Brisbane that evening, and I arrived home some 13 hours after I had left that morning. But it was a great little show to be a part of, and the experience from packing down and setting up over back-to-back weekends has been great to learn what the layout is capable of in order to maintain its portability. It fits nicely in the car and is fairly simple to set up exactly as is, which has left me not wanting to tinker too much with a good thing.

My focus now is on preparing for the BRMA Convention in Brisbane on the 22nd to 24th September, 2023. After that it will be nice to slide into a more gentle pace, and sit down to start writing my next model railway book. There's been a bit of stress behind the scenes with some illness within the family and changes that come through taking on some extra part-time work, and exhibiting at these past two model railway shows hasn't really turned out to be the welcome distraction I thought they might be. Right now I'd really welcome some clear dates on our calendar... Maybe that would enable some relaxing weekend modelling projects!

Until next time...


Friday 1 September 2023

Exhibition #9 Redlands 2023


It has been four years since one of my layouts last appeared at a model railway exhibition, but in August 2023 it was a case of Philden rides again, as my lovely wife Denise joined me in debuting my latest layout Philden Coast at the 10th Annual Redlands Model Railway Show in the south of Brisbane.


Making it's first ever public appearance, Philden Coast makes sure the Philden name continues.

With 8 exhibitions worth of experience behind us from of setting up and packing down my previous layout Philden, I built this layout to ensure it would be easier to transport and assemble despite being that little bit bigger in size. It had it's first test run almost 18 months ago when we moved house after relocating from the Sunshine Coast back to Brisbane. A sectional bench layout L-girder frame and separate modules that are simply positioned on top once it is all assembled, makes set-up time about 30 to 40 minutes. The curtains take up most of that time, given that the only way to mount them was to gaffa-tape them to the top of the frame before the modules were placed on top to ensure they cannot move. Pack down time from the completion of the show to turning the ignition key in the car to head home was timed at 22 minutes.

This was my view for most of the weekend as I shunted the Brandon Industries warehouse.

We angled the layout to bring the viewing portion closer to the public, leaving more room for me to sit and operate the layout from the front, and open up the viewing angles for the Redlands Club layout that was beside me.

There's nothing like a model railway show deadline to put the pressure on getting all those tasks finished on a layout. Having just released a new book, seen to shop orders and commenced a new part-time job all in the same week leading up to this event, I didn't quite see to everything I would have like for Philden Coast's first outing. Come Thursday lunchtime before the weekend, I had to down tools on applying the finishing touches to the Jetty Hotel and say that it was finished. At least for now. The rollingstock and loose buildings were then boxed up, the track given a final clean and the lighting and wiring all disconnected, and that night the layout module, staging shelf and framework were all carted downstairs from our top level apartment to the garage.

Come Friday afternoon, and it could all be loaded straight into the back of our Mitsi Outlander as soon as my wife arrived home from work, and together we made the drive to the other side of Brisbane to set the layout up at the Cleveland High School Performing Arts Hall.

I dressed in my best Coastal vibes to pose for the customary photo before the doors opened to the public on Saturday morning.

Upon entry, the crowds all seem to follow in a clockwise direction to view the layouts. So it took around 20 minutes until they started gathering infront of my layout.

There were two noticeable features of my layout that I wasn't able to see to in time for the show that were both a carry over from it's first year of construction, back when it was originally intended to be completed as an inner-Melbourne layout. They were 1), the Philden St. moniker on the layout's bookcase end (above), and 2), the twin tram tracks down the middle of the Philden Street overpass (below). I couldn't do anything about either without risk of leaving an unfinished mess. So when a member of the viewing public recognised the backdrop as Coffs Harbour and pointed out that I'd even included the old train tracks leading down the to Jetty... I simply went with it for the weekend. As they're super glued to the overpass which is made from MDF board, there's a real chance that the surface could be significantly damaged from trying to remove them. It's something that I'll need to investigate further.

Philden Coast at the 10th Redlands Model Railway Show, August 26th & 27th, 2023.

Finally, my Jetty Hotel is open for business! The Walker Models kit has been in various stages of construction tracing back to 2019 when it was going to be built for my Philden Road North Coast layout. When those plans ended, it was then built to the point of being a bare shell for my Philden Street Yard layout, only for the layout to be revamped from inner-Melbourne back to a North Coast NSW setting before it could even be completed. Apart from a few finishing touches, (yes, the overhanging verandah still needs angled supports coming from the wall), it drew quite a lot of comments from the public over the weekend. The Live Music @ The Jetty Hotel sign was made to have interchangable billboards slide in and out, (I'll have more on that later), and in this example is advising that tickets to John Williamson are selling fast. I made half a dozen billboards featuring different Australian artists that Denise and I have actually seen in concert and would often change them as crowds would come and go over the two days.

The Jetty Hotel finally reached an almost finished stage only the day before we set up for the weekend.

Of course that wasn't the only bit of humour to be discovered over the weekend. Fellow modeller, blogger and resident funny man Craig Mackie stopped by to pay hommage to my Muttonbird Island backdrop, by... placing a sheep up a tree!

Yes, that's Muttonbird Island in the background... and a Muttonbird up the tree!

From that point onwards on a Saturday afternoon, it was time to do a quick walk around of the venue. I recognised many of the exhibitors whom I've stopped to talk to over the past few years while visiting the various model railway shows in south east Queensland. A lot of the layouts like Walloon, Victoria Creek Sugar and Snapshot I had featured photos of on my previous exhibition recaps from my original Philden layout days, (you can read them all here). So here are a few that I hadn't featured before...

This N scale layout was called Nothing. In the background Denise can be seen operating Philden Coast (the back of which looks all white).

Laidlaw, by the Victorian N Scale Collective, is relatively new to the SE QLD circuit.

Glinvale is a bit of a veteran layout around the Brisbane model railway scene, but I don't know if I've ever shared a photo of this layout on my blog? Probably because I always stop to chat to Alistair, who built this layout with his son.

The Logan District Model Railway Club had their N Scale Layout High Country on display.

For now this is about as close as I will get to visiting Canada!

...and Philden Coast, by some guy in rolled up boat jeans and white shoes named Phill Overton...

So there you have it... 1,575 days after exhibiting Philden for the final time, it's replacement has finally made its exhibition debut. After having an idea for a completely new model railway in May of 2019, a few false starts later and my HO Scale NSW North Coast layout has eventually become a reality.

Philden Coast completely fills the back of our 7 seater Mitsi.

And a packed down layout stays waiting in the garage for another show next weekend!

There was a lot to like about exhibiting Philden Coast compared to my original Philden layout. While it was bigger, it was lighter to carry and easier to set up and pack down. Having the framework upon which it stands assembled using bolts with wing nuts and washers was my wife's idea. As was having the staging shelf built for the modules to slot together using dowell joins to align the two sections. Again, brilliant and easy to set-up. Changing the layout to DCC early in it's construction also allowed for constant locomotive lighting when operating on a slow speed shunting layout. This is something that held the viewing public's attention much longer than my previous DC layout, and I could leave a loco sitting in the diesel service tracks with the marker lights and number boards illuminated for added effect. And sound? At first I thought it might drive my neighbouring exhibitors mad, but once the crowd filled the hall, it became difficult to determine if I had started up the loco when switching diesels between the service tracks. Hearing a short horn blast kept viewers standing infront of the layout just that little bit longer, so that too was a success.

This was the second time I have exhibited at the Redlands Model Railway Show, and with the weekend now behind me my thoughts today turn to this weekend's Sunshine Coast Model Train & Hobby Expo held at the Dicky Beach Church of Christ hall. The advantage of back-to-back weekends of model railway shows is that the layout only has to go up and down the stairs to our apartment once! For the past week it has waited quietly in the garage for a Friday final track clean before being loaded into our Mitsi one more time.

After openly talking about how I was going to rebuild the existing staging shelf into an extended scenic portion of the layout, packing the layout into our Outlander to take to a show for the weekend quickly pointed out that this isn't possible without making two trips in the car. The minute I extend Philden Coast is the moment it becomes a home layout. So once again I need to be happy with my bookshelf layout staying exactly as is. (I guess I'll now need to un-update all of those plans from the Philden Coast page on this blog). But happy I shall be. There are still enough mini-detailing projects on this layout to say it is a while away from being 100% finished, and I now have the prospect of exhibiting my Philden Coast layout at some future model railway exhibitions next year.

Until I update again next week after my layout's 2nd outing, take care and happy modelling!


Monday 6 May 2019

Exhibition #8 Brisbane Finale


Four years after first venturing to the Brisbane Model Train Show to buy the stuff necessary to start building Philden, the layout has just made its final public appearance. From May 2015 to May 2019, this layout has spawned its own blog, made the cover of Australian Model Railway Magazine and has now completed it's eighth and final exhibition. What a four years it has been!

AV's 42103 in QR National colours spent most of Saturday running short trip trains from Phills Harbour to Philden...

The 2019 Brisbane Model Train Show held in a new venue for the first time at The Exhibition Building in Bowen Hills, should have been an exciting enough thought on its own. However, having only found out a fortnight ago that the lease on our lovely ocean view apartment in Caloundra wasn't being renewed, and with plans for a new QR narrow gauge layout at a dead-end on account of not having enough space to proceed, I made the snap decision to put Philden up for sale. The Brisbane Show appeared to be the golden opportunity to have someone make an offer to move the layout onto a new home. If I could sell it, that would be one less thing I would have to worry about packing and storing come moving day.

With a good friend of mine Anthony Veness volunteering to come down for the Saturday to help run the layout, I was pleased that my wife Denise could have the day to rest at home and just come down for the Sunday to help run the layout and pack up. So Friday afternoon, Denise and I headed down the Bruce Highway from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane to set the layout up in the new venue. A new venue always has its bugs, and we soon discovered that the only ramp in and out of the building soon led to a Friday arvo traffic crush of cars, vans and trailers all trying to drive into the building to set up their layouts or shops. Despite having a map and knowing what layout number I was, I managed to strike the one very unhelpful member who simply stayed behind his little table near the entrance, gave me an envelope and said "your over there," before pointing me to the wrong corner of the hall. No sooner had I stepped out of the car, I realized I was in the wrong place and was quickly parked in three vehicles deep.

Thankfully helpful folks do exist, and I was soon able to find where we were to set up, lug everything by hand from one side of the venue to the other and begin setting up the layout. Only for the PA system to call out my license plate and ask me to move the vehicle as I was about the join the final track section in place. Despite downing tools, reversing the car out and having to drive three times around the venue before risking a parking fine by parking in a loading bay, we had the majority of the work done and the layout set up in under an hour before hightailing it in Friday night peak hour traffic out of the city and all the way back up to the Sunshine Coast, a round trip exercise that was a little shy of a six hour affair.

Saturday morning was a lot more chilled, with Anthony meeting at my place for a 7 am start to the day. After a coffee stop on the highway at Wild Horse Mountain, we pulled into the parking station across the road from the venue with less than half an hour before the 2019 Show opened, but with the track cleaning and final details that Denise and I had left from the night before still needing to be seen to. I think we only put his 421 Class loco on the rails the moment they announced the doors were opened!

...only for me to return from a quick shopping stroll to find 4914 working an out-of-era goods train!

I love the opening moments of a train show, and this years' Brisbane Show had a special buzz about it that I'd not felt since the days I exhibited my Chicago & North Western N Scale layout back in 2002 in the poultry pavilion of the Brisbane Showgrounds. (I don't think that building is going to be there much longer judging from the look of it). However, with my layout for sale, I had that sinking feeling in my gut. One that I didn't know whether to be happy or excited about. Most of my rollingstock and locomotives were already accumulating bids on eBay, and the 'layout for sale sign' took away a lot of the excitement I'd anticipated in showing off the Beach Extension for the first time.

With a colour-coded prioritised shopping list of all that I needed to get for my new layout in hand, I left AV at the controls and headed off to do a quick sweep of all the traders in the hall. I bought the NQIX container wagons and a pack of 40' foot refrigerated RACE containers from SDS Models, only to find out that the yellow Banana Growers Federation containers were all sold out. Anything else on the list was coded a different colour, not to buy until Philden had sold!

Having felt good that I'd made a start with what I needed for my next project, I took over the controls from Anthony so he could head off on his own shopping quest, and began fielding questions from the public as they filed in. I met Phill from Grafton who'd traveled up to see the show and my layout for the final time, (hi Phill, hope you're still enjoying the loco you bought from me on eBay), and another blog reader from Melbourne who remembered seeing my layout on its first showing two years ago. Anthony excitedly returned with a pack of the yellow Banana containers he'd found after talking with Matt from Col's Australian Railway Books, and I later found that Alco-World from Sydney were selling individual wagons from four packs of Auscision Models NLJX louvered vans. There's no way I wanted to buy a four pack of these, but I did need at least one to handle banana traffic for my next project, so I also crossed a single weathered grey NLJX from my shopping list.

Speaking of Auscision, 2019 made four straight years of not seeing them north of the border. Neither was Eureka Models come to think of it, and a lot of the vendors and hobby shops had only a smattering of anything New South Wales related for that matter. To understand the impact that has on the marketplace, Stu Walker's Model Train Buildings shop display layout Oldetown and Philden were the only NSW layouts on show. Compare that to the Brisbane Model Train Show ten years ago!

Philden went from being sold on the Saturday afternoon, to unsold when the layout couldn't be collected until October

Settling back to run some trains for the remainder of the day, I very quickly had some serious inquiries from potential buyers. After spending a good half hour talking with two potential buyers, I had a handshake and an agreed price of $1,400 which would have enable me to go to the next colour on my shopping list requiring a trip across the hall to Wuiske Models to purchase a 1720 class loco, and some QLX and Tautliner vans.... Only to have the buyer return an hour later and say that he couldn't get back up from Sydney until October to collect it. That and a few other issues saw the deal fall through, and the layout was unsold. Just like that.

A second potential buyer returned, agreed to the price only I had to throw in everything that was running on the layout as well. I don't think Anthony would have liked me selling his train I was running at time. I wouldn't budge, he wouldn't budge and the buyer walked. After that it was just a procession of people wanting to make silly offers on my Xplorer and locomotives.

By 2.30 pm on the Saturday, all I wanted was for the weekend to be over! If someone had given me $800 cash then and there, I would have taken it and said they could come back tomorrow and run it themselves.

The only thing that cheered me up on the Saturday afternoon was closing time, and watching the procession of exhibitors who had parked in the undercover parking station across the road from the venue trying to get out. Forgetting that you had to pay at the pay station BEFORE exiting the car park, the place was gridlocked from cars parked at the boom gates while the driver ran back to the pay station to join an already long queue of frustrated exhibitors trying to figure out how to use the machine and forgetting their own rego number that they needed to type in before the payment could be processed. It was a very poorly signed and designed set-up to begin with, only made more comical by the same scene repeating itself over and over again whenever the boom gate when back down. At one point, a group of four model train club members were trying to reef the boom gate up by sheer force. I timed it, and it took me 35 minutes to get out of the parking lot after I had pre-paid before exiting. It was like watching a flock of chickens trying to teach each other sign language!

The stupidest thing about trying to get out, was that as soon as we did, Anthony and I spotted the Bavarian Bierhaus a few doors down, and parked only 50 metres or so from the parking station exit. What a pair of geese. If we'd known, we would have left the car in there and had dinner first! We had dinner, some drinks and a real good laugh about the whole shenanigans. I wouldn't have been surprised to turn up the next morning to find that the boom gates had been dismantled by a bunch of angry model railroaders.

I was set-up for the weekend alongside the Logan District Model Railway Club's Walloon layout.

Walloon in HOn 3.5 was superb, and would have been my selection for best-in-show!

Disappointment behind me, Sunday morning came around and I headed south on the Bruce one last time with my wife riding shotgun. Whenever we travel in the car together, we play only two types of music. Country & Western. Sale or no sale, I was going to enjoy operating Philden for the last time. We stopped at Wild Horse Mountain for breakfast and were at the venue well before opening time.

I tried to make the most of the rest of the weekend by taking a good look at the layouts that interested me. Fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be set up alongside the superb and extremely popular Walloon layout for the weekend, gave me the chance to observe how the staging yard operated behind the scenes. I was given a break down of how the layout uh... breaks down when it comes time to packing up, and at least got some ideas how I could build better wiring connectors between layout sections for my next layout/layouts.

Two other layouts caught my attention for completely different reasons. Irgendwo was a nicely presented N scale layout running European trains that got me thinking some more about my Puget Sound & Pacific N scale layout that is currently under construction. The composition of buildings both modern and historic was quite pleasing and probably would be one of the better N scale layouts I've seen in recent years. You only improve by studying other modelers' work, but the layout also reminded me of why I built the channels to hold my perspex hidden in place rather than they had (and I had done on my old C&NW layout), attached in sections that were screwed to the fascia.

Irgendwo was a nicely presented N scale layout running German & Swiss trains.

What was listed in the program to be alongside me on the other side of Philden but ended up being shuffled a little down the aisle, was a great little Queensland Railways layout making its first appearance called Comoyba, a similar sized layout to Philden but built to Sn3.5 scale.

The Sn3.5 scale layout Comoyba was another gem of a layout not much smaller than Philden.

I would have liked to have spent more time studying how Comoyba works before starting my own QR layout.

I tried several times to spirit myself away to talk to the operator about how it operates, only to find him too busy with interested onlookers. When I finally got the chance to speak to the owner shortly before pack-up on Sunday to ask how his first show had gone, I found out someone had made him an offer to buy it and so he'd sold it. Talk about all the luck!

So with the looming bedlam of packing-up fast approaching, I made several trips to our car which was parked in the parking station across the street, taking anything loose that I could carry out of the venue and leaving Denise to run the Xplorer to entertain any 3 pm stragglers in the crowd. By the time I returned from my last trip, she had turned off the lights and was busy unplugging power cords and rolling up curtains. I'd missed seeing the last train to run on my own layout.

With only one vehicle ramp into and out of the building, we decided to unbolt the layout and carry it out of the venue like a coffin. It only took two trips for us to have the layout packed safely in the car in less than 20 minutes after the show had finished.

Just down from The Exhibition Building, the Brisbane Showgrounds have been re-purposed into trendy eateries.

Following my own lead from the night before, I took Denise two doors down the street to the Bavarian Bierhaus for some drinks and dinner, leaving the other show-goers to their shenanigans as they exited the venue. Over the noise of the crowd and music, Denise half-shouted "why don't you just keep the Beach Extension as a display case, and see what you can re-use from the rest of your layout?"

It wasn't until we went to leave a little after half-past six that I stopped to take the final photo above. The trendy dining area opposite Rydges Hotel that has sprung up where the heart of Brisbane's Ekka once lay dormant for 50 weeks of the year gave me an idea. Leaving behind the pink neon lights to pay homage to the building's past as a snack bar in the middle of the meat & dairy pavilion, we drove back to the Sunshine Coast with me talking about how I could preserve the timber fascia of Philden to be built into the staging decking that I'll need to construct for the new double-deck layout. It's a bit like incorporating some of my own model railway history into the new layout, and the Beach Extension can fit nicely on top of our bookcase with the LED lighting illuminating whichever model I choose to place on display.

So that is it. Over. Finito. Another of my model railway layouts now just a memory for whoever enjoyed seeing it these past two years as I lugged it around the South East Queensland model train show circuit. A fellow modeler consoled me on Saturday that the hardest thing to sell was a completed layout. I can now vouch that its true. Some sell. Some don't. All for different reasons.

I came home to find that the locos, Xplorer and rollingstock I had listed on eBay had sold for more that what I was asking for the layout. So I'm fairly happy with that. Monday morning was spent unpacking the car and the rest of the week will be spent packing up eBay items for the post. Come next weekend, I'm going to pry what I can from Philden, pack what I'd like to keep away and take a jigsaw to the timber work that I'd like to salvage. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

Till my final post, happy modeling and take care.
Phillip O

Monday 27 August 2018

Exhibition #7 Redlands 2018


The recent Redlands Model Railway Show was somewhat of a homecoming event for Denise and I to draw the curtains on a busy model train show season in south east Queensland. The 4th and final exhibition for Philden of 2018, saw us once more head south down the Bruce Highway with our country playlist blaring with everything from Morgan Evans to Kenny Chesney in the car. This time we continued south over the Gateway Bridge to an area that was once so familiar to us. The Redlands.

The calm before the crowds stormed in on Saturday morning.

Held in the Smith Street Hall in the bayside suburb of Cleveland, 2018 marked the 7th anniversary for the Redlands Model Railway Show. There was no model train show in the Redlands back when Denise and I were living in the nearby suburb of Capalaba a decade ago, so to be included in this year's show was special, in that it gave me the chance to bring my layout down to the shire I once called home. We also have family still living in Redlands, so the weekend also became a chance to catch up with Denise's brother and his family, and dine out on the Saturday night at an Indian restaurant at nearby Wellington Point.

The Lindfield station indicator board sign was a new addition for the Redlands Show to complete the presentation.

For once I was able to turn up early for the opening day, cashed-up and with a shopping list of what I wanted to buy. Normally the timing of exhibiting my layout at a model train show doesn't coincide with me necessarily being able to afford to buy anything whilst there, and the expense of taking my layout to a show, (especially if a couple of nights accommodation is required), only further eats away at what I can justify as 'hobby money'. Instead, I only added another pair of 20' foot side door containers to my roster from Don at Railco before the doors opened to the public.

From the opening 15 minutes on the Saturday morning, there was a constant stream of paying public marching through the door on account of it being a rainy weekend in Brisbane. So before it got too hectic, I walked the floor to take these few photos of some of the layouts on display over the weekend.

I was set up beside Clive Collin's Snap Shot layout. Each square was a different scene from around the world.

Turnpike Land, featuring London's underground, is still a crowd favourite on the south east Queensland circuit.

The Urangan Pier at Hervey Bay was across from my layout with its cool blue water...

...while Philden stood opposite with its scorching hot outback sunset lighting effects.

The view looking across the hall inside the Redlands Model Train Show as the doors opened on Saturday morning.

Inside the hall became quite crowded during the peak Saturday morning and afternoon periods, and Sunday turned out to be busier still, as the wet weather gave the locals something to do on a rainy day. There were still paying customers arriving at 2.30 pm on the Sunday afternoon. The organisers surely must have been very happy with the numbers over the two days.

Being positioned up on the stage gave me the best view of the venue, and a chance to watch what was going on down on the floor below. While it is inevitable that some of the 'old timers' will always succumb to some shut-eye at some point in the afternoon, a visit to the bathroom on the Saturday made me laugh when I recognised the sound of snoring coming from one of the cubicles. Some-one had fallen asleep on the toot-er!

The new extension once more doubled as hidden staging for the weekend, and while the layout and trains performed faultlessly, the inevitable finally caught up with me when I had two wagons take a dive off the layout onto the timber floor. The first occurred when I hurriedly steadied the layout after a young child tried avoiding being caught by her parents by running beneath the white safety chain to hide behind the curtains of my layout. With one hand on the layout and the other quickly cutting the power to the train that was running at the time, my own knee caught on the wiring that ran from my LED lighting, which in turn whip-lashed the cement hoppers that you can see in the photo above. While the NPRY bounced on its side with out damaging any of the walkways or ladders, I later stepped on a piece of the under frame detail that obviously came loose. The second was just one of those accidents when my wife had her jacket sleeve catch on the steel train as she reached in to throw a toggle switch. Turns out those NCNX wagons don't bounce so well as you can see in the photo below. I've already rebuilt this model once after it arrived in the post in worse condition, so I can easily rebuild it again. I'm just fortunate I found all the pieces.

Some minor post-show repairs waiting for me to see to.

Two exhibitor plaques in the space of two weeks! Now for a well-earned rest.

Philden safe back home once more after two model train shows in just two weeks!

So having just spent two full weekends only two weeks apart, running trains up and down my 9' foot long bookshelf layout, Sunday pack-up couldn't come quick enough. Despite it only taking just over half an hour to pack-up, load-up and be driving out of the car park, its the long drive back to the Sunshine Coast and the trek up and down the stairs from our beach-side apartment that is the most exhausting part of taking Philden on the road. Sure it's a great feeling of accomplishment when its all over, but after such a busy 2018, I've promised Denise that we will only take Philden to one exhibition next year. That now looks like being the Brisbane Model Train Show in May, which gives me 8 months to enjoy having my layout stay still long enough to complete it like I'd first envisioned.

Redlands marked the 7th exhibition that I have taken my layout to, and as you can see in the photos above, the exhibitor plaques have nicely accumulated along the front timber fascia of the layout. There's only room for 3 more plaques to be mounted on the front side, that only doing one show per year will take me through to 2021. By my own reasoning, that might just about do it for this layout.

What's wrong with this picture?

Another funny thing to occur from the Redlands Show, was that somewhere over the course of the weekend I screwed up my shopping list, and threw it in the bin. With my paid-for 442 class loco waiting only on word of its arrival, I took another look at what I had written down on my list, and decided that the pair of 20' foot side door containers I'd bought before the doors opened on Saturday was enough. As far as adding anything new to run on Philden goes.... I'm done. It's time to start planning a new layout.

As for what? Look closely in the picture above and you can probably work out what doesn't belong. And for that I can blame the Redlands Model Railway Show. It will go down as the place where I screwed up one shopping list, and ultimately replaced it with a bigger one! But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also; Exhibition #6 Stafford 2018