Weren't you building another layout?
Well, that was the plan. To cut a long, long story short, we found a house and entered into an agreement with the owners, who cancelled the sale about two weeks later when they discovered for themselves just how difficult it is to get an Australian bank to lend you money at the moment if you're not a multi-property-owning Tzar with a seven-figure income.
I'm not bitter about this at all...
So for now, it's back to the trudge of Saturday open house inspections. I had come up with a few layout plans for the was-to-be house, but I've stopped sketching out ideas for the time being. We all want to squeeze every last centimetre out of the space we've got for a layout, and until I know what those dimensions will be I'm collecting ideas but holding off on drawing up anything concrete.
The trials and tribulations of actual modelling
After receiving OTM's MUB cars late last year I decided it was high time I finished MFA 2706. Progress was good over the New Year break until I needed a brake wheel. Using a LIMA 72'6 underframe, I've chopped some details out and prepared others. It's not going to be a complete model of the underfloor detail, but about 90% of it will be there.
It seems like every time a new, much-anticipated RTR item is released, people lament the disappearance of actual modellers from the hobby. Whilst it's not entirely accurate, it's not hard to see why most modellers are sticking with RTR or just buying standard RTR and weathering it than spending their precious spare time chasing that one item across all of the hobby shops in the country. I can't be the only one in this boat either.
I did manage to get the sides and roof complete though. I used 10mm Tamiya tape to represent the malthoid roofing, butted against each other with a very slim gap in between to give an idea of the join between the two.
The Auscision 2BS bogies I'm using are great and free-rolling, but are fouling the sides of the underframe. Might be as simple as adding some Kadee washers, but I also don't want the appearance of the car sitting high up on the bogies with lots of daylight underneath.
A welcome surprise
I was fortunate to receive an Auscision Pay Bus as a gift this week, and after originally holding out I am really impressed with it.
The finish on the model appears to have a much more dull lustre than the paintwork on other Auscision models straight out of the box, and I'm reluctant to do much more to it than lightly weather the axle boxes and a tiny portion of the lower part of the body.
I'll send it off to get a DCC chip, sound and a keep alive added, but all in good time. It's quite a versatile item of rollingstock and with an operating history of up to 1986 is equally at home on Rozelle Street as any other layout I build in my era.
Other arrivals
I've been keeping an eye out for Trainmaster WSCs for a few years and recently 3 came up for sale through one of the Facebook groups. They've been weathered - possibly too heavily for my era - but I was particularly spurred on after seeing a crisp decal set from Casula Hobbies which is a great improvement over the hand-drawn one that comes on the model as standard. Naturally, when I traipsed down to Casula Hobbies to buy the decals they were sold out. I asked when or if there would be another run and was met with "Yeah, maybe."
Sigh. Guess that goes back into the 'one day' box.
SDS' ICX container wagons also arrived, which means I finally have an appropriate wagon to put my LRC containers on and operate in and out of the meat siding on Rozelle Street.
Now that I've got these I should really finish the milktainers too. At least I have everything I need for those.
Until next time!
Ben
Shame about the house falling through Ben, but at least you'll have Rozelle Street to play around with until the right home comes along.
ReplyDeleteCheers Phil. It's certainly better than nothing! I've already got the tape measure out to build something to tide me over in the meantime, but more on that in a future post.
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