Sithlord75

We had the Australian Supermeet last weekend (12-14 April). This was the ninth in 11 years (thanks Covid!) and the first where instead of spending most of the time building, we had a layout to play with. "Wansbeck Road" took the road trip from SEQAG HQ in Burpengary to Colo Vale (a mere 1064kms each way) to be admired by those travelling from Wodonga, Albury, Canberra, Campbelltown, Sydney and the Central Coast of NSW. One of the visitors bought his collection of scratch built (from brass sheet in most cases - and lumps of brass for the bits which couldn't be made out of sheet - the only purchased bits were the wheels (Fleishmann - shame!), gears and motor) locos most of which belonged to the firm of JA Brown and Co. Stephen knows The Prof professionally (what is it about dentists and locos?) and in fact knew Tim before he started. I dunno what the rest of you think but I reckon his locos are in the same class. The one below was geared and DCC tuned to just crawl. It was noted it was in NSLR livery - something we had to explain to Steve! This loco unlike the other 9 was built to 1:154 scale so the drivers didn't snag each other. So close... And don't look at the wheel treads. Just to prove the talent - don't just make one, make two (as there were two purchased by Browns - one direct from Kitson's, the other from the NSW railways when they no longer needed it). 1:160 GCR RoD (or 8K if you must!). I did suggest a 1:152 version would be probably welcome in London - apparently too big so no challenge! There was one 1:152 loco and train around - just on the wrong gauge wheels so we couldn't run it properly. This is a Newcastle (NSW) steam tram from the 19th Century. Etches by the same bloke who did the hearse on CF. Ross wasn't able to make it - we had five apologies in the end - so we sent him the pic of his etches to make him feel better...

The next ZAG meeting is this coming Saturday 13 April from 1930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. All are welcome to join in, and share what they have been building, ask for advice (and share their favourite tips for success) and generally have a chat about their projects. The Australian contingent may be a little light on as we’re having our Supermeet this weekend and will almost certainly have been up late so may not be alert enough for a 0530 local time Zoom call! The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372

or me Kevin Knight 😁. The next zoom is this coming weekend, although a bunch of the regular Aussie attendees will be MIA as we’re going to be at the Australian Supermeet in Colo Vale NSW. Feel free to drop me a line for more details about 2mm support Down Under Craig. I succumbed to the EFE J94 from Rails too.

Funnily enough I had my five or six of these out today and wondered about the possibility of a better chassis. Is there a possibility of a better chassis for the masses? I'll do a proper count if there is.

Looks like it was a fun time - also explains why a few regular faces were missing from the ZAG!! Do you think Diesels on the S&D will catch on? I can see 10000 arriving at Stur in the near future.

G'day all, The next ZAG meeting is this coming Saturday (23rd March) from 0930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. All are welcome to join in, and share what they have been building, ask for advice (and share their favourite tips for success) and generally have a chat about their projects. The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372 Cheers Kevin

The next ZAG meeting is this coming Saturday 9 March from 1930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. All are welcome to join in, and share what they have been building, ask for advice (and share their favourite tips for success) and generally have a chat about their projects. The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372

G'day all, The next ZAG meeting is this coming Saturday (24th February) from 0930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. As always, all are welcome to join in. The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372 Cheers Kevin

The next ZAG meeting is this coming Saturday 10 February from 1930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. All are welcome to join in, and share what they have been building, ask for advice (and share their favourite tips for success) and generally have a chat about their projects. The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372

The next ZAG meeting is this coming Saturday 27th of January from 0930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. All are welcome to join in, and share what they have been building, ask for advice (and share their favourite tips for success) and generally have a chat about their projects. The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372

The first ZAG meeting of 2024 is this coming Saturday 13th January from 1930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. All are welcome to join in, and share what they have been building, ask for advice (and share their favourite tips for success) and generally have a chat about their projects. The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372

I realised when I went looking for this thread it has been a while since I posted! Activity has been limited, I admit, due to a) work, b) the loss of my mojo and c) I did spend quite a bit of time working on Wansbeck Road to freshen up the presentation (new backscene board, new lighting rig (which would comply with Australian electrical requirements!) and a touch of paint). The mojo has returned a bit - so hopefully there'll be more regular posts on both this and my layout thread in 2024. With that in mind and in keeping with @queensquare's tradition of Christmas posts (which I copied last year) I'll leave you with the pic below of J39 No 67931 arriving into Wansbeck Road with a motley collection of empty coal wagons.

The next ZAG meeting, and last for 2023 owing to the proximity of Christmas to what would be the fourth Saturday meeting, is this coming Saturday 9th December from 1930GMT. Please adjust according to your location. All are welcome to join in, and share what they have been building, ask for advice (and share their favourite tips for success) and generally have a chat about their projects completed this year, or planned for next. The link below should take you straight there or the ID and passcode. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83287616944?pwd=WGRnQkprN1IwcitVRm56OThtMUFVUT09 Meeting ID: 832 8761 6944 Passcode: 222372

One of those cultural differences. I spent the weekend enjoying showing my layout Down Under at the most local exhibition to me. No discussion of reimbursement before, during or after - never has been in the over ten years I’ve been going. Same with all the others on the circuit. I have always been bemused by the different approach in the UK where the attitude seems to be I don’t want to have to spend money for a weekend of no wife, no kids and all hobby - which essentially is what i had. Interesting to learn it is apparently only model railway shows. Incidentally, if model railway shows out here paid expenses at the rate UK ones do, do costs would rise, less people would go and clubs would be financially stressed. We’ve already lost one in South East Queensland due to the club deciding it wasn’t worth the financial risk to hold it. My club one wouldn’t happen either.

I'm looking at getting a J27 commissioned so we can have a couple to run on Wansbeck Road. I am aware of the Shapeways body but some of the reports I've seen suggest that whilst it's to scale, it's too to scale for even 2mm standards (besides, I'm not sure you'd get enough weight into it). Has anyone tried the J27 from Shapeways to confirm or deny the rumours? And could some kind soul point me at some good plans for a J27. TIA.