Well the Liverpool exhibition has come and gone for another year. I went on the Sunday and remember it was a similar day to the 2010 exhibition in that it poured down rain going from the car to the entrance. Arriving around 9.15am there was no queue, straight up to the ticket office and then inside. This is certainly the opposite for the Saturday attendees judging from the forum reports. (and then crowded when you got inside) I was only looking for the bogie oil tankers to take home. Reckoning on three manufacturers I thought one lot might jump the gun and have some. Looks like 2012 is going to be a big year. Two layouts stood out that impressed me. On was the new O scale layout and the other was a small layout based on Tasmanian practice, very nicely done and up for sale as well. My purchases were minimal but costly. I headed for the Orient model stand and bought some of the MiniNatur scenic products. At around $30 each lot, they are amongst the best scenic representations for grass you can get. I like to support this stand as I reckon if they can come over all the way from Adelaide they've earnt my money. I also got a pack of stone wall there for $4.90 for two strips. I had plans to use it for a wall at the rear of the oil siding. More on this later. I also bought two buffer stop kits from Joe Casula. There is a picture of one on the previous blog entry. Joe deserves support for his contribution to the hobby. I could have scratch built some buffer stops but if we don't support the manufacturers they might shut up shop. So after around three hours I headed for home wondering if they might do something special for the 50th exhibition next year??
Lights, Camera Action.
I purchased one of those twin 500 watt halogen lights on a tripod for photography. Recently one of the lights went out. So OK I will get another bulb. Opens it up to replace, put the new one in and nothing happened. Jiggled the light bulb and still nothing. Bugger must be stuffed somehow. Knowing very little about electricity (Other than the high bill I keep getting) I thought I would have to survive on one light and cut my photography down in half. By chance I mentioned this to a visitor to the railway and he said " You never touch the bulb with your fingers, its stuffs them" So after they went I grabbed the other spare bulb with some paper towelling and placed it in. Again nothing. But after a small jiggle it came on again. You beauty back to full power. I then took the CPH onto the gully bridge and took the following two shots.
I also managed to do some work on the oil siding at Kameruka. As you can see from the photo, the siding is minimal. Just long enough for around two bogie tankers or three four wheelers. There is also not much room to put all the hardware in between the window and the track.The first photo shows the window sill, so I used the stone wall I purchased at the Liverpool exhibition, cut and painted it up with a capping and used this to cover the sill of the window.
Along the top of the window sill I placed some green florist foam. This is easily pushed into shape with the fingers and makes it easy to push the scenic bushes into and hold in place. Cheap and effective.
The last photo shows some of the greenery in place to help hide the sill and a few tanks and other bits being positioned for the removal and storage of the petrol from the tankers. I'm not decided at this stage whether to put up a wire mesh fencing. This I might do at a later stage.
