Moving on?

With the opening of the new Forum/homepage for the scale at NZ120.org, there's been some discussion at the yahoo group over the e-mail lists future. Primarily its been whether the list should be allowed to die a death and we all move lock stock and barrel to the new forum, or continue in both locations. The pluses for the group are that there's a fair bit of information tied up in the years posts, plus the goodies in the file and photo sections. Its also a passive media, with updates delivered to your mailbox without lifting a finger to do anything. However, its a closed shop. the 104 members are the only ones that can see any of the content, and we can't display our wares to the world. The idea behind a forum is to have a meeting place where people can participate in a more active way. Its not going to suit the armchair modelers I think. The biggest plus is that the forum, photo's etc can be viewed by anyone, which should jack up the scales profile quite a bit, and get some more people doing some modeling. It should also be much easier to follow threads and discussions, which is damn near impossible on the group at the moment.

So to summarise, I think there's no need to have these discussions now. In 6 months maybe there will be a change, but there's no point leaping of and doing something dumb, only to find it wasn't the right move for many people a ways down the track

It's been commented on more than once here at Chateau Dandruff that there's only really a handful of regular commentators (mostly ourselves). I know that we average about 65 visitors a day here, so there's quite a few people who just come for a read and then head off without leaving a trace. While this is OK, its not overly easy to actually run a blog like this averaging 1 reasonable post a day even between 3 of us. Hopefully the new forum site will encourage people out of the woodwork (Woodsworks?) to share what they are up to or ask dumb questions. Remember that we all had to start somewhere, some of our early models were far less than stellar, and we have got to our current levels of skill through shear tenacity and the application of liberal volumes of alcohol (well, that's my story).

Another Announcement

For a 2nd bit of news this weekend, and quite huge as far as I'm concerned, Trackgang products is now up and running. The home page can be found at http://trackgangproducts.co.nz/.
I'm not even sure where to start shopping. I might buy a couple of models to display at a model railway show here in Nelson next weekend, which I was reminded about during a visit to Founders park yesterday to get Darryl his train photography fix! For some odd reason I thought it was next month.

"It wasn't much, but it got him through the day"

Anyway, Russell deserves our thanks for having the forsite to rescue the masters from Trackside, and also our commercial support. I hope to do some reviews of these kits over the next couple of months (not sure how many I'm allowed to buy, will have to see what the stack of brownie points look like with the lady of the house).

An Announcement

Fresh of the telegraph thingy tonight from Wes (and the rest of us).

We would like to announce a new web site for the NZ120 community.

Some modellers have expressed some frustration over the limitations of this yahoo group system and we thought the time might be right to provide a dedicated site for the scale.

Some people have said they would prefer a discussion forum format over the yahoo email format, so the new site has a discussion forum. There are one or two good NZ120 blogs out there too. The new site provides a summary of recent posts on those blogs and has some blogs of its own.

We are also going to be adding some articles on modelling, such as how to do resin casting and scratch-building. There are some good articles out there, but they tend to get buried on blogs and this will be a good home for them. If you have suggestions for how-to articles or other content let us know. We've got a place to showcase exceptional NZ120 modelling for inspiration.

There's not much there at the moment, but we all need to start adding stuff into the various areas. Pictures of things people are doing, techniques, layout ideas, or just question and answer sessions. The forum will be what we all make it, and will be a more public window into the scale.

Opps

Sorry about that lack of a post last night. I'll only say that Darryl makes a mean curry pizza, and the collection of cider bottles lying around this morning indicates that we may have had a few too many to drink.

Normal service will resume tonight.

Fettler on the Roof

DB says - yes, it's me, that title is a little misleading isn’t it (bwahaha) : OK, hands up all those who, upon reading this early post of mine about building a layout, laughed and said “wonder how long that will last -he being with the attention span of a sandfly on speed?”

Probably not many hands given the blog readership at the time, but those hands were right, as that layout has been sitting untouched for six months.

To recap: like most NZers, I have no stadium-sized Grande American Basement. Indeed I've been bumped into a smallish 12x13 (or so) foot room for my playtime, with the door in one corner, a set of wardrobes on the far wall and a window in the wall to the left above the workbench. This leaves but one clear wall. Duckunders are always a pain, I didn’t want to block the window and wanted to maintain access to the closets... Hence that layout-in-the-middle.

But the 4x9 or so layout plus its 4x3 extension takes up so much space that it is a real obstacle course to get to the workbench (or anything else). And despite these hassles it doesn't even provide much running room, being a string of tightish curves linked together. Unsatisfactory. On so many counts. I only really like the staging yard.

Recent manifestusing had me wondering how I could fit in longer scenes by making better use of the room without intruding on a few things that I like – sun coming in the window, a bit of 'space' in the room, access to the currently unused wardrobes, being able to walk around the room without banging into things after an evening on the turps etc.

So... what about putting a layout way up high: around the walls of the room up above the door, window and closets? Its the one unused part of every room that has the most space and is completely free of obstructions. A visible staging yard above the closets could be accessed by stepping on a chair or three, and then mainline scenery around the other three walls. A full rooms-worth of running with gentle quarter-circle curves in the corners - all while hogging approximately zero square feet of floorspace. No more God-like viewing from a helicopter either. Sounds vaguely appealing. But impractical perhaps?

There are certainly a number of potential concerns.

Wouldn’t construction be a pain? I figure if the layout is made in sections on big insulation foam boards, it will be easy to bring one lump at a time down to a sensible level to work on and then plug it back upstairs when its finished. I've done this with the yard already - even on its 10 inch x 12 foot long board I managed to get it up all by myself. So to speak.

Won’t you see 'nothing' when viewing from standing height? As long as the track is on a 1cm embankment not too far back from the edge and is viewed from a few feet away it seems to be acceptable (the first two pictures here were taken standing firmly on the carpet, the track has no extra elevation and the rails are a couple of cm from the edge. And me with no shoes on either.) Alternatively, I could build Staircasey/Manawatu Gorgey 'ledge' type scenery.

What happens when you need access to rerail something or clean the track? I don’t think this will be a problem at all on the mainline. In the yard its easy enough working the nearest track but the rest could be a problem from ground level. I'm running trains though, not shunting. A small two/three step 'step-up' ladder in that locale would put me at a normal viewing height as well. Or a set of stilts. Or a pair of 18 inch stilletos. Or a permanent wooden box to stand on, which is probably the most sensible idea, as I'm not convinced I have the ankles for stilletos.

What if something goes for a tumble? The biggest ‘downside’ could become evident when something derails in dramatic fashion. I’m not sure what the terminal velocity of NZ120 vehicles is, but I’m not sure there’s that much difference in something falling from 6.5 feet vs 4 anyway. It's going to get hurt from either height.

Hmmm. Its an interesting concept that I’ve talked myself into investigating further. Madness. Anyone out in the cheap and recently quite quiet seats have any experiences, concerns, opinions, thoughts or suggestions?

This quarters Railfan

I've just got my hands on the latest railfan today. Again a handy source of inspiring images. There's an interesting photo essay on the Wellington DBR's. Of most interest to me was an article by Denys Whyte recounting his experiences as a young railway photographer. His patch was the lower north island including Paikakariki. A stack of pictures that I had not seen before including some of the north end of the loco depot that shows that there was a bit more building wise than I had thought (a shed and some oil storage tanks). Also a nice shot of the south end signal box with an Ed sitting next to it. I must work out a way to make bicycles.

The photo's also tell me something about train make up. It appears that despite their speed restrictions the Ed's were still used on expresses in the 1960's. It also reveals that during the holidays they ran relief expresses with virtually any carriage that they could get their hands on. The shown example has 2 47' cars, a 56' and 2 50' cars, and a 56' van. This means that from a modeling point of view, virtually anything goes, which is what we all want the hear. It justifies making models of any obscure wagon or carriage that I can find a plan for.

Inspiration

Discussed on the yahoo group in the last week or so, sources of inspiration for modeling. There's been a few posts about the journal being a good source, and it is, to a certain extent. Certainly when we first discovered it in the mid 1980's it was an amazing revelation and getting hold of a new issue was a big thrill. It inspired an explosion of cardboard wagon and loco manufacture, some of which was even close to the right scale. When I started in Nz120 the guys in the group were a source of inspiration. John Rappards model output was nothing short of incredible, which I guess is one of the pluses of being retired. It seemed he would turn up with a new model of something every week and in a variety of scales. After moving from Dunedin to Wellington Darryl and I spent a fair bit of time inspiring each other onward to create a layout and exhibit it.

And today? I've been re-reading some old journals that I've got hold of recently, but most of the inspiration I get is from 2 sources. the first is older books; Spirit of steam, Steam finale, New Zealand steam spectacular and others of the same ilk. The work of these old guys in the 1950's and 60's is made even more impressive by the limitations of the media in that period. No shooting of a gazillion pictures and swapping of memory sticks. One chance to get it right and no second chances. The second source is the Railfan, which is a magazine that rates well among any in the world (a real credit to the hard work of the editors). Their ongoing series about branch lines is always of interest, and even modern developments a good for an idea or 2. The cover of the March 2009 is a good example. The new track layout at Newmarket looks like it would make a very good looking layout and the selection of new trains has not been modeled yet.

Comments from the peanut gallery?