Sunday, October 11, 2009

Magazine review time

I'm back from my travels, and arrived home to find the local rag in the letter box along with a stack of bills. I also managed to (finally) pick up a copy of last months Railfan. So whats in them.

The journal has another picture of the Troop station featured in several previous issues. Unfortunately its not in this one. There is an article on 50' steel guards vans, but without a plan (bugger). A further article on jigs to make steam locos run smoothly (I'd always thought a finger running behind did the job). There's 6 pages on a nice wee N scale layout that is only 2' by 4' with some very good modeling work. A 2 page spread on CCW 56' car kits that are no longer available. Then there's 10 pages with plans of station platform trolleys and (hopefully) a final set of railway station track plans for the Nelson section. This, along with the 2 modelers groups pages still has me asking questions about its value. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to be running off to the workbench now to build some platform trolleys to put on my model of Glenope station. There are so photo's that demonstrate how far ahead of us mere mortals Alec Fenton is (but we are at least in the hunt).
The pages I found most interesting were the 50's focus, especially the inside cover with some west coast steam piccies. Down points were the complete lack of rolling stock plans, or any Nz120 content.

The Railfan starts with the normal collection of updates on the prototype and preservation. I do find these interesting reads. There is an article on 60' car vans, with a plan, so one up on the journal. There's a big retrospective on preserved steam on the mainline over the last 2 years. A stack of god photo's, but for some reason these runs just lack something for me. Maybe its the collection of tank cars that the locos have to tow to have enough water, or possibly the blue carriages that have to make up the train. There are then articles on the Tokoroa branch (BOP) and the Waikaia branch (Southland) with some good photo's. The Wab shots on the Tokoroa branch do have a stack of modeling potential. The only hic-cup for me is the photo essay article(which still does have some redeeming features).

For you non members the prices from your news agent are $12 for the local rag and $13 for the Railfan. Personally I'd go for the Railfan first, but only cos I model kettles.

2 comments:

lalover said...

The Wab parts are great I think, and this from from a diesel modeller!
Havent read the article, but will soonest.

I personally enjoyed the mix of articles in the Journal, though I for one aren't in favour of Santa Cave layouts in the Journak...but the same thought about the trollies whizzed across my mind... so many pages and no 120th plan...

RKBL said...

I thought the Tokoroa Branch line missed alot but then hey I'm modeling and doing research of the Tokoroa Branch line, aka Kinlieth Branchline, and it's in the South Waikato not BOP. I thought a mention of the NZED Building that was in Tokoroa, which brought in heavy frieght for making the Hydro schemes in that region