Back in the saddle

 Hmm, nearly 3 years away. So what did I miss.

Its been that long that I can't remember why I stopped updating the blog. I have done virtually no railway modeling over that time, apart from a few bits and pieces on the On30 layout. I have done a fair bit of painting/modeling for my wargaming interests. Theres a pile of terrain done for 28mm steampunk skirmish and I'm almost done with my Germany 1813 project (which has involved painting a few thousand figures). I've also started painting 10mm DBA 15th century eastern european armies.

Anyway recenty I went to Railex in Palmy. I've been to a couple of gaming conventions in the last year but this was the first Model railway show. I offered to give Grant a hand with his new layout, 3 Mile Bush.

Now this is another Grant Morrel magnus opus. He is phenominaly good at observing scenes and his bush modeling is up there with the best. He's also really good at engaging with the crowd, whch might explain his laissez faire approach to crowd control. Now when I operate a layout I tend to concentrate on the driving. Having to also attemp to do crowd control while engaging with the punters is a bit beyond me, especially in the mornings. So my 4 hr stint was not earth shattering.and I managed to run locos through stop blocks several times.

The Tauranga group was down with their NZ120 layout and I brought along some of my old models. The twinset railcar had been in the box 8 years without a run. A tweak to the internals and it was off like a Swiss watch.

The Ed's also got a leg stretch on the Saturday night, and I resisted offfers to sell them. It's the effort to replace them that makes them irreplaceable.