Christchurch Big Train Show visit

DB is barely holding the fort while Dandruff-San visits the far east.

The Christchurch Big Train Show was last weekend. There were plenty of layouts, stalls and chat to be had, so myself and a fellow modeller from Oamaru ended up staying four hours and we both had our wallets lightened by the cunning salespeople and their shiny trinklets.  

And wow! There was some unexpected (unexpected by me!) NZ120 presence there, with Ian Perry, who lives near Kaikoura, showing his model of scenes that are, unsurprisingly, from near Kaikoura. 

Rolling stock was from Trackgang, and all airbrushed - some of the most 'professional' looking finishes I've seen in NZ120. This all ran perfectly (even with multiple tracks across angled module joins) and looked great, with the scenes and bridges being great representations of either actual scenes, or of the general feel of the place. 

Ian and his wife spent a lot of time traveling around NZ in their caravan, and most of this was built during their journeys!

He had a Faller car or two running around as well to add to the interest. 

'Kaikoura' looked great,  ran flawlessly, and was the well-deserved winner of 'layout of the show'. The recabbed DGs didn't hurt either, although there was a TMS red DF there as well...

Regular S scale attendee 'One Track Minds' were there with some lovely models, although some of my favourite modules from last year were not in the layout this time.  This simple one below has nice undulation and shows that a module doesn't need to be in any way complex to be very effective.

Many of the locos on this layout had some superb sounds. The sounds for the DGs were recorded by Peter Ross when the DTG's DG 772 was undergoing load bank testing. A video may appear below if Blogger will publish it:

There were plenty of other US and European layouts and trains in S, HO, N, 009, Z and G, but I didn't end up taking many more pics.

Something that did catch my eye on local purveyor Ironhorse Hobbies' table were these 'ready to run' modules intended to jump start some local OO/HO modular efforts.  There are no legs for these yet, so you'd have to make your own.

I might be tempted to pick one or two up (sans HO track, and locating magnets in the ends) to try out as an add on to Studholme.  Especially as they are considering offering various lengths (these are 300mm x 560mm), and 'curved' and 'drop' versions so you could model a river or undulating scenery if you get bored with  modeling the Canterbury Plains in flat rectangles of land.

In a similar vein, the NZ Model Railway guild just reviewed some laser cut modules from Hamilton-based Craftmaster. Theose may be lighter (being made of thinner plywood) and fancier but I'm rarely passing Hamilton, and I expect postage might be painful. Review of Craftmaster modules

For those of us who are challenged by being located in the Mainland Island may find it easier to arrange (info@ironhorsehobbies.co.nz) to pick one of these "IHH-Trak" modules up from Ironhorse ones if they were passing Christchurch. I'm going to drop ironhorse an email to see what the go is.