Convention report part II or 'Dude, wheres my layout?'

In this part, here's a bit more of an irreverent look at the convention.

Thursday night we arrive after a quiet drive down from Palmy. First job is to register at the hotel, then off to the convention site to drop off the 1/3 of the layout that I had transported down. The first question, was 'Oi, wheres my layout' (in a text to Cabbage). A bit of a cock up on the communication front, but rectified next morning.

Friday morning dawned clear and sunny, leading to questions about whether we were actually in Wellington. Rolled up to the convention center to be greeted by what looked like the tail end of the million mustache march, turns out it was only Morris and Postelwaite near the door. Get the layout set up. plug in the DCC boxes. Ta dah, there is a short. spend 5 minutes isolating it, then realise I had twisted 2 wires together for tidiness. Take 10 minutes to get the booster talking to the main box, and finally discover that the 2 jump throttles have flat batteries....Apart from that the layout runs nicely. Graham from Auckland turns up and brings his locos along. The Df is 'entertaining' to get onto the rails, and the Dg with sound goes quiet. This later requires surgery on the last day. Can you believe that I didn't take any photos?

The layout attracts plenty of interest, mostly for the construction methods, but also for the track work and models. It also serves as a focal point for all discussions Nz120 and a few others.

The clinics are interesting, but I skip the layout tours. Entertain Brent Hopley instead, who has his 9mm layout at the convention, and is in charge of the hall for the afternoons.

'Damn photographers straying on the tracks...'

This is a part of a much larger layout. All the locos have sound, and I watched while a Wb had the decoder put in. The decoder was larger than my Cb.

The SIG on Friday night was a small intimate affair, bolstered by a few hangers on. First up we all had to escape the larger NZR SIG (at one point I was considering feigning my own death to get out of the room). After a wide ranging discussion on a variety of topics it is suggested that we aim to meet again in 2 years time at the next convention. In that time, we aim to achieve a few things.

1) Get more people making models (it seemed a bit redundant to try to get more people into the scale, as that's what everyone says).
2) Aim to make it easier to get hold of all the bits required to build wagons and locos in the scale.
3) Aim to have a freemo layout based around the MMW end plates come together at the convention to run trains.

Nothing really earth shattering here, but I'm a bit of a believer in baby steps. Now, the 2nd and 3rd aims are ones that we can lead (and I have some ideas for the fremo layout), but the 1st one is up to the rest of you.