The Future?

 Found on the 2mm Association website last week.

Is this the past and the future of modeling displays at exhibitions?

At least theres no chance of setting the fire alarms, or having Brabs borrow all your tools....

A News Update

 A breaking of radio silence tonight for a couple of bits of news.

First up, Iain Rice passed away a couple of days ago. A man of Inmense staure in the model railway community world wide through his writings and multiple books on both sides of the Atlantic (possibly the only man to do this). Theres not much else to say really so I'll post a link to the Obituary section on Rmweb.

And while I can't remember if/when I ever posted this picture, I did get to spend a day walking in the hills behind Nelson with him, mainy because I was the youngest and fittest in the local group.

It was not an overly relaxing day for me as I was terminally worried that he was going to fall down a sink hole and The NZ Model railway guild was going to put a hit out on me to recover their investment. I don't recollect much detail of the conversation but he was a top bloke to talk wth. I do recall chasing butteflies for him taking photos. In retrospect I should have done a railway archeology trip up the valley, but life is full of regrets.

Second up, and a really big surprise, yesterday Hornby anounced details of the release of an entirely new range in TT (and its honest to god 1:120). Ok, so the track guage is 12mm which is sod all use to us, but theres also a range of buildings and other companies appear to be getting onto the band wagon with a range of vehicles as well (only 6 at the moment but assuming it takes off there could be much more). They are planning to release BR Mk2 carriages so hopefully theres a market for second hand tops. I'm also interested to see what the diameter of the wagon and coach wheel rims is. Actually, just having a second look I wonder if the lcomotive bogie wheels could be used

 It seems to be a really cunning plan to release a completely new scale rather than fighting for increasingly small crumbs with a stack of other companies in the established scales. The only thought I have is that the timing is appaling given that the current British government has just torpedoed its economy squarely amidships for the forseable future.