Modelling the Railways of Queensland Convention

So last weekend, the 17th Sept, was the Modelling the Railways of Queensland Convention. What a great weekend I had.

These things of course are not scale specific, so it was relevant to all scales. AND of course you do not have to specifically model Queensland outline, as making a tree is the same no mater which state or country you model. So do not write off going to these events because you think they are totally not relevant to you - a lot of them are relevant to you in the most part.

So we have O, HO, HOn3½ and TT to look at for a start at this convention.  There of course were vendors there and the odd purchase or two might have been made by your scribe.

Of course besides the hob-nobbing, purchasing, lecture listening and forums, there of course was the nosh up in the evening if you wanted - a BBQ and a Bar - nice combo.

The Sunday was of course visiting a pile of different modellers layouts and a couple of clubs for layouts and Buy & Sells. I decided to take the car out for a long trip over to the "Wattle Flat" layout that is being built by Darren Lee. It has been quite some time since I was over there and crikey, what a change - it is runnable and a lot of scenery is in place - fantastic. Darren had three fellas (Anthony, Mark and Brendan I think it was) running some operations so we visitors could see it all with action happening. I think the drivers were all having a ball actually.

So I wont comment on most of the photos as they speak for themselves. So a brief description would be NSW, HO, 2 centre peninsulas and 2 wall peninsulas and point to point running. Shed size is 9m x 6m, which includes the TV and sofa for the crew lounge.

So here is the quick shots of each of the four peninsulas. From all of this I have now decided, that yes I can have two middle peninsulas myself for the layout I will one day build.

The crew lounge can just be made out at the right, with the work area under the fiddle yard and storage yards - again ides now float in my mind for my own layout. There is nothing like seeing something to clarify it in your own mind.

Let's start with the left hand of the point to point. We have a turntable for turning locos, a small loco shed and a house.

Here we are looking away from the turntable down towards the station and goods yard section of this area.

Here are some photos of the station and goods area.

And at the right of the station area is the Coop and stock yards.

Next we have some shots from the next major stop on the tracks. We have a fuel facility, some shops and houses and a hall.

And here are some shots of that fuel facility.

Now on the other side of this peninsula we see Brendan shunting the grain storage whilst a goods goes past on the mainline.

Now behind Brendan is the next peninsula with a station, small yard and also a fuel facility.

On the other side of this peninsula is an ore loading facility.

And lastly we have the other point we are running to. This is a very long yard with multiple facilities and of course the fiddle and storage yards hang off the end of this over the modelling benches.

And finally another overall shot. We see the drivers driving, visitors ogling and our host Darren in red answering all questions put to him. Oh, and he does put on a good arvo tea this Darren fella.

Without even trying, I had spend over two hours at Darren's taking some photos, asking 1,345,233 questions and mostly enjoying the layout and company.