A Fortnight Past

Besides being in a model railway club, the RMCQ, I am also in a loose bunch of ratbags that go by the name of the Toosdy Niters, or some such spelling. Once a fortnight this group of predominantly south of the river types, meet up at one of their houses on you guessed it, a Tuesday night, to talk trains.

Not a bad bunch actually, except I reckon I got ripped off at today's buy & sell at RMCQ, by three of the ratbags of this bunch - Scooter, Geoff and Darren! Nah, I think we all did OK in the transactions where I was the one parting with hard earned cash. Anyway, back to the story - last fortnight's meeting was at the Doctors house (not Doctor Who, but Dr Peter). Such workmanship on his layout. So here are a crapload of photos I took to show some of that great detail work he does.

Check it out above, there are even cow pats around the paddock. Where the cows regularly walk, the grass has also been worn away. There are patches of long grass and rocks. And of course there is a Kelpie helping round them up.

Notice some of the wagons are already loaded. Some cows are also taking it easy, as they do when waiting around. A nice cattle truck is also at the right, and of course some more Kelpies - so it must be an Aussi setup I reckon.

 What a great scene as we leave the farm and cross the dirt railway crossing, once the live stock train has passed.

Notice some lumps of wood on the shed roofs holding down the iron sheeting in places? This is a typical "can do" fix that works for farmers. Notice the scrap and old items also kicking around as detail?

So when cattle are brought in to the pens near the rail-head, they'll need some tucker wont they? So here is a really nifty concrete feed trough.

And they will of course need to be watered as well, wont they?

The old farm house is a really great scene as well. The cows are all lining up for milking and there are the scraps of trees and timber around a you would expect to find on a farm. There is even a nice little milk loading dock on the railway as well as I think the local fruit and veg vendor has dropped in for a chat.

Now we are looking from the station area over to the roundhouse, maintenance and freight areas.

For the steamers we have a nice coal loader

And waiting at the station for the passengers to load, is a nice NSW railmotor set.

And all good country stations will also have the freight right next to it, and here is some of it.

And then we have a really nicely detailed are that contain a number of fuel depots. We have areas for trucks and areas for trains.

In such a small space, Peter has managed to squeeze in so much it is fantastic, and it doesn't look cluttered either.

The above three shots show some of the town area, also the usual ton memorial and a nice railway crossing that leads into some of the fuel depot area.

The above two photos show the approach to the station and fright/maintenance area - protected of course by the ever present control tower.

Now ou cannot run grain wagons without a grain silo, now can you...

A nice timber country road bridge leading to the back country.

You have to have a mine somewhere too don't you?

So all up it was great to see all the work Peter has been putting into his layout and of course ho does put on a good nosh-up for a Toosdy Nite event as well :o)