2010 March 22

Well, its getting close to when a car can’t be parked in the layout room. That will still leave me with the main garage to clean up/sort out/dispose of unwanted goods (Trademe or the Dump), so at least one car can have a home for the winter.

While I was shifting stuff today I was reminiscing about my 50+ years in model railways (well it is over 50 years since I got a Hornby Dublo 3-rail train set for my 4th birthday. My Dad and Grandpop built a 5’ x 4’ layout that was good for the next eight or so years, but at the age of about 14 it was just “too small”. I initially extended the layout to about 12’ x 4’ along one wall of the bedroom. It was suggested by my Grandma that I could extend the layout around the bedroom, and have the bed pull out from underneath the layout, so that is what happened. This was still using Hornby Dublo 3-rail, but the motive power had grown from the initial 0-6-2T (I still have this) to two Duchess of Montrose 4-6-2s, two A4s and a 2-6-4T.

I then decided that 2-rail was more prototypical so started with a Great Western tank locomotive purchased from Robin Knight at Christchurch Model Centre in Worcester Street. Little did I know then that I would end up living on the same short street (Tovey Street) as Robin for about 15 years. I scrapped the large 3-rail layout and started a shelf layout on a shelf in my bookshelves. This was about 1974, many years before the term “shelf layouts” came into vogue.

As outlined in the March 4 blog (2010 March 04) I then moved to modelling the NZR, but in 1978 shifted to modelling the North American scene and the rest as they say is history.