2010 April 07

It is photo convention time now and I travelled to Nelson via the Lewis Pass. Near Springs Junction I spotted the car "GR8 P1X" so at a One Way Bridge where we had to stop, I jumped out and said a quick hello to Barry Smith FPSNZ and his wife Betty. Coffee at Murchison? Yes!

Sitting having a coffee I told Barry about Ron Willems being at the model railway convention, and then Barry (and Betty) advised that Barry has a lot of model railway equipment, mainly Fleischman.

Then it was on to Nelson, driving passed some of the old alignment for the Nelson line abandoned in September 1955 (I was about 7 months old then). Arriving in Nelson I went to check out the good bookshop Page & Blackmore. Just two doors down the street I spotted my Blue Damselfly print in the National Bank window. My print, from last year's PSNZ National competition was selected as one of the 30 prints for the 2009-2010 National Bank travelling exhibition. It will be in National Bank Riccarton sometime in May.

At the official opening ceremony I caught up with Graham Collins from the Hutt Valley. His second PSNZ convention (the first was quite a few years ago), but he has also been to every NZAMRC convention since 1982 and every full AMRA since 1981 or 1983. Ron Willems talked to Barry Smith about Fleishman and we all talked about model railways in general (not much on photography).

2010 April 04

I arrived at St Andrews College just before 9am and headed into the layout/trade stand area to do a bit more photography, before the next session of clinics (session 5). I chose “Image manipulation” by Gavin Muir. Gavin has been involved with Stan Agar on the Skillwise NZR HO layout on Lyttelton and showed how to manipulate a series of photos (perspective, stitch, merge etc) so they can be printed and used for buildings. Talking later to Ron Willems (one of NZs best amateur photographers) he said that the buildings looked the best he has seen for background buildings, and would only need a bit of relief to make the good foreground buildings. Gavin did not go into detail about what was the best paper to use, but Stan advised me that they appeared to get the best results from standard photocopy paper.

At the morning tea break we had planned to photograph the “1982 six”, but Don Ellis had not arrived. A bit of background here: at the 1982 convention in Palmerston North, seven of us youngish guys (oldest would have been about 35) took a drive to the local model engineers as they operated on Sundays, but this was Easter Sunday and they were not operating, so we formed our own train and did a circuit of the track. Part way around I photographed the six others in this order: Ray Parmenter, Phillip Cooke, Wayne Morris, Don Ellis, John Robinson and Wayne Haste. Eighteen years later (or to be exact 6587 days) at the 2000 Christchurch convention was the first time all seven of us had been present at the same convention so we did another photograph, and now this year (28 years or 10219 days) we were all at the same convention again, so we had planned another photo. We finally did it during the lunch break after Don had arrived. All three photos were taken on Easter Sunday (1982, 2000, 2010).

1982 & 2010 pics

For clinic session 6 I went to Iain Rice’s last one, this time on getting good looking scale trackwork, especially turnouts/switches.

Lunch followed and then the second lot of layout tours. These were better organised and we had written directions this time, although some groups (tour 3) had today’s instructions printed on the reverse side of yesterday’s unused sheets (not printed/collated in time). I hope the previous info was crossed out or the punters told to ignore them! Our group this time was Wayne Morris, Ray Parmenter, Don Ellis and Stewart Clement (son of Don Clement!) from Lower Hutt.

Anyway our instructions this time only had one minor error, but we found the first layout at Spencer Sherlock’s by taking the 4th left instead of the instructed 2nd left.. Actually two layouts here, both British, the N scale “Wrexton” and his OO permanent layout.

Then just around the corner to another two layouts. Keith Spykerman’s Sn3½ Whitecliffs branch in a spare room (very nice scenery) and a British OO layout in the garage. I asked Keith, (a Dutchman) why he had modelled the British scene as he was from Holland. The response; “Dutch equipment is just too expensive”. Some nice scratch built buildings on both layouts. While Keith waits for the "correct" motive power to arrive at Whitecliffs (L class steam loco) he is using a De (borrowed from the North Island).

Then back south over the Waimak to Brooklands to Brian Allison’s UP garden layout. Phil Pohio was operating this, but there were two operating N scale display layouts in the very large garage. Interesting that we saw the same basic UP passenger train in HO scale at Chris Gunn’s and here in N scale, and a pretty good version (different locomotives) in G scale outside. Two GP38-2 had a double speaker system and this was a great sound. We did ask what the neighbours though as it was reasonably loud!

Last layout was in Parklands at Phil Cossar’s SP/WP layout. Phil is the son of the late Millar Coassar) who passed away in 1983. Millar was a member of the Christchurch Scratchbuilders. Phil advised that he liked SP, but decided to include WP after seeing pics of Altamont Pass with the tracks of both railroads. He also had a bit of Rio Grande and CB&Q equioment but said there was no connection. I then advised that the eastern end of the WP connected directly with the D&RGW, and that CB&Q and other BN units got onto WP trains via the Inside Gateway. He had never heard of this.

A simple overview of all the layouts seen over the both days:
Apart from the tinplate and Hornby Dublo collectors layouts, two or three were model railways and the rest were glorified train sets, but the owners were happy and in the hobby.

The ones I would class as model railroads were Keith Spykerman’s Whitecliffs branch, a simple short U shaped layout and the layout that Chris Gunn is building, although this would drop lower on the list due to modelling three different countries on the same layout.

I never got to see any of the other layouts on the other three tours, although I heard some good reports about an American layout being built in Aidenfield!

We returned to the convention centre and wandered away in our own directions. I hung around with a last look around the layouts/trade stands and had a good discussion with Ron Willems, both on photography and model railways. I then spent 30 minutes talking to Allan Guy and Roger Bacon about a variety of things, while we waited for 6pm and the venue closed and we headed off to the Showgate Lounge at Riccarton for the Banquet, and this was a pretty good event.

I sat at a table with Brendon Lean, Richard Poff (both GCMRC members), another four locals including Grant Hart and a couple from Papakura. Nelson Kennedy was the MC (of sorts) with short speeches by Doug Harrison, Russel Postelwaight and Ian Galbraith and the presentation of trophies. The food was excellent and the conversation great. Phillip Cooke introduced me to his lady friend (Pip) and I mentioned to Phillip that I thought I had first met him at a military modelling/wargamers meet at a hall in Adderley Park, most likely in early 1973. He said he did indeed go to a few meetings there. At one point I went to the car and grabbed the main Photo Album and a few recollected some of the earlier conventions.

I left when there were less than 20 attendees left and said goodbye to Kel, Russel, and others. I arrived home at midnight and my convention was over. Monday would be involved in assisting Alastair do some work (painting and repairs) to the house he and partner have just bought, so I would miss the Association AGM and closing speech.

Overall convention rating: 7/10. The problems: poor organisation on Layout Tours Day 1, food delays on Friday (not present on Saturday or Sunday), but having to return home each night and not to a motel to chew the fat is a definite downer.

2010 April 03

After dropping the Japanese student at the airport for the Singapore Airlines flight back home (he had been with us 12 days), Ray P and myself headed back to St Andrews College arriving about 9:15am. I decided to give the first round of clinics a miss as I wanted to catch up on the trade stands, and the only one I would have gone to was Iain Rice with Track Planning – 2, but as I had missed part one yesterday (went to the Desert Scenery clinic) I gave it a miss. Bugger! Reports from all who attended it said it was really good, even if you did not see part 1.

Clinic session 4 saw me at Brent O’Callahan’s layout lighting clinic where he showed the type of lights available to modellers these days. From standard household bulbs to LED lights, but mainly concentrated on fluorescent tubes and bulbs explaining there colour temperatures and codes etc. Very informative.

With the large queues for lunch the previous day, I had bought mine at morning tea time, so there was no queuing for me, but at 12:30 we assembled for the layout tour instructions and here the organisers struck real problems. Instead of printing the maps and layout directions well in advance and then adding the car group to each, Malcolm Cotter was trying to print them all about 12 noon. In the end our layout tour (#3) was divided into five groups and Jill Boull gave each car a list of addresses. Her group started at layout 1 (1,2,3,4,5), ours at layout 2 (2,3,4,5,1) and so on, and away we went. But a couple of groups even faild to follow this simple instruction!!
However some others (on other layout tours) wee not too happy with this cock up!

We had no directions, no times etc, but it worked out pretty well in the end. Our group was myself as driver, Wayne Morris as navigator, Geoff Elmsley (Christchurch, European) and John Paddy (Palmerston North, Marklin tinplate collector). Layout 2 turned out to be Doug Harrison’s UP layout (Bishopdale), and we arrived a tad early – Doug and Paul Hobbs were having their lunch, but soon Doug had the layout running but the Gremlins set in to the DCC system. He later advised that every thing came right as soon as our small group had left!

We then headed to Avonhead to Colin Duthie’s tin plate collection and what a great place. Clockwork and electric trains from a variety of manufacturers. At one point he ran the propeller driven railcar (seen top right in the photo) around the layout. Note that this has two free rolling trucks and can only move under the power of the prop.

Then it was on to Colin Barry’s Sn3½ layout set on the West Coast, but we spent more time in his “other room” talking about railway memorabilia that he collects (at least 30 lamps, dozens of loco plates, wagon plates etc).

Next stop was to Grant Hart’s Hornby Dublo layout and collection. I recognised some of my old Hornby equipment that I had traded in to Christchurch Model Centre in 1978 when I went American. Grant and I later discovered a work connection: he was manager for Armourguard in the 1970s and I knew a few of the guards from my nightshift time in CFM’s (Canterbury Frozen Meat Coy) computer department.

Final stop was in Northwood to see Chris Gunn’s under work layout occupying the walls of a double garage (6.3m width). Union Pacific (and it’s subsidiaries) were present but Chris explained the scenery would cater for either USA, European or British, depending on how he felt, but all the stock on the layout would be one of the three, not mixed. I purchased a couple of brand new Steam Powered Video videos here (Chris was importing them at one time) for $10 each, one on the CP Shuswap Subdivision that we drove beside for many miles in Canada on the road trip from Calgary to Vancouver and back. The Shuswap Sub runs from Revelstoke (east end) down to Kamloops (see the earlier blog http://johnstewartnz.blogspot.com/ on the Canada trip).

We returned to the convention centre to relax with a beer and then dinner, followed by a workshop session with a variety of subjects at the tables. Yesterday it was a laser cutter, today it was a digital cutter that would cut thin styrene. Looked just like a small A4 printer, but it had a cutting blade instead of a print head. Very interesting. However, the dinner session was interesting! The caterers had been told to cater for 90 and after about 30-40 wre served they "ran out of cooked chicken breasts" right at me. We (plus about another 35-40) had to wait for ten minutes for the next lot of chicken to be cooked. Not a major problem, but some were still eating thier meal when the workshops started.

I also spent a bit of time photographing the One Track Mind group’s layout. And then at 9pm it was the American SIG. News from that is the there is a mini-AMRA in October (8th & 9th) at the Glenview Club in Hamilton (site of the 2003 AMRA) and the next full AMRA (2011) in Napier, followed by Palmerston North in 2013. There was a bit of talk with a Dunedin man re them hosting one, possibly in 2015. Kel Sherson spoke about NMRA and the Master Modeller programme, and that Alan Hare (NZ’s 1st MMR) may have his layout in the May Model Railroader. There were also a couple of reports from the NMRA Australasian convention in Sydney last October, one from Paul Hobbs and one from a Sydney guy attending this convention.

Paul Hobbs had told me that Graham Collins (Hutt Valley) is going to Nelson for the PSNZ Convention so I had a chat to him. At least three attending the model railway convention are attending the photographic one (Graham, Ron Willems and myself).

Left to return home about 10pm.

2010 April 02

The first full day of the convention and following the official opening, there was the first session of clinics. I went to Photographing Models which was a basic entry level to model photography with a digital camera, although I felt the advise to use RAW files as your main archive (because they are smaller than TIFF files) was not correct.

After lunch it was keynote speaker, Ian Rice of England. And what a great speaker he was: informative, witty etc. He had images of his layouts (from early to present) including his sojourn to USA and Holland modelling. Then it was workshop sessions and I had a look at Brendon Lean (workmate from Manning Signs) doing figure painting and Graham Absalom explaining and showing his laser cutter.

Then a look at Eric Brooman’s fantastic Utah Belt, through about 150 images sent over to Kel Sherson for this presentation. At the official opening three MDC Utah Belt boxcars were given away as spot prizes. One went to Ray Parmenter (will have to see it running on my layout one day), one to Craig Galilee and one to a third attendee.

Happy hour and dinner followed, and then it was another Ian Rice presentation, this time on Realistic Operation, followed by Craig Galiliee on modelling the Sonora Desert. There were only six attendees at this clinic, but was up against both the NZ Model Railway Guild AGM and another Ian Rice clinic (Layout Planning -1).

Ray and I decided to head off home about 9:30pm.

A lot of North Island American modellers from Paul Hobbs, to Kel Sherson to John Bates were wanting to know what has happened to Brendon and Dave.

2010 April 01

After a busy two days climbing up ladders and in and out of a cherry picker (signwriting duties), I headed out to pick up Ray, and then fellow modeller Roger Bacon and we headed to St Andrews College, venue for the 2010 Model Railway Convention. Getting our registration packs we headed into the layout/trade stand hall where layouts were still being erected. No American layouts in the hall but the three excellent NZR layouts (TALMR, Arauatu, and One Track Mind), plus some other smaller layouts.

It was meet and greet time, catching up with friends from years back (bare in mind that this is my first full convention since the last Christchurch one in 2000). Yrret Yeldarb (Terry Bradley) was there, as was Russel Posselwaight, Wayne Haste (saw him in Wellington a couple of years ago) and many others. Spotted Paul T Hobbs in the distance but have not spoken to him yet.

So it looks like a busy few days, but the difficult decision is what 2 of the 5 layout tours do I go on? Tour (Christchurch north) looks like a starter with Phil Cossar's SP/WP layout. Tour 3 (Avonhead) has Doug Harrison's UP DCC system, Tour 4 (Westmorland) has Robin Scanes unsenicked California layout and Tour 5 (Central) has Stan Agar's L&N. Plus there are some good NZR layouts on these tours.