I have returned to eBay. It seems like a good idea to keep a constant trickle going rather than wait until it’s time to panic again. Only a few minor things for the moment but closer to Christmas. the big stuff will start. Those 1/25 EMEK sales are a taster.
Well, I say minor, but…
It’s hard, now, to believe that I spent so long getting such tiny things so detailed. Especially since no bugger but me ever saw them. Water tank? Well, I’ll need rusty, swollen seams and flaky paint… But then I was never much interested in the ready-made scenery. I’d rather have no scenery at all. Even the trees I made myself – okay, they didn’t look anywhere near as good as the shop-bought ones, but they meant much more. There was a bit of me in every one. There was no soul in the readymades.
Sure, the Hornby ready-made buildings were really very good but when it came to time to sell, I found I didn’t care about them at all. I didn’t build them. I didn’t paint them. I just took them out of their boxes and plonked them into place. That’s not modelling, that’s collecting.
I’m now looking at those American engines I collected. They’re very nice but my plan is simple. A loop of N gauge around the outside of the attic, with one, maybe two passing loops and no other pointwork. Just so I can run some proper long trains. A rake of coaches, at least ten. Most of those HAA hoppers, I might sell some. A mixed goods. A few of the engines I can’t bear to part with. All the rest goes. Few of the American ones figure in this plan, other than the utterly black one that looks like it should be driven by a Bond villain.
Inside that, OO gauge with proper complexity and shunting and if I can do it, a loop running inside the N gauge loop all the way around. I can still work in OO scale, I am not yet old enough to have to move to O scale (but I am keeping some of those G scale model trucks because one day…)
Eight more years until my previous-work pension kicks in with a lump sum to start off. The State pension, forget it, they are moving it away faster than I can age but that work pension is all planned out. The lump sum is for 1) clear debts, 2) buy whisky, 3) buy railway stuff.
I have no debts beyond the mortgage, no loans or credit, so parts 2 and 3 will kick in quickly. Okay, I’m permanently skint, but I owe nowt.
There is a solar-powered train here, which does work but is lacking in sunshine. There is another that doesn’t work yet but it is fighting Leg-iron bloody-mindedness and will lose.
It’s surprisingly relaxing to send a coal train off at scale speed and then be surprised, five minutes later, when it rolls back into town. It is not at all relaxing to have to put the swine back on the rails when there are 27 of them.
So, with no risky derailment options, N gauge will work but it’s also relaxing to shunt a mixed goods together.
These days I have to do that in a bigger scale.
OT, but
http://markwadsworth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/its-not-true-until-they-deny-it.html
A number of parks in a town are to be declared “designated smokefree sites”.
Those supporting it don’t realise that these parks will be booze-free soon (and yes, that does include the picnic bottle of wine), also burger-free and then eating-free, and eventually child-free.
Then they’ll be declared ‘nature reserves’ and nobody at all can go there.
Whilst visiting the barbers yesterday I took a look in Harburn Models (http://www.harburnhobbies.co.uk/) and there was a very tiny train skooting around a simple track. It was “00″ apparently. When I say a look in I mean through the window not actually going in and looking and talking and such like.
Interesting news about the plain green packets for Australian cigarettes. It had to be green obviously. Probably the packets will now open on the left only. What next? Think of the daftest possible possibility and it’ll still be saner that what they’ll do next.
What a world.
N gauge is a lot smaller than OO. If you think OO was tiny, you can imagine why ageing eyes can’t cope with N any more!
It’s best to keep mad ideas quiet when antismokers are around. Nothing is too stupid or too insane for them.
Rail geek and first time commenter reporting for duty sir, love the models, I really, really wish I had modeling skills. I tried to build a model railway when I was fifteen but being A. useless and B. a dreamy sod who could construct intricate and fascinating stuff in his head but nowhere else I failed dismally, I’ve had the good sense and, to be honest, the lack of room, not to try again. A friend is a quite brilliant modeler who actually manages to make a living out of it, he once built a Highland Railway signalbox with cladding that he couldn’t get right, until he hit on the idea of using dried grass stalks from the garden to make scale beading, how about that for attention to detail ?
I like your priorities for spending the lump sum, although my tipple of choice would be vodka.
We modellers are all, basically, nuts. I have paintbrushes trimmed down to a single hair for detailing in N gauge. I’ve also built model boats where the rigging goes through tiny pulleys and is tied off at the belay pins, not glued in place. The brass wire that comes wrapped around some wine bottles makes good brake piping for 1/24th scale and it’s what I plan to use to fit mirrors to an N gauge Lambretta (my test model to see if I dare risk the engine kit). Nothing is safe…
Lovely work on that water tower Leggers. My work was all military, and we used to vie with each other to make everything look as battered and filthy as possible. When we exhibited at events with railway modellers, it always looked as though they were vying with each other to make everything look as pristine as possible. It was sort of like a HO scale Disneyland…
I’ve noticed that most railway models are squeaky clean. Yet the real thing is covered in crap. The trouble is, the cost of those engines makes it difficult to dare wrecking them with bad weathering. Still the trackside stuff should all be filthy, not in neat, clean piles of junk.
I quite like OO9 as you get a decent scale but can work in a limited area and still get a decent run. I still have a collection of locomotives and rolling stock I built about twenty years ago and keep meaning to build somewhere to run them. In the meantime, i confine myself to 54mm military modelling – even less space required.
I think I still have some military models around the place, safely boxed away. Inclucing ‘Leopold’, a railgun in 1/72 scale.
Always planned to fit that with wheels that would run on OO. It’s true-scale so it would fit, as it is, on EM, but I’m not yet mad enough to build every piece of track from scratch.