Last weekend, saw Liralau exhibited for the first time for 2011, at the South Australian Railway Modellers' Association's Railshow 2011, held at The Tea Tree Gully Arts and Recreation Centre, which was a great venue - not only because it is approximately 4 and a half minutes drive from our new home, but it also is a relativley modern venue with floors that are dead flat - fantastic for those of us trying to get their layouts level. This show is one of the best in the state and Iain does a great job keeping us all in order and under control.
Unfortunatley, this show also highlighted that the set up tracks have long passed their use-by date, and will need to be completely rebuilt from scratch prior to the layouts next showing in June at the Adelaide Model Railway Exhibition, at Greyhound Park. Much grief was caused by these now badly warped and twisted set up tracks, which had been a minor problem at home, but caused major problems at the show - perhaps it was a case of one exhibition too many. Drawings are currently being prepared now, if anyone has been here before and can offer any pearls of wisdom, please comment below, as i'd appreciate some ideas.
The good news however is that the 2009/2010 rebuilt sceniced section of the layout performed flawlessly for the whole weekend - with the exception of one failed point motor that was replaced on the evening before the show which caused some trouble on Friday night - this was subsequently traced to a self-tapping screw head used to mount the motor and associated bracket to the underside of the trackbed being about 1/8" too thick and causing the arm fitted to the motor to get caught. Some quick work with the dremel fixed this quite quickly, and we didn't have a problem with it for the rest of the show. I should also take this opportunity to thank Gerry from TimeSaver Layouts for his prompt assistance in getting the replacement point motor in the mail, and having it in time to replace it last Thursday night.
The show was also the first time John Eassie had brought Austrains to Adelaide since 1999, so a third series X class #X47 was aquired - I've been trying to aquire a 3rd series X class in traditional VR Blue and Gold livery for some time, so I was very pleased when I saw one at his stall amongst the QRN liveried units - sadly there were no V/Line or VR units however in the "junk box" on special, but who am I to complain, i've finally got the loco to share haulage of my Overland set with my Traino AN green signle ended 930.
The well documented build of my two car STA 2300 class "Superchook" set came to a close on Saturday, when the pair finally entered service after a 7 month build process. I am extremely happy with them, and am now looking to commence work on assembling the 2500 class trailer to go between the pair. I just need to replace a split gear on the leading axle of the Tenshodo spud.
So, now with 8 metres of set up tracks to assemble, I am going to have my work cut out for me over the next month or so, but this will hopefully make our lives alot easier in the long run.
Keep an eye on this blog for further updates.
Pete
