December 2012 Volume 3, Issue 13 OUR DECEMBER MEETING Wal Pywell hosted our last meeting of 2012 and got a fairly modest turnout of only eleven hardy souls. Excuses for absences were far from convincing and often quite inadequate. Consider our usual scribe, who openly refused to give any excuse for his absence. A survey of members found this to be unacceptable, but no doubt he will come bouncing back oblivious to any of our comments. Consequently, this month’s words are produced by your editor! Announcements Not a great number of announcements other than to say that the Convention committee had selected Kaleen High School as the venue for the 2013 convention. It has all of the facilities that we require and it is also extremely model railroad friendly, hosting as it does a club room for a local model railroading club and related exhibitions (including the successor The Flimsy The Newsletter of Division 2 of the NMRA AR to the NMREG exhibitions). Our leader then pressed members to fill in the empty spaces on the 2013 calendar by hosting meetings, and at last, a complete schedule for 2013 has been created. This schedule has now been distributed to division members and is now on the NMRA web-site (see http:// www.nmra.org.au/region/d2_meetings.html ). The Division Xmas dinner was held on Thursday 6 December at the China Tea Club in North Lyneham and the 13 attendees has a memorable meal with great bonhomie (see pictures later in this issue). Unfortunately, Robert Prideaux had to cancel at the last moment as his wife had been rushed to hospital earlier that day – we certainly accept that as an excuse for non- attendance and on behalf of us all, I’d like to wish Felicity all the best for a speedy and complete recovery. (Continued on page 2) From L to R: Viv Brice, John Gillies, Ken Macleay, Rob Nesbitt, Wal Pywell and Tony Payne
Transcript
December 2012 Volume 3, Issue 13
OUR DECEMBER MEETING
Wal Pywell hosted our last meeting of 2012 and got a fairly modest turnout of only eleven hardy souls. Excuses for absences were far from convincing and often quite inadequate. Consider our usual scribe, who openly refused to give any excuse for his absence. A survey of members found this to be unacceptable, but no doubt he will come bouncing back oblivious to any of our comments. Consequently, this month’s words are
produced by your editor! Announcements Not a great number of announcements other than to say that the Convention committee had selected Kaleen High School as the venue for the 2013 convention. It has all of the facilities that we require and it is also extremely model railroad friendly, hosting as it does a club room for a local model railroading club and related exhibitions (including the successor
The Flimsy The Newsletter of Division 2 of the NMRA AR
to the NMREG exhibitions). Our leader then pressed members to fill in the empty
spaces on the 2013 calendar by hosting meetings, and at last, a complete schedule for 2013 has been created. This schedule has now been distributed to division members and is now on the NMRA web-site (see http://www.nmra.org.au/region/d2_meetings.html).
The Division Xmas dinner was held on Thursday 6 December at the China Tea Club in North Lyneham and the 13 attendees has a memorable meal with great bonhomie (see pictures later in this issue). Unfortunately, Robert Prideaux had to cancel at the last moment as his wife had been rushed to hospital earlier that day – we certainly accept that as an excuse for non-attendance and on behalf of us all, I’d like to wish Felicity all the best for a speedy and complete recovery.
(Continued on page 2)
From L to R: Viv Brice, John Gillies, Ken Macleay, Rob Nesbitt, Wal Pywell and Tony Payne
John Prattis attended as his last Division 2 meeting before wandering off to the nether regions of South Australia for a few years as Julie takes up a new post as a school principal there. He advised that Stephe Jitts has taken over as the Division’s Achievement Program rep. We wished John all the best for his move and looked forward to seeing him again at the convention in September Show & Tell
For the first time in many months, Rob Nesbitt did not produce a locomotive of the month, resting on his laurels with the excuse that he is “waiting for decals” – I guess we’ll accept that since he has produced so many fine models over these past many months.
He did however, bring along some cuttings from his old Model Railroader collection. Having purchased the electronic version of MR, he now has an entire collection of paper magazines of limited further use. So he has cut out and correlated several series of articles into bound booklets; series such as building a locomotive, and building the MR staff layouts. An interesting idea.
John Payne showed off a picture of himself with Tehachapi loop in the background, just to prove his credentials as an genuine rail-fan! As if we didn’t believe him. I have to say that a couple of the other pictures he
showed were very good. John also noted that he’d seen considerable amounts of oil on the tracks at Tehachapi,
(Continued from page 1) and had the picture to prove it (this is getting tiresome, John!). This caused some discussion and was generally thought to be caused by leaks or misdirected output from the flange oilers on the many severe curves in this location. Wal then recalled an article from on old Model Railroader where someone had modelled a flange oiler that in reality was a hidden wheel cleaner – very ingenious (it was the March 1970 issue – what a memory, Wal!).
John then went on to ask for assistance in obtaining plans etc. for the interior of an ATSF dome car, particularly the restaurant area downstairs. John then passed around a Soho-Lambert brass model of the dome car for which he wanted to create a correct
interior. John Prattis suggested writing to the NMRA to see if such a thing existed in the NMRA library.
Once again, Mr Freight Car, John Gillies, showed some new models that he’d purchased, including a Tangent Models PS 4750 cu. ft. covered hopper car, with the impressive detail that we’ve come to expect from Tangent . He also showed a couple of undecorated
(Continued on page 3)
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box cars, an Atlas 1932 AAR and an Intermountain 10’ IH AAR. John pointed out the excellent value of Intermountain's undecorated HO scale freight car kits. See http://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/hokit.htm . In these days of reducing undecorated kit availability, Intermountain has a pretty good selection. Accurail, Atlas (their own and the old Branchline kits), ExactRail and Walthers are the other major manufacturers who still produce some undecorated kits in HO scale. Athearn rarely offers undecorated kits anymore since phasing out the old blue box line.
Viv then showed off a couple of books he’d just purchased. Following his earlier purchase of a duplicate Don Ball book (see the September 2012 issue of The Flimsy), he decided to see what others were available that he did NOT already own, He found two, used but in excellent condition and purchased them both online for a total of $45, including $31 postage. Not bad. He noted that he used ‘Bookfinder’ (http://www.bookfinder.com/), an excellent site for finding new, used, rare and out of print books from many countries.
Finally, our master model shipbuilder, Tony Payne, presented the completed New York tug boat (featured in last month’s Flimsy) to its owner, John Prattis. John thanked Tony and in appreciation for a job well done, he gave Tony ... another boat kit to finish! This is becoming a habit, John. When asked if this was just a way to get out of packing up this part-made kit for his move to SA, John was somewhat tight-lipped! Whatever, it is likely to keep Tony occupied for a while, being both a much
larger boat than the tug and a resin kit vice a wooden one. Happy shipbuilding, Tony. The Main Event
Wal Pywell presented a series of pictures taken on his travels to Western Australia, a series entitled “Are these worth preserving?”. Included were visits to such places as the Pilbara Railway Historical Society, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie and the Pemberton Tramway. His theme was based on seeing some very poorly
(Continued from page 2) maintained items that were not particularly rare.
His pictures included some fascinating pieces of history. At the Pilbara, he snapped the old Western Pacific F7 used in the construction of the iron ore railways there and an odd looking loco that was identified by Rob Nesbitt as an Alco C415, a centre cab switcher of which only 26 were ever built. Further research on various smartphones elicited the fact that this particular loco was the original Alco Demonstrator! Congratulations, Rob, Loco spotter of the Month!
In Kalgoorlie, Wal photographed the Prospector DMU, a very modern looking unit6 built by Alstom
Wal also visited saw a building signposted for the Albany Model Railway Association, met a member just leaving who then took Wal inside and showed him around. Nice to know that model railroading is alive and well in Albany.
Finally, we had a lovely afternoon tea prepared by Gay and then went downstairs to visit Wal’s layout, modelling the Union Pacific. Thanks, Wal and Gay for an very pleasant afternoon.
From L to R: Steve Walker, John Gillies, Gay and Wal Pywell, Sandy and Peter Dinham, Mal Risby, Graeme Hodges I and Yvonne and John Bullen
Graeme’s Tiny scale railway snow scene—brilliant!
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Disclaimer: Any resemblance between characters in this newsletter and real model railroaders is purely intentional but no offence whatever is intended. Only the facts may have been altered to protect the guilty. Every reader has the right of reply and we look forward to publish-ing them!
National Model Railroaders Association Australasian Region—Division 2—ACT
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From the Editor: The final issue for 2012, our 30th Flimsy, and
they said it would never last! To all our contributors, thank you, and a special thanks to our scribe and our roving cameraman, without whom I could never have put this together.
Next year promises to be very interesting with this Division hosting the Region Convention in September. I hope you all realise that there will be plenty of jobs at the convention for all our members, not just the committee.
All that’s now left is for me to wish all of our readers a very happy Christmas and a prosperous and healthy New Year.
