The Canberra branch

Chris made the mistake sometime back of allowing other weirdos enthusiasts to post to his blog. I expect this to be fixed very shortly but till then... This permission includes Canberra-based Marklin HO enthusiasts trying to return to their childhood by resurrecting (and over-ebaying) an old, large, analogue collection of bits and pieces. It might even stretch to a house renovation that includes a 60sqm basement and planning approval from the family for a model railway there (shared with the snooker table, table-tennis table and sundry games). That story will have to wait for another day, and perhaps a separate blog. Actually, I can point house-renovation enthusiasts to our (hibernating) renovation blog.

For now though, readers of the Mendes blog may be interested to know of two major model railway exhibitions that are held just down the road, in Canberra. One is held at Malkara Special School the first weekend of August. The other is the Canberra Model Railway Club's annual Expo, held around the end of March. This year is it's 25th anniversary. Both attract modellers and vendors from across the eastern seaboard. Having lived in Canberra for twenty years, I've been to nearly a dozen of the Malkara shows, but missed every one of the CMRCI shows. Not this year. This year, with a herculean effort, I made it to the last twenty five minutes of a two-day extravaganza! (Next year, must do better.)

First impressions. It's big. The information guide stretches to nearly forty pages. There are about twenty-five+ layouts of every level of maturity and scale (N to O, plus Lego), plus about thirty vendors. Secondly, it's railways and nothing else. Malkara includes a small number of RC cars and some extremely impressive RC boats and RC submarines, as well as doll houses and other modellers. Thirdly, don't get there late on the last day. The packing up starts an hour before the end. You can do the maths...

Photos, photos, photos...

Bathley Creek is a cool 3-bay layout with some gorgeous visual and auditory features. Kept folks amused for ages.

Crestwood is the CMRCI club layout for general tinkering, and an eclectic mix of locos and rolling stocks (whoever rocks up with stuff can run on it)

Many of their buildings are scratch builds, factories came more from kits.

Then there was Arakoola, an O-scale layout. Needed a bit of space...

For those interested, there's an O-Scale Modellers forum on the 6th of April in Sydney.

Stuuuuufffffff...... so much stuff...... One of about thirty vendors.

The dirty secret behind every layout - but you can't hide in this hall.

These guys were selling neon lighting - the photo doesn't do it any justice.

I loved the welder in the shed at front. The blue led would flicker a while, then go off, replaced with a nice orange glow led. It's the details...

This layout is an amazing N-scale replica of Central. Everything here is scratch built including all the cars, trucks, trams and buses. The photo does not do it credit. It took over six years to build, following four years of surveying and measuring... everything.

Anybody recognise the location above? The building at the top right is a hint. It's Sydney Central, around 1876. Actually, the notes say Redfern, though I'm a little lost as to how the old mortuary station is on that side then. Did the tracks change that much? For the trivia buffs, there was a second mortuary station, same design, out at Rookwood Cemetery. It got taken brick by brick to Canberra, and with some minor changes became the All Saints church in Ainslie. 

Enough of the Australian nostalgia. I didn't know it, but I wanted a brightly-lit faux-Japanese layout, and I found one! Lots of bright leds, as you'd expect.

Nakele Junction is a really cool idea. The CMRCI has partnered with the hosting high school to offer an extra-curricular (but during class-time!) activity on model-railway construction. So all of this layout has been done by year 7-10 students.

How little space you need for a layout, if you have a vivid imagination...

Ok, and here come the CLUG - not the Canberra Linux Users Group, but the Canberra Lego Users Group. Sadly they had already taken down about a third when I arrived. But - fear not - they have an annual show around the second weekend of August (Hellenic Club, Woden) where they set up their full layout. Tickets are only sold online. Last year they sold out, over 10,000 tickets. Get in quick. Note the beautiful bridgework, and the funicular monorail.

And finally for the N-scale enthusiasts, below is the layout of the Canberra Monaro N-scale group. One of the joys of N-scale is what you can fit in a small space - that turntable and shed is just amazing. However, when talking to these guys, don't mention HO scale. Religion doesn't even begin to describe it...

Thank you for reading this far. Now we'll see whether Chris will exercise his editorial powers and kick me off, and whether Chris paid for the storage quota for all the photos...

Cheers,
Markus