Canberra Model Railway Expo

Well, after getting lost on the way and pulling up in the car park to realise I had my camera case but not my actual camera, we were off to Canberra Model Railway Expo at Kaleen high for the first time in my experience in Canberra. Without camera and with children a little antsier than usual, was it worth it?
Yes:
1) My Daughter now has another present for her birthday and she finally has a Hornby Thomas to go with her Bachmman Percy.
2) I found out about Micro Engineering bridge track for N-Scale, explained a bit here: Micro Engineering bridge track for N-Scale This will get the Christmas round the tree project back on track :-) Hand laying options in N scale were scarce and the possibility of guardrail made it even more difficult. Thanks to the nice folk on stand 27 "South Bend and Hilltop Railway" who were happy to answer my query about the track they had on their bridges that I was happy to find was "ready made" rather than requiring any hand laying type complexity. In addition the folk on the stand pointed me towards a vendor who, "Didn't have any here at the show but we have had it and we can get it in for you, here's our card.." I will report my retail success when that journey is complete. Anyway, some photos...

Non-train modelling

Well, in order to keep this blog afloat (boom boom), I choose to come in for a quick update on the most recent modelling project: a 1:1200 Titanic by Revell. Apparently it is one of the top ten tackiest ways to remember the disaster and looking at some of the things sold as aquarium toys, yes they are tacky, but I wanted a Titanic in my aquarium. As someone with some interest on the topic, I wanted it to be a more true representation of the ship that was, the question was though: do I do the wreck or the boat? If you model the wreck, how far do you go? Thousands of rusticles, crumpled decks, missing funnels, split in two, debris field.... and so it goes? Or just gently sink the ship whole as many thought she was until 1985 when she was found by Dr Bob Ballard. So the model has been painted as she was when afloat but the lifeboats have been tactfully removed or left off. And here are some photos, getting better with the camera, sort of, but close ups are tricky still and yes, now she has been glued together, some paint touching up will occur before she takes that last fateful journey...