NZ120 happenings

Well, nothing much to report this weekend. I did go along to the local NZ120 groups meeting on Friday night which was rather interesting, could finally put a couple of faces to the names on the NZ120 forum. Was also very interesting to hear about current developments that other people are working on. Spent a couple of hours on Sunday night working on the CAD drawing for my NZ120 scale DA class loco which I intend to CNC etch on brass and solder up. I have already made a prototype long hood for this just to see if it would work, and yup it did! Also designed on paper my baseboard for Branrock.

And here is a picture of the prototype hood - the pen in the background gives an idea of it's size . . .

Here is a scene on the Swanage preserved railway I would especially like to build.

Layout planning - Branrock Sidings, British OO

Well, here we are. This is an idea I've had in my head for some time and having some spare time on my hands, I quickly lashed it up in good old windows paint. I also have several messy hand drawings of this in 3D in my scrap book which I'll see if I can scan em and post up for your pleasure. I have to admit to taking some inspiration from a couple of Chris Nevards layouts, I hope he dosn't mind! The whole layout will measure just 1500x450mm with a fiddle yard at each end. I intend to use the sliding style fiddle yard that runs on drawer runners. My next task is to draw the track plan to scale in Auto Cad. I have the facilitys to print it out full size. Then I will make some mock up buildings and place em on the plan and see how it looks. I have a base board from a previous layout I can modify for this project.

The scenery and structures will be a combination of scratch built and off the shelf bits and bobs.

Wellll, first post hey?

Well I've always wanted to give this blogging thing a lash (after watching my mates girlfriend attempt one on minature ponys and greyhound racing) so I reakon I may as well do one on my main hobby: model railroading.
Now I think I must quickly point out I consider myself a pretty normal sort of chap because this hobby (as has been pointed out elsewhere) gets a bad rap from the great unwashed public. I'm in my late 20s and have a partner (female of course!) and an 8 month old daughter. In my late teens I did the usual young blokes thing - soup up cars, hoon around on dirtbikes, play video games, go out drinking, and chase after girls etc. Gee, I still do most of these things.

 I guess I've always been interested in modelling. I got given a 1/72 scale Kitty Hawke aircraft for my 6th birthday and that was what started the modelling bug. A little while later I was given a trainset and 20 years later I'm still at it.

What I'd like to do here in this blog is to chronicle my two main railroading interests: British OO scale and NZ120 scales. I also have an interest in the Norfolk and Western railway in the states.
I have always been impressed by the quality of the layouts as seen in the likes of British Model Railway Journal and Hornby Magazine etc. I intend to build a small portable, high quality british layout which I would hopefully like to exhibit eventually. This layout will be about atmosphere and quality of scenery. The locos and rolling stock will be off the shelf items due to the high quality we now see from the likes of Hornby, Dapol, and Bachman.
On the other hand, NZ120 satisfies the scratch builder in me. I have an idea for an NZ120 layout I would eventually like to build, but for the time being I will just post up progress on my locos and rolling stock I am building (or intend to build).

I live a fairly busy life and have other interests aside from railways so I will post as time permits.