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Since this is a blog….
On Sunday we (Amber the kids and I) went too the Model Railway thingy down the road. It was quite a lot bigger since last time I’d been (probably when I was a kid). 13 running railroads I think, from the size of a brief case to probably the length of my garage.
The standard was a bit mixed. It was fairly obvious that some of the exhibits reflected their owners love of trains rather than models which is more inline with my interest. One called the stamping ground ( a gold and quartz mine) was incredibly professional looking. see here at Timaru It was awesome and very popular but what was really good was that it all looked like it fitted together. There was one called Arauatu herewhich was quite large and incredibly detailed (apparently sn3.5 guage) The scenary was nicely done. Some of the buildings were essentially card with that printed paper on it which looked better than I thought it would but the lack of texture really let it down a bit. They also had really nicely done flax bushes made out of fake christmas tree like material but all with squared ends. I realise it would have take a long time to do (there were a lot of flax bushes) but pointing those leaves would have really made it look so much better. The other thing I noticed with a number of them was the water. They looked like a bit of paint with some resin poured on top and tadda. No movement in the water which makes it look, well not like water and crystal clear through to the paint which also kinda looks a bit fake. Pity. Then there were the ones who just splashed out on expensive plastic kits and essentially dinkies. Looked more like my kids bedroom/toy railroad than a model railroad. Disappointing especially when you consider how much money was invested.
The Lego set was pretty amazing probably the size of my garage and 20? trains running on it. I don’t know heaps anyway and lots of lego buildings. Certainly impressive collection.
There were a number of resellers. Was tempted to buy flocking and what not which was reasonably cheap but in the end I didn’t.
There was a Band of Brothers one which was essentially a railroad with a bunch of plastic (armymen plastic) tanks. Some nice 15mm landing craft and beautiful diecast I think fortress and super fortress suspended above with a bunch of other aircraft of various scales. Quite amateurish but got me thinking. Very keen to make my own now just trying to work out the scale that could nicely complement flames of war. I think that 3mm/TT gauge as that is actually 1/100. HO is to big, N is too small. Ah well enthusiasm will probably dry up in a few days and I’ll forget about it but certainly was keen to give it a crack. Build something like this miniatur-wunderland