Model railway exhibition (New Zealand)

[Mayner]

In this part of the world Labour Holiday (last) weekend tends to be an important one for railway enthusiasts both model and full size with model railway exhibitions and main line steam running.

The local clubs exhibition was the first large exhibition I visited in nearly 3 years, the larger layouts were mainly New Zealand and American outline, British and Continental mainly smaller layouts, the main objective was to buy some Kadee couplers and a trip pin adjusting pliers!

The showpiece of the exhibition was the Hamilton Model Railroaders 9mm scale (O gauge track) Hamilton and Claudelands layout a model of the East Coast Main Trunk Line through the city and the Waikato River bridge before the railway was rebuilt to run through a tunnel under the city center and across a new Waikato Bridge.

Victoria Street (main street) crossing and Hamilton Station.  The railway was diverted to run through a tunnel through the goods yard area to eliminate the crossing. The site is now occupied by a large shopping center and office block, the 1930s brick building and one of the palm trees survived until recently. The Milk Bar is now an amusement arcade where young people 'hang out"

The Train is probably the Rotorua Express one of NZR principal passenger trains hauled by a K Class 4-8-4 on account of the Rotorua Branch lines steep grades.

These days the line through the city center tunnel is busier than ever but only carries freight.

The loco depot with a J 4-8-2 and K 4-8-4 and a tank loco, these models are likely to be scratch or kit builds no one produces 9mm NZR rtr.

Claudelands Bridge. Crossing the Waikato into my part of town the bridge was fabricated from 3D printed parts. The General Motors G12 and G8 export models were the mainstay of North Island main and branch line services from the late 50s until the much larger General Electric DX Class were introduced during the mid-1970s.

The railway was diverted to run across a new pre-stressed concrete bridge alongside the existing line and the original railway bridge converted to carry road traffic. For a long time the footbridge alongside the railway bridge and local passenger trains was the main access from Claudlands and some eastern suburbs into the city center.

Claudelands Station. A typical NZR small station with standard wooden building, single platform, running loop and yard layout.

The 'silver coaches" is a model of the "Silver Star Express" a short lived 1970s luxury sleeper train that operated an overnight Auckland-Wellington services.

The train was re-gauged from 3'6" to meter gauge and now operates as the Eastern and Oriental Express in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

The "silver coaches" and some of the locos and stock used on the layout are 3D printed using FDM technology which provides an acceptable finish in the larger scales

 TT 1:120 Scale.   1:120 using N gauge track and loco/rolling stock chassis is an established scale for modelling 3'6" gauge and provides a spacious effect and long trains to be run in a relatively small space.

The model appears to be a large industrial site in the post 2000 era. Locos and stock appear to be assembled from locally manufactured kits, one of the interesting features was that some of the locos were fitted with sound including a distinctive English Electric engine sound from one of the locos.

Metroland?

This layout always brings back fond memories of living in London during the 80s with the nicely modelled LT infrastructure and the Metroland architecture though it was long past the era of red Tube & Surface trains and steam on the Met.

 

 

[murphaph]

Those 4-8-4s are very impressive.

[chris]

Considered going to this, this year but 3-3.5 hours each way from New Pymouth it's just a little too much to ask. Looks like it was a good day out for you anyway