New England Convention

I would like to thank the organisers and members of the New England Model Railway Club, the presenters, the clinic presenters and any other helpers for a very enjoyable weekend. This was the first time that I have been able to get to the convention as work always interfered previously.

I spent the weekend talking, talking and talking with old friends, new ones and managing to put faces to names, such as fellow bloggers. Due to the socialising I only managed to get to one presentation and found it very interesting.

The layouts being shown were of a high standard and the commercial representation was good, too good, my bank balance is certainly lower.

Here are a few photos of Bullenbung Creek, the other two layouts were very nicely detailed and sceniced On30, one Australian themed (sorry I can't remember the name) and the other was the Charging Moose US Oregon style of Geoff Nott and John Montgomary. I didn't take a tripod and due to the nature of the scenery on the layouts I was only able to take photos of Bullenbung Creek as it was flat and I do time exposures. I was allowed to place my camera on the roads near the front of the layout. I also took a couple of videos using a small video camera of the sports variety which doesn't have a screen. Unfortunately all I got was a black screen with sound. The video camera wouldn't work until I deleted both files, I have no idea what happened and I was looking forward to seeing the videos.

Attendees were asked to bring along a model to show so I took a NSWGR Distant Signal, more on that in a later post. The models ranged across scales and prototypes but were invariably of a high standard.

Throughout the weekend there were many lucky door prize draws based on your registration number, the prizes being donated by various commercial interests, those in attendance and some that were not present.

The dinner on the Saturday night was excellent both the company around the table and the food. The after dinner speaker (Ian White I believe) was incredibly funny as he described the trials and tribulations of building his own 2 foot gauge railway on a country property.

Chris and I arrived home from the convention yesterday afternoon after staging our trip south over three days. As some may know Chris has back issues and we need to stop very hour or two so that she can get out and move around to loosen up. So we left the convention on Sunday afternoon, drove around Armidale and then down to Tamworth for an overnight stay.

On Monday we stopped in at Werris Creek so that I could investigate the 1972 station building colours and take more photos and dimensions of the refreshment room building. I will give an update on the blog soon. This done we again headed south to Singleton.

On Tuesday morning we drove into Maitland and surprised Chris' 93 year old mother and her sister who go there to have a coffee. After lunch we set off home.

We will certainly be going to the next convention, all in all, a great five days away.