More projects for the backlog...

Here are some quick pictures of the various bargains I picked up at the NMRA convention a couple of weeks ago.  The bring-and-buy section proved to be a good source of baket cases, including this pair of engines I picked up:



Both are badly glue damaged, but provided I can get hold of some cab glazing for the Dash 9 it should be salvageable.  The SD60 is literally dripping with cement on the walkways, so it'll be interesting to see how that rebuild goes!

I also picked up several new cars:

A set of Athearn Maxi Well's and containers, plus another Walthers Autorack and three Walthers tank cars.

I also picked up a Walthers Ford LTD auto transporter with a load of Ford Mustangs, and a selection of Athearn/Atlas trucks and trailers to add to my intermodal train.

So the backlog continues to grow, with something like twenty locomotives now waiting for a turn on the bench!   It's going to be a busy winter working on all of these engines.

NMRA Annual Convention 2011

This weekend I headed down to Bournemouth to attend the 2011 Annual NMRA UK Convention.

This year it was organised by Seaboard Southern, the group I belong to, and held in the Carrington Hotel, an excellent venue located close to the town centre and railway station.

There were a variety of clinics and traders, as well as a selection of superb layouts.  These views of the main exhibition hall in the downstairs ballroom show how many different groups were attending:

There was some excellent modelling on display including:



Snake River Bend N-Trak modular club layout.

Don MacDougall's excellent Norton & Northern S-Scale switching layout.

Wolf Creek HO Scale

Hoxie Harbour HO Scale

Poole N Trak - N Scale Modular Layout

RS Tower HO Modular

Bearwood HO Modular

Thorn Tree Flats - HO Scale

On the Saturday there was a very popular bring-and-buy section, which proved a goldmine of cheap 'project' locomotives and cars.  I picked up a couple of very keenly priced engines to add to my ever-growing backlog of projects.

The bustling bring-and-buy secondhand area.

The annual raffle competition was held on the Saturday evening, with a selection of fantastic prizes including a brand-new Genesis U50 locomotive.  I was lucky enough to have one of the early tickets and I picked up a Genesis SD45-2 in Bicentennial livery.

The raffle Prizes:

The Athearn SD45-2 I won in the raffle:

I also entered my Norfolk Southern patched GP38-2 in the modelling competition and I was very pleasantly surprised when I was awarded first place in the diesel category.   The time spent working on the engine paid off, and I am definitely going to work on an entry for next year.

Here is my locomotive on the judging table:

And here are some of the other entries in the various categories:

So all in all it was a very enjoyable convention, I met many friendly and welcoming members of the NMRA community and of course I was especially pleased to win both a prize for my modelling and a prize in the raffle.

I'm already looking forward to next year!

Update on NS patched Conrail GP38-2 project.

I managed to find some time to work on my GP38-2 project this week, adding the rest of the decals and some weathering to the shell. 

I applied the decals before weathering, thinking that would give a more realistic appearance, but it turned out that I should definitely have done things the other way around.  Some of the drybrushing has clung to the white conrail logos and numberboards, so I will need to re-apply some of the decals to fix.

I was originally hoping to have this engine done in time for the NMRA convention in Bournemouth next weekend, but with work being so busy, it's not looking likely that I will have it finished.  Hopefully I will find some time this week to work on the remaining details.