Big box of A-Line goodies

I picked up this job lot of A-Line kits on ebay on the spur of the moment.  The description made it sound like there were fewer kits than there turned out to be so it was a bit of a bonus when the box turned up in the post crammed with packets.  These kits are all long out of production and are the same models that were later released by Athearn under the RTR brand.

These kits are a mixture of intermodal equipment, and they are all labelled for 'Victors' the old model shop in Pentonville Road - a long lost store that was a treasure trove of US outline models in London.

The kits include:

 A trio of 48' Gunderson Well cars, complete with trucks and wheels.   

A pair of Gunderson 56' Well cars with USPS containers (no trucks included)

An 89' flat car with trucks.

A 53' semi truck reefer trailer.

Four 40' USPS parcel trailers.

I will most likely put some of these kits back onto ebay as I already have two five car sets of A-Line well cars on the workbench and I can't really justify adding five more!

The 89' flat car will make a good project and the 40' parcel trailers were the main reason I bought the lot as they will be useful for my spine car set.  So they will probably stay in the 'to do' pile :)

The modules go back together at last.

This week the club space was a hive of activity as the modules were re-configured and tested ahead of our next running session.  I had attached the new feet to my module just in time for it to be added to the loop.

I also spent some time drilling holes and 'planting' the latest batch of trees from ebay.  I'm using the medium green Chinese trees that are sold by everestmodel direct from asia.  They are pretty good as filler trees and work out less than 50p each which makes them ideal for filling out scenes.

The new boards are coming along nicely, with the paper mill and grain industry spurs laid and partly ballasted.  The roads are marked and a couple of model trucks show where they will be.

There are still nine weeks until our show and the boards will continue to be worked on until then.  We should have space to fit as many boards as are ready by then.

Four foot freemo

After the Crawley exhibition the club standard for module feet has been changed from inset bolts to an offset screw foot.  I bought four and spent a few minutes attaching them last night.  The modules were due to be reconfigured so we can have running nights again which meant I needed to fix the new feet beforehand.

The old feet were bolts attached into plates at the base of each leg, and these were difficult to adjust and also had a habit of jumping on their threads while being adjusted.

The new feet are much easier to adjust and because they have built-in foot-pads they should give a much more stable support which is less likely to damage the flooring at exhibition venues.

Random modelling supplies... buying in bulk.

I picked up this huge lot of secondhand evergreen styrene and DPM parts on ebay, loads of useful plasticard and detail parts including a few sets of Walthers passenger car trucks, some microsol and enough DPM pieces to make four small warehouse buildings.

I've been bidding on a few job lots recently as it's probably the most economic way to pick up models and parts, especially if there are parts of the job-lot that can be sold on individually.

The DPM parts will most likely be used on my next freemo module for the club layout as they would fill out an industrial area nicely and the lot included some Kibri cobblestones with embedded rail line which would be perfect for an overgrown streetcar line or disused industrial spur.

Rush Hour in HO Scale - a load of secondhand 1:87 vehicles for the modules

I picked up a couple of lots of HO scale vehicles on ebay over the past couple of weeks, and I now have a selection of different cars and commercial vehicles suitable for any era from the 50's to present day.

These were bulk lots and they included a few random matchbox toys and other non-scale vehicles which I have already discarded, the joys of purchasing job lots :)

 A pair of Busch GMC 'fishbowl' New York buses.  One of them is faded and missing the aircon unit.

Three Ford C trucks - Dawson Lager tractor/trailer and a couple of short wheelbase units.

 A couple of Classic Metal Works International R-190 trucks.

 An Athearn Ford F850 stock truck in New York Central livery.

 

A Busch La France articulated fire ladder truck. 

 Three squad cars, each from a different decade.

 A classic ConCor U-Haul truck and a Boley GMC Topkick wrecker.

 More Busch, including a couple of fifties classics and an airport taxi.

 

 A pair of Promotex Mack CH603 tractors

 A Boley International dump truck.

A Boley International refrigerated box truck.

These vehicles should cover most of what I need for my freemo modules, and because they were so cheap I can safely use them at exhibitions without worrying too much about them getting lost or broken.

It's incredible how much these models cost new, the Busch models are especially expensive with new ones listed at over £20 on the Walther website.  Because I bought in bulk these cars only cost me an average of £2.50 each which is a big saving (or a massive depreciation depending on your point of view!).

I'd still like a few more sedans and regular cars to bulk out the streets, and I'm particularly keen to get some of the civilian version of the Atlas 'Automotive Masterpiece' Ford Custom sedan and the Mini Metals Impalas - especially the Taxi version.

I'll be keeping an eye on ebay for more bargain lots.  You should do the same if you fancy adding some cheap traffic to your HO layout or module.

Proto 2000 50' Single Door Boxcar Kits

I picked up another couple of boxcars for Godinez, these are Proto 2000 50ft single door boxcars in kit form, the original Life Like release from around ten years ago.  

These cars are available in the Walthers Proto range as assembled models for around £22 but I picked up these kits for less than £6 each on ebay.

These are the first Proto boxcar kits I've bought, but they are every bit as detailed as the Proto locomotives and include lots of detail parts and come complete with knuckle couplers and metal wheels.

I'm planning to paint over the roadnames and decal these models for 'The Rock' with the expectation that the weathering will cover any differences in the paint colour becasue matching the exact shade of brown on these cars will be tricky.

Crawley Exhibition 2013

The first official outing for our club modules was this years Crawley MRS held a couple of weeks ago at Tanbridge House school in Horsham.

The weekend was a bit wet and windy, but there was still a good turn out for the show, especially on the Saturday, with plenty of families in attendance alongside the regular hardcore modellers.

I put some extra time into my module to get the buildings completed and painted, I was able to finish the glazing and roofs on all of them, but the signage and interior detailing will need to be completed later.

The other club members pulled out all the stops to get the connecting boards and the yard completed in time, and we had a full circuit of boards with scenery that included my town and Pete's swing bridge.

I was able to run some of my stock, including my new Genesis GP38-2 and a host of Norfolk Southern locos including my Kato GE set and the SD80MACs.

There were plenty of great layouts and exhibits to see and I've added a few photographs of them below: