Page 7 - January February 2000

Trials & Tribulations of Exhibiting Dave Carson
Sudbury MRC Exhibition 2 Oct. ’99
In October 1999 we moved from a 2 bed- room house to a brand new 3 bed (or rather 2 bed and railway/office) house. Be- fore moving I decided the safest thing to do with the layout was pack it in the car boot for a few days - I couldn’t trust model railway layouts to removal men!
Whilst “SP/Frisco Transfer” lay in the car boot, temperatures dropped each night, and the day after we moved I attended an exhibition in Sudbury. I set up the layout and nothing happened!
Well, help came with advice on track and wheel cleaning. This included using a Peco track rubber (banned from my layouts), and engineer’s stone, and spraying the track with a liquid cleaner of dubious origins. More harm than good was done.
I cleaned the grime and sludge off the rails with a cloth and an hour before the end of the show I got the Spectrum 44 tonner to do some switching. The Suffolk town of Sudbury was noted for witchcraft several centuries ago, and the “Sudbury Curse”, which gave grief to “East Mission Street Yard” some years, ago haunted me again.
The only constructive advice that day came from somebody who had recently moved home. He told me to leave the layout in a centrally heated room with all the stock out of the boxes for a few days, to get every- thing to dry out and resume ambient tem- perature. It worked!
2) South West Herts. MRS Exhibition - 6 Nov. ’99
A small informal exhibition set in a church hall on the outskirts of Potters Bar. A fairly uneventful show except the mayor (com- plete with chain of office) formally opened the exhibition, only to return a few hours later, minus the chain but wearing a club T- shirt to help his fellow members!
3) Southend Festival of Model Railways & Hobbies 27/27 Nov. ’99
This is one of the biggest shows in Essex. Run by Shoeburyness MRC in association with Southend Borough Council , who sup- ply their Cliffs Pavilion as the venue. There were 3 American layouts: River mountain in G scale, 45mm gauge exhibit from Alan Fletcher, my SP/Frisco Transfer, and a mod- ule from the Ilford & West Essex MRC’s new HO American Shaffens Crossing, a typical logging railroad and eventually a main line with the capacity to run scale length trains. BR (ED) member Alan Waredraper ‘cap- tained’ this operating module throughout the weekend. In the foyer was ED rep. Mike Arnold with some Southend MRC members (some recently ‘worked on’ or converted to American outline) showing American videos and demonstrating US loco kit building.
SP/Frisco Transfer will be at Ongar & District MRC (Great Stoney School, Ongar) 19th Feb; Tonbridge & District MRC (TBA) 26th Feb.; Norwich Railway Heritage, (Blyth-Jex School, Constitution Hill, Norwich) 25th March; Welding Institute MRC, Cambridge (TBA), 2nd Dec.
UNCOUPLED CARS
From Our Florida Correspondent - Bob Warren
“In reading over your Georgia travels you mentioned something about their building a railfan ‘platform’ at Folkston. I now understand that this is actually happening. Couldn’t happen in a nicer spot. I guess some of the railroads are learning that they can control the railfan by providing a specific location for them such as the Pennsy did for years at the Horseshoe Curve.
Now even the Union Pacific is getting into the act by building a railfan platform at the North Platt, Nebraska yards (hey, another location to visit that would also include the two narrow gage railroads in Colorado, etc., etc.).
The item regarding the cleaning of airbrushes brings to mind the approach that I use. I’ve got a wide mouth jar which I keep filled with lacquer thinner. To hold the air brush parts I made up a basket out of what we call ‘hardware cloth’ which is simply a wire mesh with openings of approximately quarter of an inch. Thus any suitable metal screening would work. Just make sure the diameter of the basket will fit in the jar and don’t forget a bottom. After making the cylindrical portion of the basket I cut a circular piece of the hardware cloth and force fitted in to the basket. Works great as there is no strain whatsoever on the basket. After disassembling the airbrush I dump all the parts in the basket and slosh the parts up and down and then rinse with new thinner, squirting same over the parts and into the clean up jar. I had the opportunity in September while visiting another B&M fanatic to try out his Aztek air brush. You might remember this is the one that was written up in MR around the first of the year. Well, after that sample tryout guess who owns one now. It’s the lightest and easiest air brush I’ve come across allowing for the fact that I own a number of single and a double action Paasche brush and used them for years. The beauty of the Aztek is that you are only dealing with two items that come in contact with the paint. The ‘jar’ and the nozzle, both of which are made of a plastic that’s impervious to the solvents we use.
BEANERY
FOR SALE:
Model Railroader 1973/74/75/76/77 bound with covers in MR official binding, all in fine condition. Price per volume £12.50 plus postage. (Credit cards welcome).
Contact D. Newband 01686 670205 or e-mail davidnewband@ukgateway.net
WANTED:
N scale DRGW equipment, 2nd genera- tion e.g. GP40, also Atlas USRA 2-8-8-2.
Books wanted: “Rio Grande Diesels” (Vol. 1 & 2), and “Rio Grande Through the Rockies” (Hill).
Contact Ken Jones on 01869-243899
WANTED:
Modeller wants H.O. UP freight cars, brass Big Boy and Challenger, other brass locos, era 1955-65 approx.
Contact phone/fax 01245 223434
ADVERTISING IN ROUNDHOUSE:
Please send “BEANERY” (private sales, exchanges and wants) adverts. to the Editor. Insertions are free of charge though it is traditional to donate a small percentage of receipts from successful sales (particularly those involving larger sums) to the Region.
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Firstly, a correction to the new Directory...
The photos of the BOD were shown without name captions. An indignant Tom Winlow assured me the names had been present when the material went to the printer. “It wasn’t me, guvnor’, it woz the computer wot done it!” Perhaps the printer thought that, like the heads on Mount Rushmore, they were too famous to require identification. So, from left to right, we have Paul Atkinson, Past President; Geoff Meek, Vice President; Mike Spray, President; Steve Park, Trustee/Secretary; Len Firth, Treasurer.
FEBRUARY 2000 7