December 31, 2013

Recent visitors & To rest

I have been honored to have a few more visitors to Glenburn lately including Jonathan Milne from Canada:

John is one of, if not the most gifted modellers of the Victorian urban scene. I only became aware of his work when he reached out a few years ago regards Glenburn as he had grown up in the area and recognised it. John was a commercial artist working mostly in card for his career and his capabilities to work the medium are borderline unbelievable. It was great then to have the chance to meet him and catch up on urban modelling matters when he was in Sydney just before Christmas. Coincidentally an article on John's current layout "Moorabool Street" is in the current Australian Railway Modelling Magazine:
http://australianmodelrailwaymagazine.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/december-2013-amrm-nearly-here.html
If you do not have it, and are interested in either Australian urban modelling, or just sensational modelling, I recommend the article.

 
During December Iain Stuart, Peter Ennis and I again caught up for the 3rd (or is it 4th?) meeting of the like minded VR modellers in Sydney. Keeping with tradition Iain brought his newly acquired Auscision 280hp Walker which ran beautifully smoothly straight out of the box around the layout and provided a sight perhaps of Glenburn in a later time (above). Peter brought his Trainbuilder H220 similarly for it's first run and I was quite looking forward to a shot of it with a suitable load strung out on Glenburn bank. It was not to be, suffering a catastrophic valve gear failure within just a couple of feet of its' start. A sad moment indeed for us all and hopefully next time we reconvene Trainbuilder will have repaired/replaced it and we can give this another go.
 
Ok, Phew - Nearly six years of building, approx.40 sq. ft of scenery, 65 pieces of either scratchbuilt or kitbuilt rolling stock, 98 layout posts, 50 rolling stock posts, five web pages, three published articles, a VMRS presentation, a couple of "how to" yarns in forums and plenty of other on-topic and non-specific rambling in forums both real and virtual ago............I started work on my Inner East Suburban layout, or as it has become known "Glenburn".

It is now time to rest.

Thank you for your interest in the layout to date. I don't know how long the rest will take, but it will end.

For now...........

 
End of the evening peak, Glenburn Rd, September 1934
 
[Photoshop image alterations to picture above: Darken, add light effects, smudging]

December 3, 2013

Jesus



.......Because again this year, make no mistake, if I have any skill in modelling it is only because it's a gift from Him.