Two model railway exhibitions and one Garden Railway running-session - A summary

As I've written in this blog earlier; Neither Wargaming or Model Railways are particularly 'big hobbies' in Norway. Perhaps that's why there are no 'toy soldier shows' and just a few Model Railway exhibitions. The autumn is usually the time for such exhibitions and even if they are few I can't attend to them all as some are arranged on the same weekends (!)  and others on weekends I am coincidentally working. But I've managed to join a couple of Model Railway exhibitions and a day out in a friend's garden for a running-session. Here are some brief impressions:

The Norwegian Railway society's exhibition at Mysen

This was a very small exhibition with few layouts. This Norwegian Gauge 1 (1:32 scale) layout deserves honorable mention though:

On this layout there were running trains from the nearby private railway 'Solbergfossbanen', which was closed many years ago.

And in the engine-shed where the exhibition was held, one of the  prototypes was undergoing preservation too:

A day out at Erik's awesome Garden Railway

Even if it's autumn and the weather is usually not so good anymore (actually it hasn't been all summer), we were quite lucky when Erik invited the club-members to a running-session on his garden railway:

This Rhätische Bahn locomotive is hauling a very long and very heavy rake:

Erik's petite French narrow gauge:

It was heavy traffic on Erik's garden railway during the day out:

I wonder...

...whats read while spending time here? -Something about Simplex narrow gauge locomotives (military) obviously:

This is on the very social end of the hobby. Thank you for your hospitality Erik!

The Model Railway exhibition at Skedsmo

This weekend I managed to visit another model railway exhibition located just some hour away by car. There were some few layouts that caught my attention there.

The winter layout below is a N-scale (1:160 scale) ready made layout by Noch, customised into a Norwegian railway during winter:  

The fellow who exhibited this winter layout also displayed a module in H0e (1:87 scale narrow gauge running on 9mm track) of the Norwegian Aurskog - Høland line:

The layout in this old television was made in Z-scale (1:220 scale). Even if the railbus was German, the scenery and buildings looked 'Norwegian'. Very cool with the old railway magazines on the shelf below:

This was not a very big H0 (1:87 scale) layout but built to very high standards:

All the trams are scratchbuilt after Norwegian prototypes:

And even if this layout was still under construction I immediately recognized this street and buildings as I walked by them daily to my earlier job located on the next block:

A modular Norwegian H0 layout:

N-scale permitts running long trains on a modest area:

Another Z-scale layout:

An October Workbench update - reloaded

About a year ago I converted a standard G-scale LGB goods wagon into a 'transition' wagon with standard LGB-couplings in one end and with a 3-link coupling for my Live steam locomotive in the other. This arrangement let me run standard LGB rolling stock behind my Live steam locomotive, and to combine wagons fitted with LGB couplings into a rake with cars with 3-link couplings. 

Even if this has worked smooth through the last year I was not so happy with the car-load I added, as I felt it was a little too 'casual', hastily made up with items I had at hand at the time. Besides the repainted LGB-barrels I added have started to flake heavily. Since I was not too happy with this load, I decided to remove it and make some other items to load this wagon. The new load was re-scaled and 3D-printed from files for everything BUT Garden Railways. To further improve the look of this wagon I also added the rod from a steel hanger and bent it to make a stand for tarpaulins:

These 3D-printed items looks much better when painted I think:

Since this wagon will most likely be a part of a military train, I wanted to give a hint that it might be loaded with something that might be a 'secret weapon' of some kind:

The single soldier on this months workbench is part of a bigger an quite time consuming project. Please follow for updates as he will re-appear in a future blog post.