Train World at Mevagissey (on the South Cornwall Coast)

October 29, 2015 by Tony Phillips

Earlier this year we were on holiday in England. We were lucky enough to be able to stay at a cottage at Polzeath on the north coast of Cornwall – which is the county at the far south west corner of England. Sister Karen and her daughter Yasmin came to visit so a day trip was mooted. But to where? Mevagissey? Never been there. Fine by me.

The first order of the day was brekkers. We toddled round the corner to the local bakery which, we knew, served latte. That settled the beverage but what to eat?

Date slices and look at them there cakiepoos down below

I was rudely told that that section was for elevenses and we would have elevenses in Mevagissey. So how about ……

Mouth watering Croissants with Baked beans, banger and bacon

It was a tough choice but I finally settled for …….

Brekkers – a bacon butty

Thirst and hunger satiated we set off across Cornwall. Cornish roads are, to say the least nerve wracking ……

This is a two way road – note the absence of a centre line or any line on the road

Thanks to wife Sarah’s driving we arrived at Mevagissey in one piece. The first thing to do was find something to eat to calm my nerves. Saw a Grumpies van but couldn’t figure out where he/she had delivered the goodies.

Grumpies make delish baked goods

As you can see Mevagissey streets are narrow so you park where you can which may not be adjacent to where you are delivering.

Mevagissay main street

My foraging finally bore fruit in the form of an ice cream/chocolate shop …….. just look at what was on offer

The REAL reason for visiting Mevagissay

Only one prob ……

Sign outside Ice Cream Store

Undeterred I emerged with choc AND cornish cream ice cream ….. oh man, heaven on earth. So as we are wandering around I see this:

Home of the Mevagissay World of Trains

A train museum in Mevagissey? You must be joking. Mevagissey has a population of 2,000 odd and it has a train museum.

What’s inside

I swore to les girls that I absolutely had NO idea that there were trains in Mevagissey. They didn’t believe me even though it was the truth. So after a bit or argy bargy we went in. The world of trains was a very interesting collection of HO scale trains from countries all over the world. There some from countries which I made Sarah look up on her phone to see if they really did exist. The layouts were small but full of interesting detail …..

Looking down on a local market on an HO layout

Town Recreation Centre including a maze

WWII celebration alongside Train Station

HOe layout

There were also some interesting odds and sods like this locomotive made of Meccano (the English version of an Erector set):

Train made from Meccono

There were a couple of exquisite models like this one:

Town Hall and Marching Band

How about this diorama in a file case:

Interesting example of what a lot of Europeans do due to lack of space

And then there were this dioramas built inside a chocolate box:

Diorama built in a Chocolate Box

Second Diorama in a Chocolate Box

Third diorama built in a Chocolate Box

The girls finally dragged me out with the promise of a cream tea in the caff down by the quay …….

National (G Scale) Steamup in Sacremento – July 2015

September 14, 2015 by Tony Phillips

If you want to see G scale live steam trains in action then the National (G Scale) Steamup in Sacremento (held every July) is the place for you. This year my traipse over the hill was a lot more pleasant than previous visits due to the temperature being in the low eighties versus the high nineties of bygone years.

The only other club members attending were Deb Smith and Denny Holsten. We had a great time visiting with other “steamers” and playing trains. Some of the photos are mine. The good ones were taken by Deb. Click on any pic to enlarge it.

: Getting our Dora ready to run

: Dora steaming up

: Darjeeling 0-4-0

: Darjeeling 0-4-0 from the top

: Nevada County 2-6-0

: Neato frito 0-4-0

: Mollie’s engineer Sid

: Mini passenger or freight car

: Love that coal box detail

: Interesting roundhouse crew

: Great figures

: G scale steam powered Fairlie

: Chain driven steam powered

: Cab forward

: Cab forward with long consist

: Cab forward passing a cab forward

: Beyer Garratt made in Australia I think

: Beyer Garratt made by Aster

: Beter Garratt of South Aftrican design

: Beautiful scratch built loco

: 0-4-0 of interesting design

: Steam loco converted to stationary steam power

: Stationary steam engines

: Roundhouse 2-4-4

: Operating crane

: O scale live steam

: O scale live steam – hand crafted

Visit to the Great Train Show in Sacremento February 28th and March 1st 2015 – Part 2

March 4, 2015 by Tony Phillips

Six club members mounted up and trolled from Fort Bragg over to Sacremento last weekend to visit The Great Train show being held at Cal Expo in Sacremento. Here’s a few more photos from our excursion:

Very busy Lego Train layout

Small trackside lumber mill diorama

Model of a Pile Driver

Very detailed Hanging Rock diorama

Shot showing size of the Del Oro layout

Live Steam 2-4-2 with admirer

Next show please.

Visit to the Great Train Show in Sacremento February 28th and March 1st 2015 – Part 1

March 2, 2015 by Tony Phillips

Six club members mounted up and trekked from Fort Bragg over to Sacremento last weekend to visit The Great Train show being held at Cal Expo in Sacremento. In addition to visiting the show members gave modest help on the CWR/Skunk Train table at the show.

Steve Worthen at the table we shared with the CWR/Skunk Train

Half of the space of the show was devoted to vendors. Like many shows I have visited there was a lot of dross on sale. There were, however, nuggets of gold to be had and I think we did well with the money we spent.

There were seven layouts on display. I can’t say that any were truly great. However, I did take over 100 photos of “bits” that I thought were of interest or contained ideas that we might use on our layout in Fort Bragg. No, I am not going to bore you with 100 photos just six!!!!

Impressive use of a trestle in a corner module

Interesting high rise diorama

Nice trackside diorama

Old buildings and water tank on the G Scale layout

San Francisco Cable Car module under construction

Warehouse G Scale Diorama

Roots of Motive Power (in Willits, California) Annual Open Day

September 16, 2014 by Tony Phillips

Club members Dan Fessler and Mike Aplet and I made a pilgrimage to Willits a week or so ago to attend the annual open day at Roots of Motive Power. Roots is a museum of working and non-working steam powered machines that worked in the logging operations when steam was king. Dan took his super duper hypersonic camera so I left my Kodak Brownie camera in my pocket! So, credit to Dan for the pics below:

Roots of Motive Power Sign

Roots has a one mile circle of standard gauge track on which their Mason County Logging Co. 2-6-2 was happily taking visitors for rides under the VERY hot sun (90 plus).

#7 at work

Head on shot of #7

We found that Roots had a new arrival – a Shay that belonged to the Robert Dollar Logging operations.

Robert Dollar Shay

Patent sign on the Robert Dollar Shay

Dan’s camera managed to withstand the shock of taking a photo of me ……..

Me standing beside a ginormous steam roller

The hit of the show for me were these Sterling logging trucks which had been wonderfully restored.

Sterling logging trucks

There were three old CWR (California Western Railroad) pieces of equipment languishing at Roots. Sadly, they were all in sad disrepair.

CWR 2-6-2 #14

Inside of the old CWR Caboose

Nearly hidden at the back of the lot was CWR Diesel #53

Ravel, one of our layouts most frequent and knowledgeable visitors was there with his mum and Dan snapped Ravel in front of the Heisler that was having difficulties.

Ravel beside the Heisler

Great visit.

Model Rail Scotland – held in Glasgow

March 1, 2014 by Tony Phillips

This pic gives you an idea of the size of the show.

Scottish Model Railroad Show

These pics give you an idea of the variety of model railroad “stuff” on show.

An HO layout

O Scale Loco

Workshop Interior

G Scale German loco

Visit to the Eli-Whitney Museum’s American Flyer Layout

January 7, 2014 by Tony Phillips

The third layout I managed to visit on my trip “back east” to visit the kids was where daughter Annalise works, The Eli Whitney Museum. The Eli-Whitney is the “home” of American Flyer model trains and they have a large seasonal display.

American Flyer Trains were first manufactured by the American Flyer Manufacturing Co. in Chicago, IL. They manufactured clock work trains and later wide gauge and “O” Gauge Electric Trains. In the late 1930’s the American Flyer line was bought by The A.C. Gilbert, Co. of New Haven Connecticut, headed by A.C. Gilbert the inventor of Gilbert Erector Sets and many other toys.

Gilbert had already begun the manufacture of an HO line of trains and the acquisition of American Flyer was a perfect “fit”. Production ceased in the war years. At the end of World War II, Gilbert resumed train and toy production, but introduced a new gauge, “S” Gauge. Scaled to 3/16 to the inch and running on two rail track. The A.C. Gilbert, Co., was acquired by The Walther, Corp., in the early 60’s, was closed in 1966. The American Flyer name, along with all the tools and dies, were sold to the Lionel Corp.

Seeing sixty year old plus engines working beautifully says a lot about the quality of their manufacture. The layout was interesting in that the kids had a lot of buttons to push which clearly entranced them. Button pushing animation is something we have aspired to on our layout which we have yet to achieve.

American Flyer Poster

Pond on the American Flyer layout at the Eli-Whitney Museum

Ticket office for the circus

The circus

Model of New Haven when the American Flyer was made there

Holiday train at the New York City Botanical Gardens

January 3, 2014 by Tony Phillips

This was the second model railroad visit on our holiday season trip to the east coast to enjoy the festivities (but not the weather) with our kids and grandkids. I had never been to the New York Botanical Gardens but I had heard a lot about it. It didn’t disappoint.

The G-gauge trains zip along a quarter-mile of track past 140 New York landmarks, including the original Yankee Stadium, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and new this year, the Eero Saarinen-designed Trans World Airline Flight Center at John F. Kennedy Airport. Each structure is crafted to scale from dried plant parts and arranged to create a dazzling miniature world inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory—a stunning Victorian-style glasshouse and a landmark itself.

As a model railroad I would give it a C-. The railroad consists of a series of loops around the incredible models. The consists were bizarre – a tender at the end of one consist for example. As a piece of art it was simply stunning. Whoever would have the patience to dry a pine cone, take it apart and use the individual pieces as roof tiles? Check out the pictures which do not do justice to what we saw.

If you ever get the chance to visit then do so – you’ll be amazed like I was.