I thought that I wasn’t going to get to the Hobart Model Train Show this year. Naomi and I had planned to go on Saturday and then my real estate agent rang to see if he could show the house that day. When we have a viewing I need to be at home so that I can take Cindy for a walk while the potential buyers are there. As there are few buses on Saturdays and they were coming mid-morning my chances of going out were nil. I had arranged to have groceries delivered Sunday, a day I rarely go out, but luckily I was able to switch my delivery to Saturday afternoon and free up Sunday for the outing.

As I’ve been going to the Model Train Show every year for a long time now I have seen a lot of the displays before. However, as I only see them once a year that doesn’t really worry me. I tried to look for some new angles to photograph the trains from.

Naomi and I both like the British themed layouts because they remind us of our early childhood. We didn’t travel on trains too often but the town scenes always seem vaguely familiar to me.

We both liked this layout with its rows of terrace houses and the painted backboard which gave the scene more depth.

We also enjoyed talking to some of the operators. As we love miniature things as well as trains we appreciated the detail in some of the scenes. I think that some of the people who build model railways are very creative and imaginative. They create little scenes which if you spot them may tell a story or make you laugh. One gentleman told us how he’d cut down a model figure to sit inside a car but the figure had folded arms so he didn’t look like he was driving it. People mentioned this so he made up a story about how one of the locals liked to walk his dog off-leash but the dog was badly behaved and would run on the road. The man in the car knew this so he was sitting with his arms folded patiently waiting for the dog to get off the road. It was true. I saw the dog myself.

There were a few layouts based on places in Tasmania and South Australia. The Gawler layout that I wrote about last year was there again and we especially enjoyed seeing that because it was a place we knew quite well at one time and the Redhen railcars were part of our lives for a long time from our early teens through to our thirties when we were cleaning them at the old railcar depot. I do hope someone models that one day. I’d like to see our old workplace in miniature.

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We stopped to say hello to Peter Fielding who as usual had brought a small but detailed display. This year he’d brought “The Poo Train” which showed trains that carried manure. Peter likes to educate and entertain the children but poo was a bit much for us so we just had a quick chat before moving on.

As usual, the Transport Museum volunteers had fired up a locomotive to give rides in the yard. We didn’t go for a ride this year because we’ve done it many times but we did stop to take some photos before we left.