Thursday, June 18, 2009

Dunny Manifestus


DB says: This is a follow-up to recent written thinkings of L’Amateur de Fettler.

[MD comments: someone was obviously away from school that day, it should be Fettler D'Amateur. just to show that 3 years of french was not wasted. I can also buy tickets for a train in a non smoking compartment, and its not often you see the Swiss laughing at tourists either!]

Back to the beginning of the recent beginning: Since charging headlong back into NZ120 nine months ago, I’ve made around 50 items of rolling stock. FIFTY! Way more than doubling the number of wagons I have. From an MC wagon to my most recent project, 7 hungry-boarded CBs.

F van, DI, Urea wagon, KiwiRail DX... Hmmm. Anything seem a little odd with that?

I suppose it’s natural to model what you’ve loved in the real world. I look back with fondness on South Canterbury and Otago in the early 1980s – the time when the Railways Department became a corporation; the end of the country stations and a bunch of branch lines; the higgelty piggelty trains; guards vans; the stone train; the last signalboxes;the mix of old diesels on their last legs being replaced by shiny new ones. (Can you believe the first DFs were purchased 30 years ago this year and the DXs are almost 40 years old? Don’t even think about the guts of the TranzAlpine cars…)

Then I moved to Wellington where I chased long, fruit-salad triple-headed express goods trains through the countryside; packed with all manner of interesting bogie stock – containers, big yellow and blue curtainsiders, the new fiberglass-sided box wagons and swapbodies, the roadrailers. The early 1990s were interesting times just before the start of what looked like the end for rail.

And for Darryl since then, it’s been the odd few days here and there on the Midland Line. Long black coal trains rumbling through lands of swamp and bush, over spindly bridges, over stony riverbeds set against a picture perfect backdrop of snowy mountain peaks. The scenery! The majesty! This place that I’m drawn to...

I’ve never had a problem running trains from different eras on sectional layouts representing different parts of the country; but I can’t model everything and I can’t model everywhere.
I’m also what Brent Hopley calls a Railfan Modeler. Sure I like shunting, detailed models, operations and so forth, but all of that takes a distant back seat (like at the back of a really long bus) to watching a model train snake through a swathe of scenery.

So in the past month or two I’ve been thinking more and more about modeling the Midland Line in the current millennium. Does that mean I’ll not be finishing that second DA or making interesting wagons from the 80s? Heck no. But I’m going to try to focus the bulk of my energies a little further west.

After all, you can’t ignore passion.

4 comments:

Kiwibonds said...

I never wasted my time taking such pointless subjects and cope perfectly well in France using the French I've learned in 'Allo Allo re-runs. So, good moaning to you.

lalover said...

Listen Carefully.... I shall say this only once!
If you're happy building stock from all corners, go for it.
Building to a strict period can be a little exacting at times and can tend to spoil the fun!

Amateur Fettler said...

(Granny, on hearing the retired shoemakers where marching) "What a load of old....men of that profession...."

I've found that having a set prototype and time actually helps retain the enthusisam....otherwise I just wander around aimlessly and not really accomplish anything...

lalover said...

Amy maybe you need a new pair of shoes to put yourself on the straight and narrow :-)