2014
wishing all of you a great 2014 filled with dreams come true.
2014 2013 has been and gone, and 2014 is upon us. what will the following year bring? hopefully a job, and maybe some new additions to the collection.
wishing all of you a great 2014 filled with dreams come true. i hope santa brought everyone all they desired and then some!
as shown in my last post, santa was exceedingly good to me this year, but the old bloke had a little extra stashed away! rob gave me this lovely wrapped present on monday afternoon. ive been resisting ever since, and last night dreamed constantly that i had opened it and found a layout controller or something along those lines. finally got woken up by one of the cats and gave in to temptation. i was stunned to find this gorgeous little trinket box inside. a wonderfully thoughtful gift from mr "i hate christmas" lol. mum and dad are going to see the niece and nephews for christmas, so we had ours today, 2 days early. i was lucky and was given some awesome stuff. this bracelet was a massive surprise, released to celebrate the 75th anniversary of snow white and the seven dwarfs. i absolutely love it, but its not something that will be worn often as im too rough with my hands. snow white is one of my favourite disney films, and i have a large tattoo of the dwarfs on my leg. the best by a country mile, however, was this hawthorne village magic of disney train set. its comes in issues, and i have about half of the set so far. they arrive automatically every few months, so i told mum to put the rest aside for my birthday, lol.
the wheels are HO scale, but the bodies are massive. im a little concerned they wont fit around the club layout, but if thats the case i will have to build another portable, or else run it on toy story.. most issues come with track, power pack, level crossings and all sorts and is manufactured by bachmann. i have created a new page for this set, which can be found here and will be updated as needed. ive been doing some tidying of photos and such on the site, just trying to streamline things a bit.
ive just created a new page here to display the takara accessories released for the thomas and friends range. they were mixed in with the general accessories, and i felt they would get lost in the mix. i have also edited some of the photos on the takara engines page, combining 2 photos into one to save space and make it tidier. small but important changes. well, its finally the end of a busy week! we had the christmas show on thursday and friday. rob and i were at the club on tuesday until 10.30pm decorating, wednesday i was there for 4 or 5 hours vaccuming, mopping, dusting and all that good stuff. then blair arrived and i helped him with his layout and removing the bbq's. thursday, i got there at 1 to retidy and get my layouts set up, and then friday i got there at 4 and barely got set up by the time we opened at 6. we had no major issues, and i only had one or two kids who were grabby, but nothing got damaged. thankfully, they mostly left the running trains alone, more playing with the cars and things i had scattered about. all in all, it was worth the work put in. we beat last years takings, and last year we ran over 3 nights, then had to pay for the hall rental. this year, we held the show at the club, so the only expense is power. every cent stays within the club. it also meant no club layouts had be transported, so no risks of accidental damage. my canadiana box car arrived on thursday too, but it came when i was already at the club. it only took 11 days to arrive from the states... incredible given its christmas time. i swapped the couplers to e-z mates, borrowing the nose and end ones from the loco and caboose. it hasnt been run yet, as the track was booked solid last night. i will go out tomorrow maybe to straighten things up and give it a go then. i think the couplers need to be packed so they sit straight. they are quite floppy. in other club news, when i arrived on wednesday, half the front lawn was missing. the builders had been in and excavated for the extension. no-one knew it was happening until it was done. thursday, holes for the piles were dug and then friday the piles were placed and concreted. all very exciting! we hope by next show to have the building finished. even when the extension is done, i will likely still have my layouts outside, as i think visitors being able to see something happening from the gate helps bring them in. several people who came were out on their evening strolls.
as promised, the news on the canadiana boxcar... i won it for $5.11NZD! 1 down, 9 or so to go, lolololol. pleased to basically have a "set" now, just need to eventually find a shark nose loco, but that can wait. pleased to have one of each essential component. with this, i will also run my other canadian rolling stock, like the gondola car, reefers and newsprint box car. i am awaiting a shipping confirmation from the seller, and hopefully should have it in hand in a few weeks. no other news to report, except its finally club night. seems like forever since i was out there, even though its only been a week. used to spending part of the weekends there as well.
we shot up to savemart this morning, to see if there was any new christmas stock for the club rooms. nothing worth buying, but i did find a steam along thomas for the parts box. he was sold with annie wired to him. someone has cut annie off, and it looks like he was dumped in a bowl of jello.
the same bag had a new ray brand diesel engine and a thomas birthday badge. we also went to one of the hospice shops, and i bought a beer mug for rob for christmas... a ford racing one. a whole $1.50, lol. he already got his main present when i was in canada, so this is just a token. so a rather uneventful day, but i hope tomorrow to have news on a canadiana box car that im bidding on on ebay well, we made it home in one piece. glad to be back, and being able to sleep in my own bed tonight. much as i love seeing the kids, i love leaving them behind as well, lol.
i had a good weekends shopping over there, scoring quite a bit for not much. the best find was a my child doll for $4. she will be resold at some stage hopefully. i bought a boxed tomy train 1 for $14, a few scene setting pieces for the christmas layout, and another different canadian grain hopper. im really pleased with the tomy train 1. the engine works well, and the kids had fun playing with it during the test. when they saw me come out of the shop with it, they begged me to set it up. even though they are kids toys, its not often the niece and nephews get permitted to use any of it. they had been really well behaved, despite being tired, so thought they deserved a reward, small as it was. they had a blast flicking the reverse and stop levers, changing the points and such. the engine was in bad need of de-fluffing, which im doing in between typing this. brings back memories. just a quick find share... bought a boxed tomy train 1 today for $14 at 0-5. the box is tatty, but it has the original card and polystyrene inserts. it is missing a couple minor pieces... the driver and passenger, a fence off the station and the top part of the tree. all things i can replace easily. also scored my child doll at savemart for $4. she should clean up ok, but the market is down on them so i will hang onto her for a while.
going away for the weekend for my nieces birthday. will hopefullty come back with some accessories for robs christmas layout. really hoping to find a picnic or bbq scene and some swimmers, boaters or fishermen to accent the lake scene.
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