Man walks into a model rail hobby shop

-

Rain Rain Go Away!

Annoyed by the rain, I decided to head down to my local model rail hobby shop to have a yarn with the owner about DCC controllers. Looking online there seems to be a gap in the market in what was available in Australia at the time, possibly a result of supply chain fallout from COVID. 

In my searches, there was one interesting open-source project I stumbled across DCC-EX Model Railroading — DCC-EX Model Railroading documentation for those who are bit techie, there is a great presentation here "DCC-EX Open Source Model Railroading" - Paul Antoine (Everything Open 2023). I am keen to explore this solution later and even get involved but was not looking for a new project which would direct me away from my other goals and wanted a plug and play solution for the moment while I developed my hobby crafting skills.

When I arrived at the hobby shop the owner was out the front clearing some boxes from the shop entrance. Excited he grabbed my attention and took me in and showed me his new order delivery which was SDS Models new locomotives. I was given an overview of what was on the shelf for sale and there were a couple of models out of their boxes on display. If you're interested, you can read more about the products here QR 1460 / 1502 Class Locomotive.

After the excitement in the shop calmed down, the owner turned to me and said, how can I help you today? I advised I was investigating possible DCC controller options and he advised there use to be a wide range, but he only ordered in NCE Powercab these days as they were reliable and had aftersales support and most clubs use these as a base controller. He had an old Digitrax in the store but advised this was good enough for troubleshooting with customers and wasn't sure if he could get this product into Australia. As always, he encouraged me to do my research and told me he would be putting in an order before Christmas if I wanted to grab one as a couple of chaps from one of the clubs were ordering a couple.

I thanked him for his time and started to walk out the shop and stopped at the door. He asked is everything alright, to which I replied do you want to sell me some trains and his eyes lit up. This was uncharacteristic of me as I usually am a shocker when it comes to buying things and over anlaysing the purchase, but the owner was all about sharing knowledge and building a relationship which you don't find that often in business these days.

After two more hours I walked out of the shop with a two SDS locomotives in 1497 and 1510 with a deposit down for 1461 aka the "Golden Holden" and a NCE PowerCab Starter Set. 

Below are a couple shots of the models now added to QR @ Pinkenba minus power to run, make noise and light up the world 😁.


SDS Models QR 1497 Late Scheme 1970 - 1990's

SDS Models QR 1510 QR Corporate Livery Late 1990's

Until next time.


Little Shunter

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bits and Bobs

-
Image
Order Sent! After having a go at scratch building with styrene I thought I would up my game and buy a kit from Caintode, so I jumped back on the website and placed an order for a 3 Dome Tanker kit and some more Bar Frame, 5Ft 2Ft 2In bogies for my own model builds. You got mail! My first call for assistance Where do i go now was with PGC Scale Models, after a couple months I received an email from the gentleman who advised he had been busy and been able to produce a range of tank wagon kits and wanted to know if he can organise for them to be delivered to my premises.  A few emails back and forth and the gentleman was kind enough to invite me to their property, so we schedule a time that was convenient and what I thought would be a small visit turned into a couple hours of conversation over a cuppa with some insightful advice and walk through into their processes to get items ready for keen customers. It was such an enjoyable visit that I almost forgot to pay and pick up my 3 and ...
Read more

Prototype Research

-
Knock, knock Australia Post My order from Caintode Flats Products turned up and I will be honest, this was a blind purchase as I had never seen the products in real life. I was not disappointed at all by the level of quality, it was amazing. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos but would recommend checking out the website. I added to my inventory the following:  Bogies Bar Frame, 5Ft 2Ft 2In Brake Cylinders, Combined Air Tank Bogie Screws, #1 X 3/8 In Self Tappers Handbrake Assembly Complete Brass Etch Flex Track Purchase Excited by the purchase I headed down to my local hobby shop and took a bogie to show of my new purchase and explained to the owner I needed some track. He reached behind the cabinet pulled out a thick product catalogue and showed me the limited product range and suggested I think about my layout before purchasing too much product. As I wanted to get my scratch build models onto some simple track, I purchased a couple pieces  Flex track ( PECO SL-1400)...
Read more

Where do I go now?

-
Let's make a phone call Returning from the Brissy Model Rail show I realised like everything in life this was not going to be simple. One of the new words I come across at the show was "Cottage Industry" at the time I did not understand what this meant but this became clear later in my journey.  A couple weeks after the show, I picked up the phone and called  PGC Scale Models and spoke to nice gentleman who asked me heaps of questions and I provided my backstory. He advised his models were available, but I would need to wait a couple months due to other various commitments and explained to me the QR scene was a small cottage industry compared to the other markets, but things are possible and encouraged me to keep at my goal. He politely asked me to send him an email, and he would be in touch with details of his available models and some other information to possibly help me. Back to the drawing board Still a little confused and unsure where to start, I was determined to g...
Read more