Anzac weekend running

It has been a while since all the door modules have been connected to allow not stop running on the layout. All the track in the station area has been relaid, and tested to make sure that there is power. The reason for all this, is that, my mate Tony wanted to run his newly acquired, preloved, Powerline 830 class diesels, in Mustand Pot livery. Unfortunately, his old Trax 830 model is wired in reverse to the two Powerline units.
A bit of encouragement, and the 830's were on their way. Then it was on with his Austrains, (first run) 700 class in AN livery: no trouble with that one. The DC running was all over, when son Craig wanted to run his Auscision AN 3 in Ghan livery. Disconnected the DC power, connect up the DCC to the command station, and within minutes there was about eight locos on the track. (Not all working, as you must write down the correct numbers for them to run). The difference, from running one train, to several.

The above photo shows a grain passing over my river crossing. (The sheep in their unfenced paddock know to keep away from the track). The hoppers furthest from the camera are all green, and the loco that is actually pulling all these wagons is an Mehano HO scale EWS class 66; which is not bad, as usually these are hauled by an X/A class double head: there are more, out of shot to the left.

SDS Models FQX flats

Goods new for container flat car addicts. SDS Models have announced that their FQX wagons have completed production and are heading our way.

Photo: SDS Models

Photo: SDS Models

These wagons run with just about all operators, and the all these liveries would be found on any Pacific National inter-modal service, right across Australia. There are many, still in AN green and VR red, (though probably not coded VR), you just would not notice, as they are covered in road grime.

The first run liveries, are VR red, Freight Australia green, Pacific National grey with sunflower stripe, QRNational grey, SAR grey and Australian National green and gold, plus road grime.
Bad news, is that the first run of SAR and AN flats came out the factory incorrect, having four chain boxes, instead of two. This is to be corrected in the next run. 

Update from SDS, is that the rerun of FQX wagons is to arrive late July, hopefully with the correct SAR/AN version. 

The correct South Australian versions arrived August 2014