Courtesy of Paul Webb, there are now 24 pictures from the Christmas Party now available in the gallery.

Image: Cliff and Harry (on the BBQ)

As discussed and decided at the November general meeting, the annual WAMRC Christmas BBQ will be proceeding this year as it has for the past several.

Saturday 20^th December 2008, 5pm onwards. BYO meat & drinks — the club will supply the BBQ (and gas), bread, salads and condiments. And of course bring some money so you can buy an ice-cream for afterwards!

Image: Harry & George hard at work on the BBQ, Christmas 2004

Spotted at the club was this model of BHP Iron Ore’s new “bubble” livery. I remember when the new BHP Billiton company logo was unveiled, a TV comedian commented that it looked like a “Teletubby had too much Fanta and threw up”. I think this new livery captures the essence of that very nicely!

Garry W. brought in a DZ125IN DCC decoder from Digitrax. This is a 1 Amp basic decoder which he was able to buy (in bulk) from the US for A$25 (including freight) to his door. It is ridiculously small and is shown here next to a 5 cent piece for comparison.

Also spotted were Peter O. doing some more scenery work on the first finger (green shirt, green jacket, green paint, hmmm — I see a trend here), and for some inexplicable reason Rowan B. was wandering around the club rooms carrying a big stick. Notice the resilience of youth — it was a cold evening (everyone was wearing jeans and jackets), yet here Rowan is wearing shorts and a T‑shirt.

Unfortunately that was all I saw as I then got stuck in a committee meeting for an hour and three quarters (yes — I timed it) ahead of the general meeting next week. By the time that had finished everyone had gone home!

Geoff L. was proudly showing off his new sound equipped DCC HO steamer at the club.

Rowan B. was amusing himself by driving this BHP Iron Ore double header around the layout — both locos DCC sound equipped and roaring away.

Garry W. was playing with his N‑Scale Amtrak DCC diesel loco — also (you guessed it) sound equipped!

With the number of sound equipped locos we are regularly getting down at the club on Wednesday evenings now, you can hardly hear yourself think! 🙂

Also spotted, Paul H. has taken photographs of all the public layout and G‑Scale recommended consists (click on the thumbnails above for bigger versions). These are in a folder on the rear of the public layout and will be a valuable reference for those on duty.

Spotted at the club last night was the second half of Terry K.‘s scratch built steel mill — an amazing conglomeration of recycled materials — including even the super glue bottles that held the glue that holds it all together!

Also noted was the much tidier workshop area — as promised by Peter O. Click on the thumbnails below to see more detail.

We had a committee meeting last night (as we generally do two weeks ahead of a general meeting), so I didn’t get much of chance to do much else. But the new Rails Through The Bush books are now waiting at the club for those that pre-ordered. Wow — what an amazing quality publication!

We finally got the the new NCE PowerCab DCC controller and old Pace DC controller properly wired into a changeover switch in the workshop. This now means both DCC and DC locos can be repaired, cleaned and programmed (well the DCC ones can be programmed at any rate), without messing with the “round and round” boys playing on the main layout. The toggle switch can be seen on the fascia below the (very messy!) work bench in the picture above.

There are N‑scale tracks in there too, so the “mice men” are catered for also. They are on a smaller second shelf above the HO tracks at the top of the picture.

Other things going on down at the club tonight: Garry W. & Graham R. hard at work propping up the N‑scale layout, Peter T. busy working on the N‑scale wiring, Harry G. moving on to the next patch of scenery backboard, and Peter O. fixing some HO points. It was a very warm day today, so the new air-conditioning was put to very good use tonight!