The sunrise

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Sunrise as I was going to work this morning.

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The train I ordered last week was waiting for me at work. It's a nice little kit. It hasn't been made for quite a while...

I'm looking after my colleague Paul's plants because he's in South Africa for 3 weeks.

Out of vases.

The bridge at the Elandsgracht was finally open again a few weeks ago. It's been closed for over half a year.

I went for a little walk around the hood hoping I'd find new shoes but no. Nothing appealed to me. I may have to go to the shopping street from hell...

At least my walking boots were ready to be picked up from the shoe-maker. I had new soles put under them. let's hope they will last a while.

In the afternoon I went to see what was happening at CLC. it was busy!

Nicole is now officially out of vases...

Back at home I started repairing the tiniest of my locomotives. It was sold to me with a big fat discount coz it wasn't going anywhere.

I quickly figured out the problem.

The power is being taken off of the wheels by a tiny little copper spring pressing against the backside of the wheel. At least, that's where it -should- be pressing!

But it wasn't. Someone must have taken it apart without really understanding how it works and put the wheels back with the spring against the front of it.

I fixed it and now it works again :-)

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Then I played a bit more World of Warcraft. I'm quite enjoying this game again at the moment, I find it relaxing.

I met the Earth mother.

The train repairs

Early morning I went to check in at Cake loves coffee to see how things were going and they were going well.

I had a chat with mom and dad on Skype. They're coming over on Sunday.

Then I went out again to get little lights for in a model train locomotive. In the shop they were selling a tiny milling machine and when I started a little chat about it with the shop keeper she gave me this brochure which is very interesting because apparently there is a whole range of "mini" equipment for sale that I would loooooove to have in my workshop!

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I also ran into this... whatever it is. Maybe the person played too much WoW and started making shoulder pads....

At home I wanted to repair a model train that I bought as a defect. It was a mess indeed. Someone has been poking around in it with a soldering iron.

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This was the worst... The back metal strip that's acting as a spring and relays the power from the wheel to the chassis has been replaced by a stiff piece of copper wire and attached with a huge blob of solder.

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I replaced it with a new spring I cut off another un-used part and soldered it on very nice.

After I put the train back together it was working again :-)

The Köf II

It was very cold this morning and very slippery too! Puddles were freezing over...

Lunch was yummy :-)

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My office through the reception window which is now covered in fake snow ;-)

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I got two tiny model trains again today. There is something wrong with this model, don't know exactly what yet. We'll see once I put it on connected rails sometime in the future. It's a lovely little model of a Köf II though.

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This is the real model. The photo is taken in Switzerland. There's a webpage with technical details of this particular one that's been saved by a group of people who restore old trains.

The 1208

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The roof of the new building behind Central Station is finished. It looks very cool I think. Behind it is the old Shell building. I could *really* see myself working there...

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Today I received a new model train I ordered. It's a second hand but in very good condition.

It's number 1208 from the Dutch railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen). The model is made by Minitrix and is exactly 160 times smaller than the original.

With it came a free magnifying glass! ;-)

In the evening I went to Marjolein. I helped her prepare the house for her family to come over tomorrow. She made a very nice Indian dish including papadums!

Eurospoor 2011

I got on a real train shortly after 9:30 in the morning. I went to Eurospoor 2011 in Utrecht. The biggest model railroad fair in Europe. There are loads of displays and loads of shops, new and second hand. The latter being the most interesting.

And if you think model railroading is dead, think again. It was very busy. There were 5 line-ups to get in.

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Old Dutch rail stock.

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Fantasy yards.

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More old Dutch rail stock.

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Some displays are huge and need several people to be operated.

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Some people prefer to take photos of the scenery.

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Small train passing an old factory in another fantasy layout.

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Long cargo train passing.

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The scenery can get pretty realistic, even if it's 87 times smaller than real size (H0-scale).

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This display was fantastic. It was completely covered by snow, very sparkly, drawing a lot of attention.

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Close up from one end.

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Very old Hornby models.

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Beautiful old trains in a 50's setting.

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I couldn't leave empty handed of course. I was hoping to find this model and on all 20,000 square metres of shops there were only 2 models in 1 of the shops. They must be getting rare. Here's a wikipedia page on them (in Dutch): http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorpost.

I left soon after I made my purchase so that I wouldn't be completely broke when I got home ;-)

When I got back home I remembered I hadn't blogged my new key "hanger". It's actually magnetic, very handy.

I also hung up my Irish blessing. I'm still very happy with it :-)

The swing

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Marjolein and I went to Heerhugowaard to visit her folks. It was her moms birthday this week. Now, next to the Heerhugowaard train station, happens to be the biggest model railroad shop in, perhaps, all of the Netherlands! So even though I only had 8 minutes I couldn't resist popping in. In the above picture you see three sizes of model trains. The price of the big LGB-size trains is insane! Beautiful model though.

Marjolein's folks like living on the edge. On the edge of Heerhugowaard to be exactly.

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Marjolein showed me some places from when she was growing up. This was my favourite one. It's behind the house. There is a creek and then fields. It's quiet and open. Beautiful.

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We walked a bit further and came across the old play ground.

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Hi!

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Marjolein enjoying being 5 years old. (I do this every day but for her it's special ;-)

We came across this bridge. Somebody had put the pole next to it but it appears not to have any function. Probably a practical joke. I like.

Back at the house I was showing off my skills in the "Stratego" board game. Marjolein's niece wanted to be anonymous.