Exhibition #10 Sunshine Coast

My Philden Coast layout is safely back home after travelling to its second model railway show in the space of two weeks. This time I ventured north up the Bruce Highway for the Sunshine Coast Model Train & Hobby Expo held on Saturday 2nd September, 2023.

This unique little one day hobby show is put on by the good folks of the Caloundra Church of Christ, and this year marked only the second occassion that the event was held in the Church building at Dicky Beach on the Sunshine Coast (pictured to the left). Being a Saturday only show that doubles as a community fundraiser for the local Church, the Expo is put on by Eion Wolter, who was once responsible for the former Stafford Heights Baptist Church Model Train Show in suburban Brisbane, which I attended back in 2018. There was some irony in returning to Caloundra for the day, given that when I lived in Caloundra I always needed to travel south with my layout for any exhibitions. Yet for what at one time might have been considered my local hometown model railway exhibition, I found myself doing the reverse and returning to the city I’d recently moved away from!

Recent work commitments called for me to load the layout into the car the night before, and travel up very early the next morning to set up.

I wasn’t the only fellow modeller doing so, as I followed two vehicles from the highway exit into town that also pulled into the Church grounds infront of me. There I was greeted by the boat modellers who were setting up their displays outside along the covered entrance to the buildings, including this impressive 2 metre long model of a US Navy Tennesee Class battleship, (pictured to the right), that seemed to reveal more detail the longer you looked at it!

Inside I was soon met by my assistant driver for the day, good friend and distinguished modeller Anthony Veness. After a quick set-up and walk to the Dicky Beach shops in search of some breakfast, we had two NCE Power Cab controls plugged-in and at our mercy for the day in time for the show’s opening. It was Anthony who had finally convinced me a few years earlier to make the switch to DCC control for this layout, and the twin throttle socket at the front of the layout enabled us to simultaneously work Philden Harbour Yard with separate locomotives for a short while. Until it became obvious that the combined span of our backs were blocking half of the layout’s view… So from that point on we either alternated which locos we ran in and out of the yard, or stood at opposite ends while the other did their thing.

Outside in a separate wing of the building there were a few traders set up for the Expo, one of which was Matt Heness and his stall Col’s Australian Railway Books & Hobbies. If you look closely at the picture to the left, you’ll see a stack of my Philden Model Railway Presents books lining the table. If anyone asked how I did this or how I built that, I could direct them Matt’s way in the hope that they might pick up a copy of my book, and instead concentrate on running some trains.

It was nice to have some Expo attendees stop and ask if I “was the one who wrote those books.” And nicer still whenever someone asked if I’d kindly sign their copy.

There was a moment of early morning commotion on the layout, as Anthony fired up the first of his SSR locomotives he was running for the day in GM22. At the other end of the layout, I was left flabbergasted when I suddenly lost control of my Pacific National NR22. It turned out that both our locomotives’ addresses were programmed as 22, and rather than attempt a quick reprogram infront of a small crowd of bemused onlookers, I simply packed NR22 away for the day so that Anthony could instead run his SSR fleet.

Despite the duplicate short address issue, the only other problem we faced in the morning was that the couplers on my pair of older Auscision NLKY vans proved problematic at times with the true scale couplers Anthony had fitted to his SSR locomotive fleet. We perservered for a while and eventually left them parked out of the way, or only ran them with my BL and C Class locos.

I did also manage to take a walk around the other layouts that were on display, and took a few pictures of some layouts I haven’t shown before. Amongst them were these examples that caught my attention.

It was around this time of the morning that a migraine headache struck, and I needed to resign myself to resting in a chair behind the layout for most of the day. The good folk of the Church put on a special exhibitors tea, coffee and sweets stand throughout the day, so after taking some ibuprofen and drinking plenty of water, I eventually came good with a few cups of tea and a bikkie or three by the end of the afternoon. I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been for Anthony taking over the running of the layout and answering questions from the public throughout the day. Another friend Steve who had stopped by just to take a look at the Expo, also got commandeered to take over a throttle for a short spell. So thanks fellas!

After Anthony had helped me load the car, it was a tiring drive back south to Brisbane that evening, and I arrived home some 13 hours after I had left that morning. But it was a great little show to be a part of, and the experience from packing down and setting up over back-to-back weekends has been great to learn what the layout is capable of in order to maintain its portability. It fits nicely in the car and is fairly simple to set up exactly as is, which has left me not wanting to tinker too much with a good thing.

My focus now is on preparing for the BRMA Convention in Brisbane on the 22nd to 24th September, 2023. After that it will be nice to slide into a more gentle pace, and sit down to start writing my next model railway book. There’s been a bit of stress behind the scenes with some illness within the family and changes that come through taking on some extra part-time work, and exhibiting at these past two model railway shows hasn’t really turned out to be the welcome distraction I thought they might be. Right now I’d really welcome some clear dates on our calendar… Maybe that would enable some relaxing weekend modelling projects!

Until next time…

See also: Exhibition #9 Redlands 2023 and Exhibition #6 Stafford 2018