Well, I missed posting new year greetings for the calendar year and the new lunar year is fading fast in the rear vision mirror, so it is overdue for this greeting.
Not too much to report on the prototype Coonamble line, But I am planning on crawling all over the north end of it once it cools down and the Joe Blakes go into hibernation.
Even less to report on the modelling side of the Coonamble line, the exception being the arrival of the Z12 from Casula Hobbies in January 2024. In a word? Stupendous!
I was deeply suspicious that any HO scale loco of these dimensions would be anything more than a show pony. But my first purchase (1210 in centenary green) is a little workhorse that easily eclipses its prototypical cousins. I will do better tests in the coming months but this loco can out-pull my Wombat 30Ts (I do need to ballast them up). A five-car mail train composed of two Workshop 5 and two Lima heavies, plus a wonky Powerline van was no trouble. And it just screams "cute" at me every time I fire it up - on DC too.
So, congratulations to Joe and Therese for pulling off the near-impossible on this model. I am planning on the smallest of augmentations - coaling, a crew and the lightest of weathering and blackening.
As to the value - I can't paint locos to this standard (see my earlier posts for evidence of that ha ha ha). A commercial paint job of this quality would be $300 minimum and probably closer to $400. Add sound and decoder chip and you are well over halfway on the cost of this loco. Yes, this is how I explained it to my wife. I also pointed out that I only buy my clothes from Kmart or Big W, thus saving the family $100s every year. She might speak to me again, soon.
If you are at all interested in picking up a highly detailed, well performing model, start wearing those Kmart flannos get yourself a 12!
Back soon (well, maybe Easter).
Cheers,
Don
