Gonou Gonou... gone

The deed is done.

As true as my word I've just finished dismantling Gonou.

Everything on the layout was saved. The petrol station, the lighthouse, the bridges, the entire lot.

The task only took about half an hour and in that time I managed to strip the layout all the way down to the cork noticeboard base. The layout has stripped down pretty cleanly so perhaps the base can be used on the sucessor layout.

Where to next?

Watch this space.

Deflated

(posted from small model railways)
Here today in the USA its National take a model train to work day. The organisers bill it as a great chance to spread to word about this great hobby. A great idea. When you consider that computer gaming is all the rage. A down to earth low tech hands on presentation of the hobby seems like a great idea.
Until you get ridiculed at work.
Like me.
I though people were better than that. I could take it when I was a kid at school. You know kids don't care what they do or say. But in this world of mature responsible adults, especially here in the USA where political correctness and respect for all is preached from all angles of society. To be greeted with derisive laughter is kind of upsetting. Deflating to say the least. It definitely bothers me otherwise I wouldn't be posting this.
I was really on a good high with the hobby after the success last weekends Granite City Train show so this idiots reaction is doubly painful.
I might just take a break for a while...
Still it is only one idiot.
But still...
I don't know...

Granite City Train Show with video

Once again I return stoked and inspired, full of enthusiasm for T scale. The Granite City Train show seems to do that for me. The trains ran perfectly.

Incredibly so.

A few days before the show I had cleaned the track and coated the rails with the Energizer/Stabilizer pen available from TrainAidsA. If you have not bough one of these yet. Do so. Especially if you are running the regular battery pack. The improvement in performance is marked. On previous trips to the show I had been cleaning the track pretty much every hour to 90 minutes or so and went through up to four sets of trains, the wheels would get so dirty. However with the rails and wheels given a coating from the magic pen, I never cleaned the track. This is amazing for I even clean the rails on my HO scale and Gn15 layouts during shows in the past. My Z scale layout was alongside Gonou and I had to clean sections of that during the show more so as the day went on. The trains themselves ran so much better too. I only used two units during the show. My KiHa 47/48 and a CCE models RDC railcar on an unmodified KiHa chassis. Incredible.

So for those of you who've never seen Gonou in the flesh, so to speak enjoy these videos, shot on my iPhone at the show .

So what now for the future? Gonou has been seen three or four times locally so I think its time for a change. Something new. What will that be?

I don't know.

You'll just have to keep watching the blog. One thing is for sure it's not going away just yet.