Sunday 21 February 2010

Morfa Moving Again

Progress on Morfa comes in fits and starts. As the plain track is handbuilt from individual components these fits and starts happen in slow motion, however thinking that little has been achieved ignores the power of small increments gradually stacking up. A milestone has been reached now that the head of steel has progressed of the original 17x8 board and onto the extension. There's two more yards, in actual lengths that's four half yards, to go before I need to build the remaining section of baseboard to close the gap and allow the circuit to be completed.


With each fresh half yard of track, I celebrate by running a train up to the end. Though there's a worthy reason, to test my work, it's really just for the fun of it. Though the achievement is small, the motivation I get is disproportionately large.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Size Matters?

 
Recently I've been on an e-bay facilitated nostalgia trip. Outgunned by those willing to pay silly money for Egger Bahn, I turned my attentions to the Airfix kit. Here are three of the objects of my desire, all rather mundane and still on the market thanks to Dapol. I set myself a spending limit of a fiver for each piece including postage, and though I could buy Dapol for about that price, I get the benefit of the glorious box art. What surprised me was the way the packaging grew over the years. Whether it's for the psychological effect of getting more for your money or to increase shelf presence I don't know; but it does show that the seeds of over packaging were sown a long while ago. I may not be typical, but looking at the three examples here it's the earliest and smallest that I find most attractive.