Archive for the ‘ railway modelling ’ Category

Holiday at Museums: Transport museum

San Paolo station was built some years after the WWI and it is crucial to connect the city to its part along the sea. Rome is a city along a river, but it has got a seaside too. Nowadays this station is one of the rail station of Rome, with an underground station and terminus of the sea light railway (that you can see on this photo).

Inside the station there is a little tramway museum. Every day I transit in this station but I haven’t the time to stop and visit it. Until this day about holiday at museums.

Before the opening of the underground line near my house, I used this tram to move towards the city centre. It was true until I was 9 years old but I can remember it as it was only a couple of years ago.

The exposition is without staff due to lack of money. So you cannot visit the internal with some historical photos about the past glories of this public transport service.

A little museum in a yard, with only trams from the ’50-’80. I haven’t got a car because I love public transports. Even who has built this little museum love them. Who don’t care about them are our rulers. They travel on big cars with chauffeur and a lot of bodyguards, all paid by our work.

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Arti & Mestieri 2012

It is Christmas time and in Rome there was the annual fair about handicraft and regional foods. More than ten years ago I participated with one game stand a couple of times. It was called “Natale Oggi” (Christmas Today) when we were in the old fair structures inside the city, while now it is called “Arti & Mestieri” (Arts and Crafts) in the new fair along the Tiber valley.

My first beer after some time. It was my first exit after my allergic reaction that lasted two weeks due to stress: I run three different jobs. In the morning I visited the Happymodel fair about railway modelling and 54mm soldiers for collectors. Sorry, I took some stuff but I didn’t take photos because I was late. Then I was in this other fair. I bought some gifts for my family. There was a lot of good traditional food: cheese, jam, beer, oil, sausages,…

This was the place where a Guinness record was established: the biggest pizza. And it was edible to coeliac people too. This pizza was cooked a couple of days before so nothing remains. They ate it all! Pity!

Another event was inside the fair, an international beer exposition. A good idea ruined by the policy of high prices, among other idiocies as sloppiness and the distant place where they put it. These the rules to drink: 20cl of beer for 12 euro; 3 euro more for each additional 20cl. But they gave to you a glass and a book. Well, this is not the snob wine market, this is beer, another way to drink! Moreover the nearest snack or other kind of food was 10 minutes walk far. How you can drink without nothing to eat? And the fair is reachable by car at most, so after all that alcohol you cannot drive.

The result: 420 kinds of beers, 40 cash registers and 40 paying people.

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Ludica Roma 2012: lego

I like Lego, I grew with these toys. So I like to watch the realisation made by the Lego community. In the Ludica fair a large space was dedicated to Lego games. And to a Lego city. Summing Lego brick after Lego brick, Lego set after Lego set, you can obtain this, a continuous table with lots of little scenes and details. With a railway and a monorail added.

Some realisation have a less gaming aspect, like these pieces inspired by Star Wars vehicles. Fictional reality deconstructed in Lego bricks.

In the Ludica Model pavilion there was an area where you could freely play with Lego and buy it in weight. A very popular place for children. While in the Ludica Bimbi pavilion there was a really huge mosaic with the image of the Colosseum. People could built it by sector using Lego bricks having a sector map for guide. Up with Lego community!

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Ludica Roma 2012: miniatures

In Ludica Roma there were wargamers and modellers, so you could view a lot of beautiful miniatures.

A multicoloured scenario from an A La Guerre game.

Your miniature collection can become really huge after a lot of years playing wargame. Piles of 15mm for an 1:1 fight between Gauls and Romans along a small river.

Bigger miniatures and greater painters than wargame world. That Zues is awesome. I’m thinking about a game with this Zeus in the upcoming Of Gods And Mortals…

More models museum worthy.

A scene set in the Lybian desert, with Folgore paratroopers. My mobile camera is not so great but the weird yellow lights in the display case destroyed the fine paintwork. White lamps for another time, guys?

A customised Warhammer 40k squad. I don’t think that these miniatures are manufactured by GW. They are really huge and majestic.

A Dust diorama with a Jagpanzer. I have to buy something made by this Paolo Parente guy…

There were a lot of railway modelling dioramas. I remember them in their specialised fairs. Now I want to show you only this beautiful view of Porta San Paolo station. Every day I pass close to there to go to work. It serves the line for Ostia, the waterfront of Rome. It would be perfect is the lights in the platform were made by leds. Maybe this scene was built a lot of time ago. More on this station here

A display were made about the development of the Wings of War (now Wings of Glory) boardgame. It was very interesting to see as an idea was developed from the first rough pieces of paper to the final release with aeroplanes miniatures, through small sets for playtesting and prototypes of the game elements.

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Happy Model +Libri +Liberi

As I said before, there are some things that are almost the same year after year, some periodic appointments that you can find on this blog year after year. So we have another Happy Model, the big edition before Christmas. I was there the last year, as you can read on this post. It is a national market for railway modelling and even for other related stuff. Here you can see a scene that recreate the railway near my house.

This year I found a large quantity of soldiers for collectors. I’m amazed from the quality of this delicacies. They are still little soldiers but you can show a lot of details. It would be a great thing to play with these soldiers but they cost a lot and you need bigger tables.

In the following photos you can see materials for thousands of euros…

…and a joy for the eyes!

The madness is always the same: I could buy only a bunch of them for a little skirmish, they are so beautiful,…

…but after rationality come back so you are free of absurd thoughts.

The real danger: play my Ferrum et Gloria with 54mm!

These times are even those ones for +Libri +Liberi, the national market for small publishers. Last year I was there. You can find pile of interesting books but you cannot find enough space at home to store just a couple of them. I found various titles but I restricted myself to only two book. The first one is an edition of Opera Nova by Achille Marozzo, a guide written in the XVIth century about sword fighting. A great document about techniques that you can find in those years but even for all that regards fight with hand weapons. I hope I find some ideas for Ferrum et Gloria.

The latter is a book about the months from the landing of Anzio and Nettunia to the invasion of Rome. This time watched from an Italian perspective! I’m tired of reports written by winners, history is another thing. The fairy tale told to us is about US soldiers (and the other people didn’t exist at all!) who wanted to give us liberty and only bad Nazis slowed them. So this one is another view, with Italians in it! I reenact every year the landing from the bad guys side, as an Italian paratrooper. You can read it on the last year post.

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Happy model feb. 2011 edition

We are here again!

Every two months there is this event in Rome for train collectors. This time we are at full force: Renato who looking around for scratched trains to rebuilt them for Japan, Paolo who wants more for his 1:144 city, me for some pieces for Flyton, and Franci to put some feminine elegance among us.

A lot of people around, and this time seems that is the best to find something. I leave a lot of pieces on the counters. Maybe another time I will pick those things.

I would like to put some lights on my scenario. However I found these tunnels and they are great, made of hard resin and very cheap!

I decided that in Flyton there is a side with a face blocked by a cliff. And this is the tunnel under the hill. Here is with bricks at the end, but that piece will be used to the sides of the tunnel door.

Here the same scene from the top. In Flyton I will put something on the upper part to hide the structure. I have this idea because in games there are always the forbidden parts of the terrain where your minis cannot go, the extremes of the world. Well, this time one extreme is really closed, but with a hole where troops can escape.

I saw this resin piece with metal rubbish so I bought it to put it in a part of Flyton, in a yard near the viaduct I think. There will be necessary a paintwork to have a more varied look of this piece.

The best of show this time was a HO junkyard all in rust colours, with a huge amount of little pieces, ruined wagons, abandoned cars, military surpluses. And among the stuff, little orange men are working to recycle this mess. Wow, I like the romantic feeling of rust!

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Happy model

Always in Seraphicum istitute, the place where these conventions about rail transport modelling are setted. This one is Happy Model and the other one is Interscambio, but I cannot see the difference, there are the same vendors in the same places! This time I’m with Paolo, while Renato’s car is out of order so he remained at home.

I bought a railway crane and a car for a project of mine in 28mm. Paolo bought a camion in N gauge for his Meka. There were a lot of things, but train collectors are used to high prices and we are not. Even the scale is against us, you cannot find some of useful for 28 or 15mm. In the future I will write a post about scales…

For the joy of your eyes I took some pictures of a large train circuit. I let one’s eye dwell upon the diorama scenes around the tracks: camps, bridges, river. Think about this stuff on your game terrain…

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Bakerloo line, Regent Street station

This is not real. Yes, it’s not real.

regent street

regent street

Fir wood, sand, some H0 gauge tracks, ceramic tile glue, walls and floors of ceramic from self made moulds, Christmas tree lights and acrylic paint. Scale is 28mm, size is 120x25x28cm and weight is 18kg.

No, it’s not real, he couldn’t made this! It is stunning…

More here: https://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=23000.0

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