A visit from my dad for a few days is always seen by me as an excuse to engage in some more social aspects of railfanning / model railroading.

Last Friday, we went to a railway Museum about 2 hours drive from where we live. And in the workshop area I spotted a GE 44 tonner. I remember reading somewhere some time ago that the New South Wales Government Railways (NSWGR) purchased some GE44's, but I couldn't remember what the class number was. Unfortunately I couldn't get very close to it to see what the class number was, either. Since I purchased A GE44 Tonner for my layout I have become a lot more interested in the smaller switchers (GE44's, 45's and 70's), and have just purchased a HO scale GE70 tonner on ebay, with a GE45 Tonner to follow at some point if the price is ever right for my budget. The plan is to use the GE 44 Tonner and GE 70 Tonner switchers for C&SFT movements, while all the other locos I have will be used as foreign road power hauling connecting trains. While at the Railway Museum, I purchased a number of second hand / old 'Trains' magazines, including some from the era I model, and some interesting articles about the region I model too.

My Dad's visit also gave me the opportunity to have a multi-operator op session, which I haven't really had a chance to do since we moved last July. Dad, Zoe and me operated a number of trains, and it was great to have 3 locos moving at once on the layout! It made me realise how much I miss those 2 and 3 person op sessions I used to host on the C&SFT before our big move a year ago! We ran a whole op session, taking about 3 hours to complete it. We did have a few issues with shorts in the electrics. I don't know why. They seemed to come and go. Eventually I isolated it down to a problem with the main wire coming out of the booster, and after I unplugged it and plugged it back in, we didn't have any further problems. Funny how when I have someone over to operate trains that there were electrical problems, and it has been fine up till this time.