Cit-in at Easter

One aspect of our home town- Stanthorpe- that I really like, is that it attracts quite a few Vintage Car clubs that come up to our beautiful area for their rallies and get-togethers.  Once you get off the New England Highway there are some fantastic tree-lined back roads that are perfect for older cars to amble along on.


This Easter we are hosting the National Citroën Rally, appropriately called the Cit-in!!  It will be based at the main Exhibition centre in town, and various journeys will radiate out from there into the surrounding countryside.  I volunteered to put on a display of model Citroëns, although at the time I only had a few!  Fortunately, after various visits to Paris in my former occupation I was able to pick up a few more, and I hope it will be a reasonable display.  I guess logically I was also asked to put some trains on display too, although I felt that I didn't have enough French ones for it to be worthwhile.  No matter, "any trains will do",  I was told!!  So, American Standard Gauge it is then!!  A beaut opportunity to try them out in a temporary display, and perhaps show to some degree what visitors to the Trainbarn can expect to see.


Because of the display table size it will just be a simple oval of track, but I had also planned to include a set of points and a siding to store another train.  One of the 'trains' that I plan to run is my Lionel Summer Trolley, seen below.

Although I've had this for a while I've never had the opportunity to run it before.  So, I decided to give everything a good oiling, and a test run before the exhibition.  I'm glad I did!!  Yes it ran superbly, but not through the points!  Why is this so?  Oh, I see- the main gear that drives the Trolley is mounted right on the wheel and is the same size as the flange, so as it goes through the points it rides up over the point-frog, and off we go onto the ground.  Therefore the points and siding were quickly eliminated from the display.

This also has a longer term implication.  One of the layouts that I'm planning for the Trainbarn is specially for all these older models (although this one is an authentic reproduction).  The circuit of Standard Gauge on it was planned to have two points and what's called a passing loop, so that one train could be running and another waiting in the loop.  Plainly this was not going to work if I wanted to continue to run the Summer Trolley on it, so I quickly decided to eliminate the points and passing loop, to ensure reliability of running and simplicity.  Now that I look at photos of other people's layouts running trains from this era, that's precisely what they did too!

Above: Citroën Traction Avante at Marylands (photo by Lynne McPhee)

I'm looking forward to doing this display- both the cars and trains.  Not to mention seeing all the real Citroëns on display, and driving around.  One of my real hopes for Whistlestop in general is that it will be interesting and attractive enough eventually to be a place which some of these old car rallies will want to visit.  Lots to do before then, though!!