Post #3

 Its been a while since the last post how time flies. For the time being it is a case of Hunters and Collectors i.e. obtaining all the items required to start a layout. The main source (probably the only one) has been the US. It has meant a return there where years ago you could get any product freely available. This was the time before the internet where these days everything is available from the comfort of home and all you need is a keyboard and internet connection (plus a linked card)

The power of the internet has come to the fore this week or mainly today. A few weeks ago I was lucky to find a copy of the second book I was searching for namely 'The Time of the Trolley' by William D. Middleton. I was lucky to get a copy of 'The Interurban Era' book by the same author earlier. I located a copy of this book in Tasmania, listed on E-bay in some obscure book shop. Not sure how it got there but I didn't care, I soon knew it would be  mine. When I received the copy I glanced through the pages but it had been so long since I had a copy that it was hard to recollect any images that I could remember. Who cares, it was good to be able to re-enjoy its contents. So that was book one.

A while later while viewing a Facebook Market site I came across a copy of the Time of the Trolley book which was located in the States. Originally I was enquiring if I could get it sent out to Australia but posting was going to be awkward so I let it go stating I would try and locate a copy in Australia. I didn't have any luck but I was recontacted by the original owner and asked again if I was still interested. So after saying yes and three weeks packed in the bottom of an Ebay container, today the book was delivered here in good condition. So thanks Paul.

The second gem received

 I was happy to receive this book for its general overall coverage of all things traction, trolleys and trams. Although I haven't looked through the books 436 pages yet I remember that there are photos of world wide trams even from Australia! One of the reasons I got these books is to be able to extract ideas for the model. I will try and make the end result as realistic as I can, so to be able to view many photos and then be able to use all the best parts for a model is the way to go. Finding the time to read the book will now be the hard part. The best part about this book is it is mainly pictures, the type I like.

Most of the fleet of trolleys I have are from the Chicago Surface Lines so I guess a book on that system is something I should look out for. What is killing it all is the savage postage and exchange rates, so I will be very selective in my imports.

Today the book arrived and it was sitting at the front door unannounced and it wasn't until an email was read stating 'your package has been delivered' that I realised it was here. So at the same time it was brought inside I was busy waiting for an Ebay auction to finalise where I was about to bid on a box of 12 overhead wiring frogs. It had only attracted one bid as the time was nearly up and as it is hard to readily get the items here I put in a bid in the last 40 seconds that secured the item. (Sorry if you were the other bidder). Maybe I was lucky because I had rested the still unopened book below the desk - my lucky charm?

 So being able to acquire these frogs will help towards the number of frogs I will need for the layout. I had not seen this brand of frogs before, I was only familiar with the Suydam brand. I don't think either brand are still active producing them so you just have to wait until these items come up on the net. It will be interesting to see if when they arrive here the Department of Agriculture/Customs see the label 'One dozen frogs' and open up the package - ha not what you thought.

And in the mean time I will keep looking for more frogs and ears for the upcoming layout.