ExpoNG 2010

ExpoNG is one of bigger specialist narrow gauge shows. I've never been as it's just under 2 hours drive away and I only passed my test this summer. This year there were a few layouts I really wanted to see I decided to brave the M25 to get there.



ExpoNG was the first exhibition of Colin Lea's Rhyd Ddu, and was one of the reasons I made the trip. It didn't disappoint, and Colin looked delighted to be there despite a few minor issues which you can read about on his blog.



Koonunga Junction is an Australian On30 layout, built in France which made great use of sound. As well as the trains there were plenty of atmospheric sounds and bird songs including the distinctive laughter of the Kookaburra.



Punta Marina by Henk Wust was a worthy winner of the Reinier Hendriksen trophy. Henk was very friendly and delighted in telling visitors about his layout.



Gweek North Quay was the winner of the David Lloyd Trophy. I particularly liked the village end of the layout with the terraced cottages on the slope up from the harbour and the railway disappearing between the buildings in a totally believable way.

There are plenty more ExpoNG photos and reports from Michael Campbell, Simon Cox, Tom Dauben, Steve Fulljames, and Chris Ford.

Narrow Gauge South 2010

It's now just over a month since Narrow Gauge South, and I've finally got round to uploading the photos I took to Flickr!  We had a good day out, and had our first picnic of the year.  I didn't take many photos, since I spent most of the day carrying my 2 year old daughter around so that she could see the layouts.  Her favourite was Torreton (pictured above), and she spent a few minutes looking in the mine excitedly waiting for the train to pop out.  She had definite ideas about which layouts she wanted to see, and on one occasion pointed out a layout that I'd missed!

Particular highlights for me were the Clydach Valley Railway, an impressive fictional preserved railway which managed to pull of the 009 cliché of having stock from well known Welsh lines; Khan, an 009 portrayal of German military railways in Namibia, and finally seeing Dunbracken.  I also bought a couple of things, but more about that later.

Links:
Mick Thornton
Michael Campbell: Blog Post, Pictures.
Fairlight Works: Blog Part 1, Blog Part 2, Pictures
Jamie Warne

Warley

Emsland-veenbaan by Spijkspoor

I had an enjoyable day out with my father in law at the Warley Show on Saturday. There were a lot of very nice layouts and we didn't have long enough to look at any of them. We missed quite a lot too (including Dinas, Briding Noora, Fisherton Sarum, Willesden Junction and the T guage layout) since we wanted to be back in the South at a reasonable time. I can see why they offer two day tickets! If we go again then I intend to get advance tickets and the show guide in advance so I can work out what I want to see and get into the show and start looking at layouts as soon as we turn up.

Whilst I'm not usually that interested in European trains my favourite layout was Emsland-veenbaan (listed as Emsland-Moortrack in the program), the detail and presentation was stunning. It was a fairly large layout (9x5 meters), but by no means the largest at the show. The presentation was unique - it was a larger oval with a high backscene and completely hidden fiddle yard in the middle. The fiddleyard was accessed by a door at one end of the oval. It combined a double track H0 mainline, a lower level line to some docks, an H0e line and an H0f Peat line. Starting at the access door and going clockwise, once side of the oval was coastal with the H0e line running past a lighthouse, over a bridge and past fishing harbour. The H0 mainline and dock line then appeared and ran past/through the docks. At the other end of the oval the lines ran through a small town and the dock line disappeared. The main line then ran on an embankment behind a line of trees (something I have been thinking about including in a model) and then an H0f (6.5mm gauge) track appeared from under the main line. This ran to a scene where traction engines were cutting peat.

I took a few photos which I've uploaded to Flickr. Some still need some editing.

For pictures of some of the layouts I didn't photograph see Colin Lea's post, Phil Parker's Photo set, this photo set, or this gallery

Astolat (Guildford) Exhibition

We took a trip to the Astolat model railway circle's annual exhibition on Saturday.  The main attraction for me was Cement Quay but I was pleased to discover that there were quite a few narrow gauge layouts there too.  I took photos most of the the narrow gauge layouts but I missed out Hayesden.  Fortunately there are already some good pictures of that layout on Flickr.  Two standard gauge layouts that stood out were Westcliff and Bulverhythe Sussex.

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Narrow Gauge South

On Saturday we went to Narrow Gauge South at Sparsholt College near Winchester. It was at least ten years since I last went to a model railway exhibition and it was a great day out. It was good to met some of the guys from rmweb including Steve of Fairlight Works and Dave of KBscale. Here are the better photos:	Links Michael Campbel's blog & photos Steve Fulljames' posts 1, 2 & photos

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ExpoNG 2007

I didn't go but instead spent Saturday painting the living room. However due to the wonders of modern technology I spent some time yesterday evening looking at pictures taken by people who did. Michael Campbell has written a ExpoNG 2007 blog entry and posted some photos. Stephan Fulljames has also taken some photos. He doesn't have doesn't have a blog entry about them (yet) but they are well described on flikr. Edit: Stephan posted his ExpoNG blog entry at around the same time I posted this. There are also some photos by Simon King (MTA) in this NRM thread.

There were a couple of layouts that I remember reading about years ago. Benfield Hall (which I knew was going to be there) I remember from Railway Modeller and it is part of the reason I'd been thinking about pizza layouts. There was also Eitomo which is featured in a book I own "Scenic Railway Modelling" which was a plesent suprise. Another highlight was Stephan's photos was the Nn3 layout - the detail and the way the backsceen and model blend togther is amazing.

The pizza competition will be judged by Carl Arendt - Edit - the results can be found here.

Hopefully next year I'll be blogging about being there rather than other people's photos!