No rest for the wicked!  Another busy weekend, exhibiting at Dorking MRC’s show over in Dorking.  Appropriately, it’s in the Oddfellows Hall, perfect for model railway enthusiasts.  This is a small but friendly venue and show, but sufferers from being on the first floor, so there is no wheelchair access.

As I’ve reported, a lot of the ESNG members were away this weekend, so instead of a modular layout, I just took along all 4′ of Earl’s Wood, and shuffled and shunted a goods train and an RDC all day – or at least when punters were around.  The layout behaved reasonably well, and the foamboard fiddle yard worked fine.  However, it will need some repairs where I leant on it.  Or perhaps I will finally get around to building a train turntable – I got tired of swapping locomotive and caboose in the fiddle yard.  A third train would also give a little more variety.  Still, it was a fun weekend, and I got plenty of complements for the layout.

Dorking MRC’s layout, Ranmore Junction, is an excellent model of BR/SR days, with mainly green, blue and blue and grey EMUs running.  The layout also features realistic third rail, and this lovely Southern era signal box.  I wish Hornby would shrink their 2-BIL down to N.

Our friends from the West Sussex Group were there with a room full of N-gauge, centred around their excellent model of the Lyme Regis branch.  Not quite modelled realistically, as I don’t think they’d have got a West Country 4-6-2 around the tight curves the branch was famous for, let alone across Cannington Viaduct.  But once again, rule 1 applies – it’s my railway and I’ll do what I want with it!

Other layouts included OO, O, and OO9.  Some nice modelling on view.  I was wondering whether I was more tempted by a Dapol O gauge Terrier, a Heljan O gauge 4-wheeled railcar, or an OO Metropolitan Bo-Bo electric.  I bought some N American wagons instead.

Finally, the Dorking club layout took the opportunity to rival ESNG Paul’s long train award.  A 59 car Southern Region EMU will take some beating.  If running on our local line, it would be stopping simultaneously in Redhill and Earlswood!