I was going to ‘borrow’ a few pictures of Stuttgart 2021 from Facebook, but Duncan emailed me:

Davida and I spent a couple of days at Stuttgart last week. Although we were masked the whole time, it wasn’t as strange an experience as we feared! It was great to see all the old faces, and some new ones, with some very interesting new modules and trains.

The layout was more separated than usual, with bigger gangways too, so there was more space. There was still quite a large connected layout though, including the large spirals by the counter.

No food evening of course, but we did all have a prosecco together before leaving the hall on Thursday

Thursday was very quiet, a bit busier on Friday, but Saturday looked to be getting much busier as we left.

And on the increasing Covid rates in Germany….

The numbers are going up rapidly, but we’ve had similar levels for the last 6 months. On Thursday they changed the rule from 3G (Vaccinated, recovered or tested) to 2G (Vaccinated or Recovered). Everybody coming in had to be masked (and EVERY single person was), but they had to show proof of vaccination or recovery too.

It’s strange, although the numbers were higher, I felt MUCH safer around people wearing masks and keeping their distance, than I did on the tube home where almost nobody was wearing a mask, and it was as crowded as it ever used to be.

And then Duncan sent a excellent set of photos of the show.

View over about half of the layout. We’re now in hall one, with the toy and game exhibition. All around the balcony was a huge Lego display.

A small T-Track module, made in 3 weeks. Nice forced perspective of an easily recognised prototype.

D’oh!  A good excuse to use up all those primary colours in your painbox?

A really interesting Nm module from Peter Holzener. It uses an adjustable length track next to the bridge, so the whole module can change in length and angle. It was very useful to make the loop all fit together nicely.

A bit like Graham’s ‘inflatable module’?

Some nice French detail and texture.

Bodiam Castle end loop, made by Stefan using a hobby “building brick” kit.

Don’t give the KESR ideas – they’ll have the track round the castle in no time at all!!

Nicely detailed circus module, based on the real prototype.

Lovely detail on the Kustenbahner layout. It really feels like the north German coast.

Last one. New narrow gauge module from Michael Bange. Beautiful texture and detail, with a Lemiso “Brockenlok” passing through.

In closing….

I should have taken more, and better really, but I just did a quick lap when I remembered.

Apart from the masks it was surprisingly normal actually. I wish I’d been able to stay for the weekend, but there’s no flights from Gatwick at the moment.

Interestingly, the square in front of the Messe is a building site, for the new mainline station as part of Stuttgart21. When that opens, it will make the train from London at least an hour faster to the Messe.

Anyone for Stuttgart by train in 2022?

Perhaps I might just do a second post with a few of those Facebook photos….