Plenty of blogging to get on with.  I’ve got another set of photos from Germany, as Ron once again goes in hunt of the elusive strudel – and no doubt immediately eats it.  But first, an account of a most excellent exhibition – it must have looked good for me to drive 310 miles in a day to see it.

Postponed for a couple of years due to covid, the 2mm Scale Association finally got around to it’s Diamond Jubilee exhibition.  And it was very good.  I’d seen a lot of the larger layouts on the exhibition circuit, but it was fantastic to see them all in one place.  And, as you will see, there were plenty of new ones, especially the little ones, that were well worth a look.

A feature of the day was the chance to talk to the builders and exhibitors.  Unlike many shows, I found everyone very open to talk and share ideas and skills.  And the venue in Derby was interesting too, with its railway heritage as a college built by the LMS.  One of the most elegant venues I’ve visited.

Last and not least, I drove up to the show with Simon, and enjoyed the company for the three hour drive each way (and around the show.)  We talked so much that I came home with a sore throat and promptly tested myself for covid (fortunately negative.)  So onto the layouts.  We’ll start with the ‘biggies.’

No Diamond Jubilee would be complete without Copenhagen Fields.  I’ve seen it many times, but there’s always something new to see, or just to revisit.  It’s been over 30 years in the making, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea (including the famous C.J. Freezer, I understand), but it’s a wonderful model of a slice of north London.

Newly build is a slice through the facilities behind the station.  Some period closets here!  None of those tacky German Sexy-Scenes here; just a gentleman having a quiet think whilst reading the Daily Sketch.

Less easy to spot at most exhibitions is the fiddle yard.  Almost as complicated as the maze of tracks seen at front of house.  Note the ‘track’ here.  It’s all made of brass strip.  Simon informed me that it was difficult to form the curves in the brass without vertical distortion.  So a member of the MRC invented a machine, a bit like a pipe bender, to form the curves.  That’s 2mm for you….

Next in line we have the ‘Northern Copenhagen Fields.’  Fencehouses has been in the making for almost as long as ‘the fields.’  It’s a model of a real station on the original main line to the north, in the depths of the Durham coal fields.  Rather than an urban scene, with many trains approaching Kings Cross, we have a rural setting.  A long section of straight track includes the small Fencehouses station, colliery exchange sidings, and part of the colliery itself.

At one end of the layout, the Victoria viaduct is a great spot for trainspotting.

Last of the larger layouts is set at the other end of the country – part of John Greenwood’s model of the Southern Railway’s withered arm in North Cornwall.  Wadebridge shed is full of delightful scratch built Southern locomotives.

The town shows an eye for scenic modelling, too.

Padstow terminus is work in progress, and is cleverly built so the distinctive bridge over the estuary takes the model track in a U-shape to prototypically join up with Wadebridge.

One feature of the show was a chance to see projects in progress, and inspect things like the baseboard construction.  Next time, we’ll take the medium sized layouts, then after that the small and micros!