Today, we’ll look at the ‘medium’ sized layouts, that takes in anything that isn’t tiny and isn’t enormous.  These are the sort of layouts that the average punter could build – not ‘lifetime’ layouts like those in the my last post.

St Ruth is familiar from the exhibition circuit, but is always worth another look.  I love the semi-relief buildings of the town in the background, and the way the features of the beach have been captured.

The layout makes good use of ‘N’ rolling stock, rewheeled, but these lovely early GWR steam locos can be seen lurking in a remote siding, along with some early carriages.

We come to one of my show favourites – Freshwater.  Isle of Wight, Terriers, small branch line terminus – what isn’t there to like?  I’ve seen this layout many times, but there’s always something new to see (though Ian Morgan says that it’s nearly finished now.)  This time there are a lot more flowers and vegetation to be seen.  On the platform (third from left in a white shirt) is the slightly rotund layout builder.  He claims that extra plastic was needed to 3D print him!  Mind you, we had much the same conversation at ESNG a few days earlier.  This ended with, “I’d never have a model of you on my layout.”  Charming!

Another thing to note is how the rolling stock has progressively become more authentic.  Originally, the goods vehicles were typical Southern Railway stock, but Ian has slowly replaced them with models of the wagons that actually ran on the Isle of Wight.

Moretonhampstead was a small GWR terminus on the edge of Dartmoor.  A bucolic scene with few trains, but plenty of very well observed scenery, and rolling stock, to enjoy.

Llangerisech is a familiar layout on the southern exhibition circuit.  Somewhere in North Wales, it features a mixture of GWR and LMS, converted ‘N’ and scratch built locos and rolling stock.

Ivybridge is a simple continuous layout, built to showcase the owners scratch built coaches.  But it is a model of a real south Devon station, and features the lovely viaduct at Ivybridge.

Evercreech Junction is not really a medium size layout, as a near-scale model of the site is rather large.  But this is a club layout in progress, and gave a chance to look at baseboards, point control and all the other parts of railway foundations.

Last post on the show next time will feature the micro layouts.