My quieter week turned out to be just as busy as the previous ones, so I passed on a visit to the Portsmouth show.  As usual, my faithful reporter sent me a few pictures.  And I, as usual, have selected some of my favourites!  It is always interesting to see which layouts Allan has taken more photos of – and how they are sometimes different from the ones that I would have concentrated on.  No complaints at all – one of the joys of our hobby is the range of interests and layouts under one large umbrella – and we usually still talk to each other.

I would have been in agreement with the excellent Sud Harz (HOn3).  I especially like the way the backscene of trees has been blended into the relatively narrow baseboard.  And it’s a ‘real’ narrow gauge railway, so a good proportion of todays photos come from deepest Germany.

Now, I’d have probably taken more shots of Feltham Road (OO).  This is one of the few shed layouts around that really works, being a condensed version of Feltham shed in its latter days, and filled with lovely ex-Southern locomotives.

I also find Splott (P4) rather interesting.  There is a place called Splott in South Wales, and the subdued lighting and grimy works capture the area (as it was) rather well.

And so to Fredstone Lane (N).  A large N gauge layout that uses the small scale to pack in loads of tracks and keep trains running to entertain the masses.  It’s all very well done, but I’m sorry, but I’d rather see the trains having room to breath in the countryside.  But so what, it’s a good layout, and that’s my problem……

More next time!