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Today, a look at some of the N-club modules on show.  Some are there every year, but they are impressive pieces of work that are always worth a look.  I took most of these shots before the show opened, so they are mainly of scenery with few trains on view.

This station is one of my favourites.  It’s to scale size, with long platforms, and the buildings and figures create a very pleasing scene.

Here’s the American version.  Some strange modern buildings….

And back to Germany.  Another regular at Stuttgart, but it gets extended year by year.  It’s interesting to compare UK and European modelling.  We tend toward scratch building our structures, but in Europe full use is made of the many building kits available.  The knack is then to personalise and customise them into a realistic scene.  This has certainly been achieved in the layout below.  From the layouts that I have seen, perhaps the nearest to UK modelling is the Dutch.  They seem to have a more ‘English’ approach to layout design and scenery.  I often find the most interesting layouts are English built layouts of European or American prototypes.  I am obviously conditioned and biased by my own culture, but the combination of UK modelling ethos and overseas prototypes can make for an excellent model.

Another module, with the trains appearing between the buildings.

On shed….

And another bridge….

Is it a protest, a medieval procession, or just the regional equivalent of Morris men???

This engine depot puts ERIC to shame – it’s gigantic and the locos (even German 2-10-0’s) are dwarfed by the site.

Not sure whether the crane works….

The South African modules make a regular appearance, being stored at a nearby club, and make a pleasant change from European scenery.

Lastly today, Duncan takes to the air again, but over the ESNG modules…..

Thursday morning, and the show opened its doors.  Thursday was the quietest day, as some of the exhibitions in the adjoining halls didn’t start till the Friday.  The Messe has an admirable system, where one pays once to enter the 10 hall complex, then can visit all the exhibitions all day.

When measured up, the modular layouts added up to about 450m in length.  This didn’t include the stand-alone layouts, like West Sussex, but I think it did include the main N-club layout, the DCC layout, and the Nm layout.

And here’s Duncan’s panorama…

Another view of our empire, from the balcony.

We were fortunate in having good friends as our ‘neighbours’.  On one side of the junction was Olly, and his very detailed distribution depot and demolition site.

And on the other was Stefan’s lovely set of modules, that formed a sweeping curve, and made a change from the usual straight lines of the modules.  Lots of clean, detailed, modelling, including a farmyard with animal noises and swans swimming around a pond.  Stefan has been a good friend to ESNG, keeping us up-to-date with all that is going on, so it was good to ply him with mugs of tea, mince pies, and stilton cheese.

Thursday evening was time for the usual lock-in party, where all the exhibiting groups bring national dishes to share.  For the UK, it was Sussex Ale, cider, clotted cream and jam scones, cheese, mince pies and Walkers crisps.  Other European contributions were more exotic – I am told that the Dane’s curried raw herring is wonderful, but I can never face it!  There is also a significant potential to start the show on Friday morning with a nasty pale green tint to the face, if you have been drinking schnapps and vodka with the Danes and Finns.  I avoided this, but definitely ate too much cheese and dreamt  rather a lot….

Not to be missed is the Swiss raclette, a Swiss cheese that is melted on a special grill contraption (below) and scraped onto a slice of bread.  Delicious!

Duncan took a fly-by of the food (note the UK ale at the start!)

Finally, today, proof that the German sense of humour is as poor (or as good) as the British.  This was on a sign for one of the ladies toilets…..  I make absolutely no comment, in case it lowers my life expectancy.

Monday afternoon we loaded Allan’s pick-up with all the modules and support equipment for Stuttgart.  The most surprising thing was the number of legs needed, and the room taken by them all.  (Personal note – modify my modules to have integral fold-up legs in the boards.)

Tuesday, 3am (milkman time) Allan set off to pick up Derek, and head for the Channel Tunnel.  3pm they were in Stuttgart, and had offloaded everything in the hall in the neat pile seen below.  I followed Tuesday evening on Sleasyjet, and with a tailwind that got us in half-an-hour early on a 90 minutes flight, I was checked in by 8pm and rescuing my suitcase that had come out with Allan and Derek.

Wednesday morning, we were in the hall soon after 9am, and having unpacked the modules, were, as usual, waiting for our neighbours to get their layout constructed.

The hall looks very empty with no layout and no people – and it’s cold with the doors open.

Derek is already on the hunt for bargains…..

But by 11:30am we were ready to set things up.  The practice runs in the UK were very helpful, as we had everything in place and trains running soon after 3pm.  We went back to the hotel at 4 or so, to relax ready for the real work to start in the morning.

Our link to the outside world was this impressive junction, with full route selection and signalling.  I’m just glad that I didn’t have to operate it, as it was a bit complicated for bears of little brain.

This was the first time that we had exhibited mainly N-club modules, but we also included ERIC, and my N-mod loop, as it provided a length of 4-track line that was useful to store or overtake trains.  ERIC had the same selection of Southern Region locos as we took to the West Sussex show – it saved Derek from repacking them all….

The Clubhouse got its first run at Stuttgart….

Derek’s N-club corner was also there, with Aldersford.  We still had a few issues with the track on Aldersford, but a little adjustment, and removing a track pin and blob of solder improved things no end.  Overall, the layout ran very well, certainly as well as our neighbours’ layouts.

Nearby, Duncan had brought the traditional Sussex Ale, that also acted as a good shelf for the controllers for his Nm layouts.  Mark had said he wanted to operate the layout but it had to be near the beer – can’t get nearer than this….

The helix was there as ever.  It’s very impressive, but never quite delivers – the crashes after a breakaway decoupling are also impressive…..

Elsewhere, the West Sussex club were representing the N-gauge Society.  It was good to spend time with them again, having been to their show earlier in the month.  And very impressive, how they fit so many operators into such a small space….

Finally, proof that I was there.  One day I’ll get the hang of selfies – I think I need a selfie-stick (no way) or longer arms….

More next post….