esngblog

My final post on ‘Ally Pally’ is to look at O gauge, the ‘senior scale.’  There seems to be a vogue for O gauge shunting layouts at present.  The Model Railway Club’s Happisburgh Goods (pronounced ‘Haze-burr’) models a Great Eastern Railway goods yard in BR days.  It was originally part of the full terminus layout that was on the exhibition circuit for a number of years.  The main layout was sold, but the good yard lives on.

Dubmill Sidings was a long, rambling shunting layout in BR days, that featured some excellent diesels, generally left at random in sidings.  I really liked the (?Heljan?) Falcon, precursor of the ubiquitous Class 47s.  There was also some very nice rolling stock on display.  I have always liked the ‘Prestwin’ hopper since I made an Airfix kit of one.

Back to Ireland for Arigna Town.  A bucolic branch line, Irish style with an interesting selection of locomotives and rolling stock.

Belbroughton is a small (for O gauge) branch line terminus, with some distinctive pointwork to get into the fiddle yard.  I liked the warehouse hiding the fiddle yard.  A pretty well standard ruse, but very neatly done.

Hemyock is a Scale7 model of the terminus of the Culm Valley Light Railway, latterly run by the GWR.  The terminus features a milk processing plant beyond the platform end.  Unfortunately, poor lighting in this part of the hall, and the wide O gauge baseboards prevented me getting a photo of this part of the layout.

Maske is a model of a station on the north-east coast of England, running NER and LNER stock.  I liked the breakdown train out to rescue the stray wagon.  The cows look uninterested – perhaps it’s a common occurrence?

The Stodden Hundred Light Railway completes the O gauge section.

There were a couple of G gauge layouts at the show.  Not altogether realistic, but lots of lovely models that look good because of their size.   Here’s one shot of Hampton’s End.

I missed a few layouts with my camera, but I think this was most of them.  Looking through the photographs again, it showed what a good show it was.  Isn’t it strange that our memory always tells us that last year’s show was always better?  I suspect I’ll be going back next year, as it’s a good day out.

And did I find any bargains?  I came away with a few things, a Dapol Isle of Wight Terrier and a Stove 6-wheeler parcels van, some small clamps from one of the tool shops, and a couple of cheap, unboxed, Southern Pacific bay-window cabooses.  Not a bad haul, really.

As I finish writing this, my thoughts are again with Brussels.  What importance is our hobby compared with all that is going on in Belgium, and almost day-by-day around the world?  But perhaps this is just the time when we need the calming influence of a relatively pointless hobby…..

Just lots of photographs today.  Starting with 3.5mm scale….

Red Hook Bay owes much of its track layout and scenic to an old Iain Rice track plan, and is full of interest.  Perhaps too ‘busy’ to be completely realistic, but there are so many interesting trains, boats and buildings here, that this was one of my favourite layouts for the day.

Malix and Lenz offers some excellent HOm metre gauge Swiss modelling.  Where else in the world can you model two scenic helixes separated by a fiddle yard?  I liked the fact that one end of the layout was modelled in summer, the other covered by very realistic snow.  Snow must be one of the most difficult things to model so it looks right and either captures the sparkle of new snow or the brown slush of 24 hours later.  Some impressive bridges and viaducts were also on show.

And then we have all the variations on 4mm…..

Ruston Keys is, I understand, a British Railway Modelling magazine project layout.  And a very good one too.  It’s a 6′ shunting layout, with a high level shuttle using DMUs.  Some good modelling on show.  It would be interesting as a 4′ N gauge layout…..

Eskmuir takes us north to Scotland at the end of steam.  I liked the train-spotting sheep.

Whiteacres is a large club layout with main lines on two levels.  Lots to look at, but it tended to hit my ‘t00 busy’ filter.

A slice of GWR main line at Hungerford, closely based on the real station there.  Here we see some relaxed shunting going on.

The Irish delights of Valencia Harbour are always worth a look.  On the one hand we have scale 5′ 3″ gauge track, and proto-scale track standards.  On the other hand the model capture a bleak location and un-cared for railway extremely well.  I’ve seen this layout before, but it’s always a favourite and worth spending a few minutes taking in the atmosphere.

Hartburn took my award for ‘best station name.’  Google told me it’s a real place in Northumbria rather than a model railway enthusiast’s dubious sense of humour.  But you can work out the location from the scenery and the rolling stock.  This little layout was another favourite of mine.  A simple through station a couple of sidings to shunt made a very ‘achievable layout.’  The simplicity of the layout makes the scene at the level crossing all the more effective.  If and when the gates open, I’m sure they’d still be talking…

In contrast, Ackthorpe is a large layout, but with a lot of interest due to the National Coal Board industrial locos and the well modelled colliery.  Long trains of coal wagons made up most of the stock movement.

A small but effective gravel working on Grathwaite Junction.  Looks like it uses the old operating trick of ’empties in, full out’.

And how about a 5 road terminus with no points.  Earl’s Court delivered this, and also featured some very interesting multiple units and well observed urban modelling.

Lastly for today Belmont Road, a little loco shed.  I liked the ‘dark’ lighting, and was intrigued by the coaling stage, with a gradient up for the coal wagons and a gradient down for the locomotives.

Next time, I’ll finish off with some large scale models.

Today I enjoyed a pleasant day out at the London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace in the company of Peter and Malcolm, ex-work colleagues.  It’s a simple journey from Redhill to north London – train to Victoria, Victoria line underground to Finsbury Park, then two stops on the Kings Cross suburban lines to Ally Pally.  And lastly a long haul for 1/2 a mile up the hill to the Palace.  Not as steep as the short walk up from the car parks, but enough to leave Peter trundling along behind us.  The time for the journey was a very respectable 90 minutes, and it passed quickly with the usual Binnie & Partners engineering reminiscences – worst hotel I’ve stayed in, worst stomach upset, where to catch malaria or dengue fever in SE Asia, worst work colleague…..

We strolled into the show on pre-booked tickets at 9:45am, and the first impression was more space, less exhibits and less people than previous years.  That may have been unfair, as the show guide showed that a couple of layouts had dropped out, and I think there were more N-gauge and/or small layouts on display, that take up less space.  And there were some very good models on display.  Biggest shock was Bachmann not selling any rolling stock on their stand.  Someone said that at 9:30am here was a rush into the hall, turn left, and head for Bachmann – then utter confusion as there were no bargains to buy!

As for the layouts, I’ll work up the scales over the next couple of posts.  First we have 2mm fine scale.  Lambourn is an old, pioneering, 2mm layout, now being given a new lease of life and a little upgrading.  This end view shows how 2mm and N allow realistic treatment of a station, but also shows how 2mm track looks good, even end on.

Hall Quay is a small layout (2/3 of it shown below) modelling Great Yarmouth in 1910.  There’s even a 3′ 6″ gauge tram system passing through the scene.  Typically, I missed any action when I took this shot.  I remember Hall Quay from the 1960’s, when my cousin was a curate in Yarmouth, but it was run down with no railway interest by then.

Tucking Mill is a gem of a layout, a small terminus on the North Somerset Light Railway with a short platform and plenty of goods sidings.  It is usually operated by small tank locos that run impeccably and is an inspiration to try something similar (with and Isle of Wight flavour in my case.  I picked up a bargain IOW Terrier at the show to tempt me in that direction.)

Next N gauge.  Barnstoneworth is a small, 8′, layout, but it is full of attractive scenery like these road and rail bridges.  It is inspired by a real station at New Mills Central, and trains get realistically lost in the landscape, as with this green DMU below.

Horsethief Bridge is a perhaps typical US style ‘trains in the landscape’ layout.  But the landscape of Washington state (not Washington DC) is well observed, and watching double-stack container trains amble through the scenery is very satisfying.

In contrast, Stapleford St Stephen’s and Newcastle by the water are typical large UK modern-image N gauge layouts.  Lots of action and trains to watch, and some nice modelling, but I wonder whether realism has been overtaken by entertainment.  Mind you, standing on Alexandra Palace station later, there was a procession of Virgin Trains and Great Northern local stock, EMUs and DMU passing in the few minutes we were waiting for our train.  Perhaps it’s just that these layouts are just too ‘clean’ for the UK in 2016?

And finally today, TT scale.  Redford Junction is an imaginary station in a real place, somewhere in deepest Sussex, in LBSCR, then Southern, county.  TT is the greatest scale that never lived.  It’s big enough to scratch-build, but small enough for a compact layout.  The shame was that it started with 12mm, 4′ scale gauge track.  But  Redford Junction illustrates what can be don, and all those lovely Southern locomotives and EMUs are scratch-built.

Next time, layouts in 3.5mm and 4mm scales, with a range of gauges.