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And so to the rest of the layouts at Spa Valley. Elbow Lane is a familiar, but always interesting little railway.

St Mellion is also familiar, but is a neat bit of modelling.

A little modern image with New Oak Lane.

It’s rare to see gauge 1 at a show, so High Halden was especially welcome.

Lots of buses on Cannon Bay.

Newfangled TT120 with Teaton.

And old school TT with Spring Bank.

Rainbow Rock does what it says on the can.

Cato Inferno is a detailed model of what happens to Ivor the Engine when he goes over to the dark side.

And finally, LEGO is just LEGO and great fun.

Now to the small trains. Two posts of the model railways at the show. I think Allan caught most of the railways there.

We’ll start with Newvaddon Parkway in N. Having seen these photographs, I almost think that this large N gauge layout looks better in the photos than in real life. I’m not sure why that is – perhaps photos of small areas show up the excellent detail better?

I liked Orestone Quay in 00, with some very nice trains, boats and road vehicles.

Brook Street in 0 was a nicely laid out branch line.

More 0 gauge with Paystow & Croftview. An original terminus that became two stations. I was interested to see the support for the facia halfway along the station. It’s far less intrusive than I would have thought.

Badgers Mount, an 00 urban terminus. I like the skewed road bridge hiding the tracks leaving the layout.  Nice sunny day outside!

More next time.

Moving rapidly on from TINGS, it’s time to visit the Spa Valley Model Railway Weekend. Once again photos courtesy of Mr Dawes. Today we’ll have a look at the large trains.
Battle of Britain class 303 squadron…..

Class 31, Sister Dora….

An O8 shunter…..

And a few general views….

Next time, some small trains!

A final look at some more of the TINGS layouts today. We start with Holgate. Even more tracks than our ESNG modules!

A representation of the East Coast Main Line south of York station. The track plan is as it existed prior to electrification in 1988, and consists of six main lines and four “holding” sidings.

Some nice industrial modelling on Smalldale Quarry.

Smalldale is a small village situated between Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith just east of Dove Holes. Our layout is not based on the actual quarry, but is a depiction of what it could have been like in the 1970’s and 80’s.

Broadwater Junction looks a good place to go trainspotting – or hill walking!

This is a ‘watching the trains go by’ layout inspired by various coastal lines on the west coast of Wales / England such as the broad expanse of the Dovey Estuary in Wales. It has DC control with points operated by SEEP motors.

Another modular layout with Wincklesea Modular Automation, but this is particularly interesting because of its operational methods – look no hands Mum! Crash!!!!

Seaside Winklesea famous for its art deco station and pickle works is a modular layout focused on the automatic running of trains. Using both JMRI and Rocrail to provide computer control for multiple trains with live timetables.

Two neat branch lines (my sort of railway) with St Caths.

A village and Civil Parish in what is today known as the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire. Mainly set in the late 60`s early 70`s in the British Railways green era, although the odd blue era loco and DMU can also be seen.

And Ashfield.

The track plan is loosely based on Ashburton in Devon with Peco code 55 track. The period is the 1950s to1960s. The layout is a single line continuous run and is controlled by DC analog.

Unfortunately, Hither Green PAD was hidden behind a pillar. Unfortunate because it contains a lot of very good modelling in a small space.  It also is a good example of how one can model a small area of an enormous site like Hither Green.

Hither Green PAD is loosely based on the engineers sidings located towards the rear of the diesel depot, during the period timeframe between 1985 and 1995. The stock is a mixture of RTR, Kit and 3D models.

North of the border with Inverkeithing.

Inverkeithing is the second station after crossing the Forth bridge into the Kingdom of Fife and is situated on the north side of the Firth of Forth. It was chosen as it has the most stopping services on the line through Fife.

Millfield Yard gets to a lot of shows but is always worth a look.

Set in 1985-1995 BR Railfreight/NSE period when there was still a good variety of locomotives and liveries about, based down south with 3rd rail.

And last but not least, I can’t resist including Malken.

The concept started in 2020 following an article in the N gauge Society Journal about the Eheim trolleybus system which dates from the 1960s.

Well, that’s TINGS for 2024. I really hope that I do get there next year.

For the next couple of days, we will look at the other layout at TINGS. Probably not all of them but some of the best selections.  From looking at the photos I think the best layout was Shirebrook. Layout descriptions come from the show brochure.

The layout was built to illustrate the potential that N scale provides the modeller, the ability to portray a prototype in miniature without the need of acquiring a barn!

Allans photos seem a little limited for this layout so I’ve added a video from YouTube.  I love the winter scene and the matching backscene.

Next up we have Brinklow, a nicely modelled section of double track main line.

Based on Brinklow station part of the Trent Valley line between Rugby and Stafford. Set in the BR days between 1950 to 1965.

As ESNG is a modular club I’d better mention the modular layouts. There were four different standards on display. One commentator complained about too many modular layouts, but I think they showed a good spectrum of layouts from realistic to fun. For those of us without a large spare room or a club house, modular railways are ideal. Something for everyone?

First, Long Hirston, a four track standard similar to our ESNG N-mod.

Long Hirston is a four track loop with an automated fiddleyard to allow for plenty of movement and good range of trains. Some of the modules have yards which allows for additional shunting.

Then we have the large T-TRAK extravaganza.

The modular layout is from the Wiltshire 5 Towns area group of the N Gauge Society, showing what is probably the largest T-trak layout exhibited in the UK. It is 26.5m in running length comprised of 32 modules.

Finally, this new hexagonal modular system, that looks a lot of fun, and a slight reprise of N Club International.

More layouts next time.

Today we will look at the European modules in the NCI layout. I think I’ve seen some of these before, but there were quite a few new ones.

But first an update on the ESNG meeting for the 18 September. When I ambled down to join the meeting there were just four people there. So we had a non-running meeting but enjoyed tea and chat for at least a couple of hours. Next meeting is Sunday and we will be running trains then.  Back to TINGS…..

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Two of the more interesting modules were on the end loops and these had a British flavour. Stefen has made a wonderful model of Bodiam castle. It’s scratch built, not from a kit as I thought  Latest update – back to my original post,  It is a kit, but with some modifications and additions. My only criticism is that the KESR doesn’t loop around the castle in real life.

The other end loop had Stonehenge on top of it. I kicked myself here because I’ve been looking at the Stonehenge kit as a possible loop model. I suppose I should have just got on and built it.

Next time we’ll look at some of the other layouts, including a variety of modular layouts.  But here’s another video of the show.

Well, TINGS is over, and I gather my modules behaved very well even without me standing threateningly over them! I was very sorry to miss it, but Allan sent me a lot of good photos which will feature over the next few days.  The pictures are a little short of trains because they were taken before the show started. However the videos I’ve attached have plenty of things running.

I’ll start with the N Club International layout, as I still haven’t got details of all the other exhibits. I gather the layout got some very favourable comments, even from one or two people who don’t like modular layouts. It shows how a modular layout can look consistent when the modules are built to a common standard – even in this case when there are modules from England and Germany. There was also a consistent set of trains running, mostly from Germany but also Thomas the Tank Engine.

We’ll start with a general view of proceedings….

And today we’ll have the UK contribution. These came from Nick, with his extended Bahnbetriebswerk Königshafen modules….

Richard’s modules….

And my two. And the plaque for them….

A couple of character shots. Stefan taking photos and talking to the famous Mr Kato.

And finally for today, one of the videos on YouTube of the show, that has some good shots of the NCI layout. Not up to Brian’s standards but never mind!

Well, I should have been at TINGS this weekend. However, I was prudent and decided not to go with this shoulder. Probably a good thing as I am meant to be doing exercises several times a day which would have been an exhibition in itself! Allan collected my modules on Thursday with full instructions on how to set them up. The photos below show that they managed and they managed to connect them to the Germans.

The modules look OK, just wish I was there to appreciate them.

More photos will be coming from Allan through the weekend. If nothing else I’ve probably saved money by not visiting all the trade stands especially Anoracks Anonymous.

Elsewhere…..

This happens all the time on club nights.  BN 8073 Burlington Northern Railroad EMD SD40-2 at Tehachapi, California by Amy Miller.

My dream house….

Did you see that Tamiya have started to make 1 to 1 scale kits?