esngblog

I didn’t get to this one, but Allan did and sent me some photos.  Descriptions (where available) are from the Berkshire Bagladdies website.

T-Track Modular layout

Red Rock is a US based layout set somewhere in rural Oregon

Forest Park, inspired by Croydon trams

Berkshire Area Group Modular Layout.  As with ESNG, built to N-mod standards and used at club running days and exhibitions.

Wokingham, Berkshire Area Group’s work-in-progress with the aim of accurately depicting Wokingham station. It will be most impressive when complete

Rose Hill.  Again four-track, but a self-contained private layout

Oakingham

Paddock Hill

Back for a second layout selection.  The Royal Albert Bridge (N) is a lovely scenic roundy-roundy.  If you are going to have a continuous run, why not have some spectacular engineering!

Hope-under-Dinmore (EM) is a fine display of pre-grouping modelling, with LNWR and GWR trains.

I really liked East Quay (OO).  A simple through layout with a short fiddle yard at each end (running a passenger auto-coach service.)  Interest is provided by a small yard and a harbour.  This could work very well for almost any prototype or company.

Frecclesham (0), Southern in BR days.  The crimson coaches look very smart in this large size.

Llawryglyn (EM) models a bucolic byway of the Cambrian Railway, that specialised in branches to nowhere that no-one else would have bothered with.

Wantage (P4) and The Works (O, ON16.5 and moving vehicles), very different but both excellent.

‘Proper’ 009 and Llandecwyn.

Last of the layouts, Top Yard (EM).  I rather liked the track layout, but especially admired the honesty of the builder on the notice underneath!

I did take a couple of pictures of forthcoming ‘N’ gauge models.  I can’t wait for my Rapido dynamometer car, and I think that I shall order some of their SECR wagons, too.  Farish came out with a new, unannounced tank wagon.  A good prototype, as it fills the just post-war gap of prototypes.

Finally, the usual N Gauge Forum meetup at BH Enterprises.  Just the four of us, but perhaps quality beats quantity?

The journey home was also easy, made even easier by my train making an additional stop at Earlswood, the nearest stop to home.  A very good exhibition.  Perhaps a little more trade than in the past, but I think that a couple of layouts had dropped out.  Perhaps, too, post-Covid with increasing venue costs, this is what we will see.  More commercial shows, with a bit more trade (but less specialist traders.)  It’s difficult to criticise this – it’s just the way the hobby is going.

Saturday, I decided to head for Ally Pally for the exhibition.  I missed last year due to rail driver problems, I do like the venue, and I had a complementary ticket for being a member of World of Railways.  All good reasons for a visit.

Travel was easy.  Thameslink from Redhill direct to Finsbury Park, a few yards to the opposite side of the same platform, then three stops on the local train to Alexandra Palace.  A bracing walk up the hill (it really gets steeper towards the top) got me there just as the early-entry tickets started to go in.  I decided to first rush around and take nearly all the photos I wanted.  I then sat down for a coffee and bacon roll before the rush later in the morning.  And I then spent several hours wandering around, slightly at random, to revisit most of the layouts and look at some of the trade.

I haven’t posted photos of every layout, but just those I liked, or photos that have come out well.

Copenhagen Fields wasn’t at the show this year, but a little bit of it, York Road tube station was.  Away from the layout, one was able to have a close look at this lovely, and unusual, bit of modelling in 2mm scale.  Note the man in residence in the ‘gents’.

I’ve seen Harton Gill (P4) before, and it’s a fine piece of industrial modelling.  If you are lucky, one of the unique Harton electric locos will pop out of a tunnel with some hopper wagons.

More industrial grime from West End Drift (EM).

I never tire of seeing City Basin Goods.  Such a fine layout, and it always runs extremely smoothly.  It’s been to some excellent exhibitions, too!

Modular (and American) modelling was well represented by Solent Summit (N).  I’ve seen this layout criticised for lack of trains running, but there was plenty of action whenever I had a look at it.  I do like the spiral, a mini Tehachapi Pass Loop.

I did like the Bremen Tramways (HO), again a modular layout, but like NCI, to no fixed size.

And lastly for today, one picture of Great Bardfield (P4).  Some lovely modelling of an East Anglian byway.  I couldn’t get any more photos, as the owners were wielding a soldering iron just to my right.  The exhibitor’s curse strikes again!