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A highlight of the show is the Thursday night ‘lock in’ party.  After the show closes for the night, tables are laid out along one aisle, and each country presents its food and drink for inspection and consumption.  There are some highlights – the German US N-Track chilli was wonderful this year.  And the Swiss raclette.  Some may also enjoy the Danish picked curried raw herring, washed down with schnapps, but I wouldn’t know about that.

As Brexit doesn’t allow us to take out our usual barrel of Sussex ale, Richard came up with the idea of a traditional English tea shop.  This went down very well.  Perhaps not so much the tea, but the wonders of Eccles cakes, battenberg, and cherry bakewell  were a new experience for some of our European brethren.  In fact, there wasn’t much left for the team to eat on Friday.  So here we are…..

And here are some of the other offerings….

While we were there, Claus Ballsiepet celebrated his 50th birthday.  Claude is from Minitrix, and a few years ago generously donated the expander tracks that we are currently using on the layout.

There was, however, a nasty pollution incident in the Mosel valley….

Changing the subject completely, the balcony around the hall was full of Lego.  In fact, the display started outside Hall 1, with this half size Bugatti supercar.  Lot of blue bricks here….

Two enormous ships (the battleship is one of the WWII trio that included the Bismark.)

Construction machinery….

And some fantastic (and realistic) trains…

Star Wars (I think…..)

Well, that’s Stuttgart done and dusted for another year.  Time to get a little modelling done before Christmas?

As usual, there were a number of stand-alone layouts invited to the show.  The following photos capture a number of them – and there was some inspiring modelling to be seen.

Fleischmann brought along their N-gauge layout based on the Mosel valley, where river and railway run beneath extensive vineyards.  The scene is compressed, of course, and the hillsides are steeper than real life, but it looks so right!  Just a simple tail-chaser, but beautifully done.

Lemiso-Werke are a company making models in a range of scales, but they have an exquisite layout to promote their wares.  I saw pictures of this Nm layout last year.  It’s even better seen in the flesh.  Snow is such a difficult thing to model well.

Then there is this complex harbour scene, and I especially liked the very detailed ships.

But the piece de resistance must have been this large canal lock – rather like the ones you can see near Northwich in Cheshire.  I kept going back to have another look!

A small portion of the enormous layout of Stuttgart’s railways was on show.  This layout was a lifetime labour of love by a Stuttgart modeller.  When he died, most of the layout was saved (with help from the local NCI members amongst others) and parts are now on show near the new Stuttgart station (than has finally opened.)

Next post, it’s party time!

Today is just a bit of a photo dump of some of the many modules on show.  Just my choice of pictures, and ones that caught my eye – most I can’t remember where they came from!

 The helix was there to get trains across an aisle at high level.  The holding fiddle yard for it was just behind our operating position.

The Danish mega-junction.

A Greek archaeological theme here….

The Belgian race-track!  Simple, but realistic in its simplicity.

In contrast, some very detailed scenes on these modules….

Town….

And country….

Nm….

And two rather interesting end loop ideas – a double loop from Denmark, and a junction loop from Belgium that neatly swaps right hand to left hand running.  I understand that the Danish loop needs some major motive power to work!

Next time, a look at some of the inspiring stand-alone layouts at the show.

Today’s just a pictorial guide to the modules on our branch off the main layout spine.  We start with Richard, and the German airbase, then a bridge, and a demolition site…..

And his distribution depot….

Moving onto my modules, starting with the USAF airbase….

The ‘joker’ module (to shift the running lines from one side of the board to the other).  Note the T-rex!

The clubhouse.  This is a model of a real building in Switzerland, but we wish it really was our clubhouse.  A few cameos in the car park identify a few club members and interests (curry.)

And the junction between double track NCI and four track N-mod operation…

Round our club corner, and next was Saggers Sidings.  The punters liked my bubble car train parked on one siding, and Allan’s Thomas and Toby on the other.

Round another corner and finally we linked up with the West Sussex group layout.  This suffered a few teething troubles, but Ian and co. got through the week successfully.

The last afternoon, my modules suffered an infestation….  Dinsdale!!

Next time, some pictures of some of the other modules on display.