We made our way towards the grand sight of K1 on a trailer as the centrepiece loco and spent quite some time (as you would expect) at the various stands. I bought a copy of the new DVD recalling a year in the life of the F&WHR in 2009 and a few other bits. It was also good to see the WHHR crew in the same area alongside the FR stand.
Bron Hebog was there as expected, but not advertised and there has been much progress since I last saw it at Porthmadog.
The Pullman obs looks magnificent in its lined out livery and K1 is now black.
The temporary wooden 'wendy house' has been duly modelled. I've made one of those too.
and I was astonished to see that the KMX tamper is being modelled, powered by a kato tram chassis - great stuff. Now that really is dedication to the prototype! It is I have to say that I'm not sure I'll ever manage to model the tamper and this is despite having modelled its home (the tamper container). Incidentally I bought a better model of said container from DAPOL and will be replacing the other on my layout asap.
The other end of the layout is coming on too, here is the 'bridge to nowhere' amongst the early scenic formers (Beddgelert desert anyone?).
Later in the day, the Englands were out in force as were Tal and Merddin on the photo charters.
I have to say that the modelling is all of a superb standard and I am sure that comparisons between with Rhyd Ddu will be made - this makes me very nervous about exhibiting indeed.
Dduallt was there too - here comes DLG around the spiral.
and, centre of attention, here is K1.
I had a look at the scenic rust from deluxe materials and agree with other posters on the web who prefer rustall. The rust looks better in 7mm, but even at that scale I feel the rust has too much texture. They had some other good products though including some incredible water.
Dinas was there and the wonder that is Little Wonder was resplendent in its livery and wowwing the crowds with its fan-assisted drain cock steam exhaust. Just a wonderful engine. I hope to post some videos of this layout soon, so I'll save more expansion until then.
We spent quite some time looking at backscenes and I have to say that the stock simple blue sky as shown below is far better in my view than a poor painted attempt. I might go with a simple sky for now before graduating to the full photo backscene.
An unusual opportunity arose to see the rear of County Gate...
and the front.
I had not seen CG with the automation working and although a railcar derailed whilst I was there watching, it worked fautlessly other than that. The LCD screen worked very well and kept the crowd interested while there was no train action. I understand that it won best in show and that comes as very little surprise. I wasn't sure about the whistles and horns though as it was very obvious that they were coming from speakers under the layout and not from the engines/railcars themselves. This wouldn't have mattered a few years ago, but people are used to on board sound now so it was more noticeable. 
Just along from CG, this layout would not normally have interested me, but the name Briding Noora is a clever anagram of its unusual supporting legs!
This is T gauge (3mm track gauge) - quite a layout in a small space!
Pete Waterman was there signing copies of his new book and alongside the 7mm models and a video about his Leamington Spa project was this cheeky little NGG16 and the Pullman. I shook his hand and thanked him for the scheme to bring 109 to the WHR (and also to train young apprentices too).
Accucraft's 16mm garden rail offerings include an NGG16 too, but new this year was an NG15. But at something like £3500 it's a bit beyond my purse.
Worcester Road diesel depot in gauge 1 was exquisite.
and this snow scene (I forget the name) made quite an impression too.
There were also some impressive structures!
and this list of world records for railway modelling will take some beating!
Colin 
No comments:
Post a Comment