I had long been curious about N Gauge, ever since seeing a long rake of Peco ‘Wonderful Wagons’ in a model/toy shop (Hubble & Freeman) in Maidstone, Kent, in what must have been about 1974. They looked rather good at the time.

Less good looking were the locomotives. It is all about ‘looking right’ and whilst I can overlook a lot, I cannot abide something that just ‘looks wrong’!

(Hornby) Minitrix were particular culprits. I could not have run their Class 27. It would have given me a headache just to look at it. Likewise with the front ends of their Class 47, it was just wrong, no need to count the rivets. They probably both ran like sewing machines, but I could not abide the horror. And then there was the Warship, which looked like a Halloween leftover.

Apologies to the legions of fans of this model but it makes me feel slightly queasy

And then there was Lima with their extra tall Class 31. My boat still wasn’t floating.

There was another player in the market, Graham Farish, and whilst they had produced a few horrors of their own, by around about the mid-1980’s there were a few respectable little models beginning to creep into the British N-Gauge market, as my imported Railway Modellers were regularly informing me.

The steam locomotives still jarred. It was mostly the steamroller front bogies. But the diesel locomotives were showing signs of realism. It was still early days, and I’d had no hands-on experience of N-Gauge, but the accumulation of a wife and subsequent baby had evicted me from the guest bedroom, which was now full of all manner of baby paraphernalia, my OO gauge stock forlornly perched on the highest shelf.

I began thinking about what I might manage in N-Gauge, no specific plans, just a need to drive trains in a smaller space, and N-Gauge was coming of age. And so I prevailed upon Hattons to send me Class 20 No. 20142 in BR Rail Blue, with a few Minitrix/Peco wagons, and a bit of track.

This, on the other hand, was good enough to lure me into N-Gauge.

I was a bit sceptical, after 20 years in OO gauge this was a step into the unknown, but my first running session on that carpet in Portugal, shunting some wagons back and forth with the Class 20, convinced me that N-Gauge had become a viable alternative, albeit a tiny one. The locomotive ran as quietly and smoothly as any I had known, and whilst it didn’t look perfect, it certainly ticked all my ‘looks’ boxes. Particularly if I turned a blind eye to the coupler.

BR Blue was not a natural choice for me. I had grown up with it and become a bit bored with it after the 1970’s, when it was on everything in sight. And I never quite got to like the shade of blue, Pullman blue or Electric blue seemed nicer. Perhaps if everything had been Electric blue I’d have been bored with that too. I tolerated British Rail Blue because I had to. And I selected it for the N-Gauge stock because the steam engines of the green period weren’t yet up to scratch.

So 1987 unfolded, and a new gauge was making an appearance amongst the bibs, nappies, Superteds (other soft toys are available) and assorted push chairs and high chairs.

And just as I was contemplating boarding something down, we were advised we were on the move.
Next stop the railway modelling mecca known as Bulgaria. Oh.