After a particularly long and frustrating INSET day I have broken up for the much needed half term holiday and what better way to celebrate than by visiting a model railway event.

This is the third successive year I have visited the Sileby event and I have always enjoyed it - this year was no exception. For a relatively small location, the Syston Model Railway society always manage to pack in lots to see, and there is always some excellent layouts on show. This year the stand out layout was the N gauge model of "Melton Mowbray (North). I have seen this featured in a prevous issue of the Hornby magazine, but had never seen it "in the flash". What an excellent model, packed full of detail which accurately represents the location. A big well done to those involved.

Once again there were some old favourites on show. For the second show in succession I was able to view Mike Kelly's "Everbury". This was at the Stafford event two weeks ago. An excellent model and my 14 month old daughter certainly enjoyed the action!

Other familiar layouts included the Soar Valley club's "Aylett End". This Southern region model features DCC control and many sound fitted locos. The scenics are excellent and I always enjoy seeing this model.

Godric's Hollow is a OO gauge layout based on a SDJR branch. I believe it is fairly new to the exhibition circuit. I have seen previously it at last year's Loughborough and Burton events. Each viewing sees more and more progress made. For a "minimum space" layout it certainly has lots of operational interest with passenger services, general freight and services to the local dairy.

Board Lane was also present. Chris Trafford's shunting layout, built on an ironing board, visited my own show last November. It was nice to see him and the layout once more.

Amongst the layouts I was seeing for the first time was the O gauge model "Trebudoc". This small country branch station is just 9ft in length. In such a small space there was lots of operational interest and the ex GWR models looked superb.

Alston was another superb N gauge layout, complete with an excellent viaduct model. Sadly my daughter decided to get hungry at that point and so I did not get enough time to view it. I hope I will get to see it again sometime in the future.

During my visit I did get to chat to one or two layout owners about them potentially exhibiting their layouts at the Weston on Trent show in November. These are useful contacts and hopefully will lead to me adding more layouts to the show before too much longer.

With wife and daughter hungry I took a detour on the way home, treating them to lunch in the Butler Henderson's cafe at Quorn and Woodhouse station on the GCR. During our visit I glimpsed two Leicester bound services through the window. The first was the DMU passenger, the second the diner which was hauled by Ivatt 46521. I also got the briefest glimpse of 6023 King Edward II on a Loughborough bound service.

Incidently the food was very nice, the service not so good. Quite slow with not all meals served at the same time. As a GCR working member I was a little disappointed.