Chris M

My friend bought one of these last weekend. It does appear to be a very good model but the “bling” did surprise me. After my initial surprise I thought well why not? Even without the bling it would not have the look of a cared for loco that was in daily use. So, as sold, it appeals to those who just want to run trains and the bling no doubt increases that appeal while helping to justify the price. Any serious modeller would be looking to add a good bit of weathering to this loco whether it came with or without bling. The bling appears to make good sense from a showroom appeal point of view.

As part of what I call my “serious” modelling I love to find out about odd workings through Dawlish Warren and emulate them. Here are two examples. The GBRf twin 50s took 3 off lease Caledonian sleeper coaches down to Plymouth for evaluation by GWR and the following day took one back. Who would have thought I could run Caledonian sleeper coaches through Dawlish Warren. On 15th September 1963 Bristol sent a Jubilee down to Newton Abbot on a freight working. Again, who would have thought it? The Jubilee is borrowed. It has been used once and will go straight back to its owner. It will never be allowed through Dawlish Warren again because the real event only happened once. It could be argued that “one offs” like these are untypical and so not serious modelling. Alternatively it could be said that such investigations are a mark of a serious modeller. I don’t really care whether it is classed as serious modelling or not - I just enjoy it.

I have different rules for different railways. It has to be said that my garden railway sometimes mixes stock from different continents. So long as the sun is shining it really doesn't matter; that is the essence of a garden railway for me. To illustrate this here is Folly Halt, with very typical US far West buildings with my PPM 50. I am trying to emulate Stourbridge Junction when the students are on their way home. On the other hand I just will not run any loco class that hasn't run through the real Dawlish Warren on my Dawlish Warren layout. I'm very strict about this. Some may find that strange but its a restriction I enjoy having. Despite what I do on my garden railway I really do enjoy the challenging of making a model of a real place and running it as correctly as possible. I strongly believe everyone should do what they want and not be pushed one way or another by others. Its good to be inspired by others but not good to feel pressure to run your railway in a certain way just because others have told you to. I think I would describe myself as a serious modeller but only when I want to be.

Serious modellers build layouts where everything is as it should be. All stock is correct for location and era; anything else is not allowed. All stock is weathered; nothing straight out of the box (unless factory weathered). The track plan is realistic and includes such things as trap points where required. All signals work of course and trains are strictly not allowed past a signal at danger. The land formation is both believable and dramatically portrays the area of the country being modelled. The layout created is a three dimensional work of fine art that includes movement. Non serious modellers build train sets.

Nah - he's only digging through Styrofoam.

Sometimes things start of relatively seriously But then get a little out of hand It didn't end well

Back on page 3 in 2020 I had decided I couldn’t really do a Motorail train. Well this year I changed my mind. I do N gauge and there were no Motorail carflats available so I had to do it the hard way and repaint/rebrand some Railease carflats. I ran these in a 5+5 set at Farnham last weekend and they raised a good deal of interest. At Warley NEC I will be running 5 coaches plus 6 carflats. Ok it’s still not right but it makes an impressively long and different train. Although I see this train as a late 1960s train I reckon it would also work well as a 1980s train with just the Motorail carflats and no coaches hauled by a 50.

At least the Warley show venue does it's best for the environment and sustainability. https://www.necgroup.co.uk/sustainability/environment/

One answer might be to give every person in the western world a carbon allowance that they can use on holidays (jets, cruises), social travel etc. Each form of transport would have a different carbon per mile rating of course. Once you have used your carbon quota no more travel until next year. And no buying quota of others. You would be mad to put on a model railway exhibition that was hard to get to using certain means of public transport.

Cycling into town is a cheap sustainable option - so long as no bu&&er pinches my bike!

Advance tickets for Warley will be on sale at the Farnham & District exhibition this weekend from the Dawlish Warren layout. This is the cheapest way to buy tickets for the show as you get advance price without any booking fee. A card reader will be available. The Farnham & District exhibition is being held at the Alderwood Leisure Centre, Aldershot and is always a great exhibition with some fine layouts on show. Highly recommended. https://farnhammrc.org.uk/?page_id=102

Luckily for me the milk marketing board no longer exists. While personal use is clearly ok how about exhibitions? I might or might not have some images from Google street view on my backscene. I’ve modified them quite a lot so the original source would not be obvious.

I'm B40 so I know where I am.

The Warley show has always opened on a Sunday. Way back in the 1970s we decided to invite the local mayor (of Sandwell) to our exhibition on the Sunday. Our logic was that council officials were unlikely to do anyone for Sunday trading in front of their mayor. We never had any problem so it must have worked. Inviting the mayor became more of issue when we moved to the NEC. We couldn't invite the mayor of Sandwell to an event on "foreign" territory so, in order to remain technically correct and follow protocol, we invited the mayor of Solihull as well. The NEC is in fact in Solihull and not Birmingham. Also back in those days the NEC was owned by Birmingham Council so in order to remain correct we had to invite the mayor of Birmingham as well. That's a lot of mayors, and they all decided to come!

How about bringing back early 1970s exhibition opening times? Many shows were 10am to 9pm Saturday and 10am to 6pm Sunday. Eleven hours running a layout would have been one hell of a shift!

Nah - all the Welsh speakers were in Abertawe.

That is a bit surprising. I thought we agreed last week not to put the floor plan out until a couple of weeks before the show. Never mind.

They all need a bit of light weathering.

The club raised £305 at the coffee morning and this has been donated to Macmillan. Just a couple of photos of layouts that will be at the show Bouillere - this layout is coming all the way from Belgium. Rosebury Goods

There is a chap who has made his layout surround look like a Western - that's quite quirky. I wish I had taken a photo.

All of the above is wonderful and aspirational. However, having been to an exhibition yesterday I have to set my desires a little lower. I would love to see the majority of layouts at a show running stock that was not straight out of the box and looking pristinely plastiky. Getting perhaps a tad picky I would love to see layouts that were not obviously some track laid on a flat board with some scenery put around it. I totally support that people can build whatever layout they desire but some exhibition managers do need to make sure they have a good spread of layouts. Yes have some "I could do that" layouts to inspire newcomers but also have some "wow" layouts to make it worth modellers going to the show. Some of the smaller shows that I have been to this year have not been great; I'm thinking of not bothering with smaller shows at all in future. GETS at £15 will be far better value than a small show at £5.

Yes - in the form of a class 22 and a couple of coaches. 🙂

It’s a whole week before we set off for the exhibition but the fleet has been serviced. Basically pickups decruded, wheels cleaned and gears very lightly oiled. Especially in N gauge checking the cleanliness of the pickups is crucial to good running. They had all been running on the layout and they will all get a lap of the layout again just to make sure I haven’t bu&&ered them up while servicing. I think this is a basic if you are going to be up and running quickly at the exhibition. i only need 12 working locos so i have plenty of spares.

We don't have a final figure but our Macmillan coffee morning raised over £200.

Awdry St Nicolas is course 00 not 0. I will attmept to post a trade exhibitor list in a few days time.