Chris M

I would either go to your local club or go to a few exhibitions and ask the question. There are no any different approaches all of which are valid. I always use a diode matrix and a flippin big CDU. Unfortunately I couldn’t write about all the options here.

Looking at it another way,maybe it was the existence of Accurascale and their 00 models was a significant factor that helped to push Hornby to go to TT:120.

If Accurascale brought out a TT:120 loco Hornby would not be happy at all. It wouldn't surprise me if Accurascale were quietly working on some TT:120 items; there is more space for new models there than anywhere else.

Everything is progressing well with the Warley at Statfold show. It has been rather quiet of late but that is because a lot of behind the scenes work has been going on and lots of details have had to be discussed. I can say that invitations to layouts, trade exhibitors and demonstrators will go out within the next week. Having seen some of the work done so far I have to say I am rather excited about it, but then I might be a tad biased. 😉 In the meantime I have to tell you Warley club has a new Facebook page. What was wrong with the old one? Well a couple of years ago a rather large cock up was made, not by me though. Anyway we ended up with a Facebook page that we could write to but nobody had full control over so new posters could not be added and ex-posters could not be deleted. After trying to contact Facebook we gave up and created a new Facebook page. You will find the new FB page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558041900591 . Please press follow on this page - you know you want to. I will try to keep the old and new pages updated for a while but eventually the old one will be allowed to whither and die.

When Eardington station is open they sell the best cakes on the line.

I would offer my layout (Dawlish Warren) as a Warley related layout, it has actually travelled in a Luton van with the Warley barriers before. It has to be said that a van full of barriers is a very heavy load. I'm not saying the van was tightly packed but my layout couldn't move as it was jammed in with barriers all round it. Unfortunately Easter just isn't a possibility; its important family time for me. Pretty much the whole family except me has birthdays over the period that Easter can happen. Dawlish Warren has never ventured further north than Stafford so a trip further north would have been good but never mind. I've done a fair few exhibitions in the Midlands and the South and Dawlish Warren probably won't go out very often in future. Statfold Barn in less than a couple of weeks time is the only outing this year for me. And I'm still just about young enough to hire a van!

Hymeks in South Devon

No rest for the RAIB even on a bank holiday Monday.

Did you know it gets difficult to hire a van when you are over 70? That's what we found at Warley. Apologies for letting York down on this one.

Stourbridge Junction when college has finished for the day .

It is a bit. It’s got a recognisable but under scale bridge as well.

This layout is some way off being complete but sometimes N gauge doesn’t look too bad.

Agreed. Being serious for a moment, I would be only too happy to see other folks interpretation of the location I have modelled. When someone expressed an interest in making their interpretation of an earlier layout I was only too happy to provide him with my track plan as a start point. Why not, railway modelling isn't a competition.

Those are all Dawlish, mine is Dawlish Warren. So I’m in the clear for royalties. ☺️

I based my layout firmly on the Dawlish Warren end of the sea wall so it cannot be seen as a copy of the sea wall at Pendon. Nor is it a copy of, or even inspired by Holiday Haunts, no, not at all. Also there is no connection whatsoever between this layout and John Allison's N gauge sea wall layout back in the 1960s.😉 Update: John Allisons layout was in an RM article in May 1971 called watching the trains go by. If anyone wants to do another sea wall layout they are most welcome but we will have to agree royalties first.

Market Deeping club clearly copied Pendon's model of Teignmouth but they cunningly called it Dawlish so nobody would notice.

Now there's a thought, would it be possible to copyright a model railway as a work of art? According the the government guidelines - You automatically get copyright protection when you create: original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography Whoever first put a bus on a bridge could be in for a big windfall! It could well be that anyone publishing videos of layouts at exhibitions and receiving revenue for same without first asking permission of the layout owner could be breaking copyright rules. Thinking about it why should someone receive money for simply videoing other peoples artwork? Whoops, I seem to have gone off piste.

I guess lots of layouts have inspired other similar layouts over the years. I doubt that there are many exact copies. As for modelling a real place, I think two or more layouts would be fascinating. Pretty much all models of real places have to have compromises made and different designers will make compromises in different places. They will also be working in different sized spaces, maybe different eras and possibly different scales. This means we are likely to end up some quite similar layouts but with a good number of differences. I bet folks here know of a number of duplicated models of real places. For starters I am sure there are a number of layouts of Garsdale/Hawes Junction around. It was good of the real place to change its name so any duplication of models isn't so obvious.

On a previous layout I edited some sound files to match my trains running by. These sound files were saved to my phone. I played them through a Bluetooth speaker under the layout. I felt this was very effective and gave pretty good sound. There was plenty of bass when using my best speaker, when the Hymek went past and opened up you could feel the ground shake which was a brilliant experience. Well it was brilliant until other members of the household expressed a somewhat different opinion. Maybe it’s best if loco sound isn’t 100% accurate after all.

There are clever designs these days which means smallish speakers can be very good. I find weight is still a good guide to sound, the heavier the speaker the better the sound.

No it wasn't. At the EGM where the NEC show cancelled the exhibition team were asked to look for a smaller venue for future Warley shows to be held at some point in the future. At that meeting on the 10th January there was no venue for a new show and the expectation was that the next Warley show would probably be some time in 2025. Things moved on at quite a pace from there.

I can see why some folk like sound locos and understand their popularity. Its an interesting facit of the hobby. I have to say that sound equipped locos don't do it for me. As already mentioned the sound is thin. Perhaps more importantly to me is that I like to hear the whole train passing sound. The sound of a train approaching, passing and then fading into the distance is what does it for me. I find the sound of non sound locos which allow me to hear the train coming from a distance with a crescendo as it passes complete with clickety clacks over the pointwork and then the crescendo dies away into the distance is more realistic overall than the sound of a loco obliterating the sound of the train. I do have some sound equipped locos for my garden railway. I quite like that because I can still hear the whole train as it passes and the loco sound slowly disappears as the loco goes to the far end of the garden. I also find the gentle chuffing of a steam loco goes very well with warm sunshine and a cool beverage. So for me - outdoors in big locos, yes, indoors in small locos, no. In general I prefer models of diesels to steam but I only use sound on my steamies. I love the sound of a diesel engine in real life but I find it gets a bit tiresome when a diesel loco is going round the garden.

There is no plot. There are also no surprises. Warley club decided organising the NEC show was too much for them after 30 successful years. It was no surprise that Warners decided to take over the mantle of organising a national show. Part of the Warley club resolution was to search for a suitable location for a new smaller show. The only surprise was that a suitable location was found so quickly.

I'm going to drift my own thread as the above statement needs further explanation. I do not consider myself to be a narrow gauge fan but I have always seen the charm of narrow gauge trains. This may have changed over the last 12 months. In addition to visiting Statfold Barn last year I also had a ride on both the FFestiniog and L&B railways. Maybe this has affected (or infected) me. Over the last few months I have designed and am now involved in building an 009 layout. I have even bought a few items of stock.