S.W.Neill

Once again thank you to all those involved in organising the show, a lot of work behind the scenes goes into setting up. We were there with the "layout with no name" having been missed off the programme listing 🥸. A mix of hard work (shifting layouts is at best tedious), meeting friends within the hobby, and.. oh yes... playing trains!! What more could one ask for? Steve Newport MRS

Just as an adder to my last post: One of the problems is that "eye level" varies with people from 5'6" to 6'6"!!! So what we tend to do as a club is pitch the height for an average height of 5'10" standing 18" away from the layout. Then make sure those at 5'6" can't see above the back scene whilst giving the extra tall a chance to see to the back of the layout. Can look odd with us bobbing up and down (up usually involves standing on something!). Steve

Hi, I have an existing layout that seems to work at 46" rail height, also I have not detected a hard height rule anywhere, not sure there are any rules really!! My own interpretation is that as a basic guideline the front fascia and back scene should enclose the visual space so that this is all that is seen - the book to some extent focuses more on controlling the presentation to exclude distractions (operators, hall surroundings etc) rather than fixing a height. Hence the height rather depends on fascia aperture, back scene height, depth of board and scene modelled. In the "Cameo book" and at exhibitions O gauge layouts are I believe under represented in the "Cameo class", seems the P4/EM guys rather dominate, it would be good to see a few more 7mm layouts. I've always thought it ironic that if you raise a P4 layout to eye level then the visual benefit for the track is reduced - the birds eye pictures show it for sure but this is not how they are seen at shows. As for the book, I found it interesting irrespective of the competition and has some useful ideas. Steve

Hi, Having decided to have a go at the competition figured I'd post something (first time). Yes I've bought the book, mainly because our club layout (Frecclesham) had a couple of pictures included. I will start a posting (that seems a pre-requisite of the comp) in due course. My layout will be 7mm (OFS) and operated by RC locos, with a goal to not use mains power, just batteries! All I have as a starting point is a partially finished J15!! Not entirely sure this is sensible, but what the heck!!!! regards, Steve