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So plenty of new entrants to the hobby who haven't seen it then. I think it's only been out a two or three times in the last ten years or so, having been in store in a late member's garage. I believe the old (and occasionally smoking) Kebab van has been presented to his family, hence the new replacement kebab van: I'm shocked that you've found a smaller layout..

Something that applies to all layouts, is they have to look visually inviting - I've realised now that some previous projects that fastidiously followed a prototype would have been boring to look at, whereas adding a little modellers licence would have given them an edge. It also helps to have proper running, the same train thoughtlessly batting round or running badly isn't going to appeal to me.

...managed to see it from home, through a gap in the clouds when it departed just after 16.00 This plane-spotting lark is really difficult - I thought railtours were bad for running late, but this was far worse. I'm not sure what was rare and what wasn't for Birmingham, although I thought this Virgin A350 G-VPRD might be? The pilot didn't know where to go and had to follow a ground vehicle...

Finally, my own photo of OneAir's G-UNET, currently at Birmingham.

Technically it isn't foreign, but it is an Interurban so ticks all the boxes for me. It was my favourite layout at Ely last year.

One Air's G-UNET has just been on BigJetTV landing at Heathrow....

I'd like to one day, I had a couple of sets of decals that I passed on to @Supaned and still have a Suydam brass B (that you've just reminded me to produce some decals for Central Limones for it before I finish the next white decals sheet).

Statement on the AMB/Laserkit website regarding the closure of the business due to the passing of owner John Hitzeman. http://www.laserkit.com/ One of my first overseas purchases when I started US modelling was for the AMB detailing parts and lowering kit for the Cannonball Steeplecab, and I was very impressed with the final result that John created with his Fort Dodge loco.

At least with it being Monaco they can get away with a single imbedded steel wire and use the Faller system, because all the cars need to do is follow each other round without overtaking...

There is a certain precedent on this, I remember my Dad saying KeilKraft Jetex models were taken off sale because the tablets used for propulsion were also favoured by the IRA, and I bet it wasn't because they liked traipsing over muddy fields or climbing trees to retrieve a lost free flight model though.

Should "Blue Harbour" be Blue Heron? HO, Pacific Northwest themed inglenook, ~30 years ago.

I take it it's S scale and not O? If it was the latter, it'd have a spare rail on the track centreline and that would definitely make it a train set.

@Prof Klyzlr asked me this earlier on my FB group, I've answered and have been mulling it over all day. Personally I like the idea of including the main and having it run automatically at a show whilst switching the mill, but that would require a large fiddle yard to support it. For further context, this is the mill looking west(ish) with the main line shown in blue and a rough representation of the mill track layout in red. The problem to faithfully replicating it is the sharp curves onto 4th St that will obviously require more depth than the foot wide boards (and more space means more buildings. Thinking about the aesthetics, I've seen plenty of freelanced layouts that look right, and plenty of ones that slavishly follow a prototype but somehow look wrong. I tried to do the former with my interpretation of Blue Heron because there were other elements I wanted to include, and in terms of the Prof's concept it is still possible to build just the mill and add the main later...

To summarise, everyone I know has been on holiday there... ( @long island jack has ridden it today ), I'm still trying to sell the concept to my family... I'm currently working on the viaduct as a small pizza layout, I've finished the cad for the brake vans but not printed anything recently or the Shortys). I'll try to have a go at the photos, but in the meantime here is the terraforming currently going on on the summerhouse, until the family claim it back as apparently it isn't a modelling room....

I'll rephrase that, obviously many people take a good stand on not claiming expenses, but I'm not associating those who might claim just for their petrol for a 100 mile round trip in the same breath as the extreme cases as mentioned in other threads on here where exhibitors have tried to pull a fast one because the show looked more successful. But there is a point at which someone is bothering to claim for just local miles, when the cost to them is negligible. Still, I doubt the traders would be complaining, their takings must go up after exhibitors have been paid out...

There does seem to be an attitude that fuel expenses are there to be claimed, when in reality for a local show once you and your mates have got in for free and had food and drinks provided, you probably owe them money-especially if you were going to the show anyway and have still had time to enjoy it, and been given an exhibitors discount as a lot of traders kindly do. Just to confirm though, expenses is one thing but you'll never be reimbursed for the things you need to bring a layout up to exhibition standard (curtains, spare controllers, wear and tear to stock and increased cleaning and maintenance, etc.), plus the time spent doing so and filling out paperwork and risk assessments, but having seen wads of the folding changing hands for layouts that look like they have just fallen out of a haunted loft, where one train "the best runner" has been doing laps all afternoon whilst the operator has forty winks, there is definitely something amiss with the whole culture of getting paid for it...

Some of @Gilbert's photos from yesterday although I must have missed him at the layout when I nipped out for lunch-thanks for taking them. Although it was the layouts fourth show, it was actually the first where it's been out and back in a day. One problem with a lack of power in one direction to the frog in front of the 44 tonner above couldn't be traced, so I sprayed some electrical contact cleaner in it and cycled it a few times, and then it seemed to work. It was only a problem for the Cincinnati Car, which is the only vehicle without a stay alive- it didn't completely stall but the ABC programming caused it to reverse. The show seemed well attended, although there is still the issue that the layout doesn't seem to be recognisable as Cuba, albeit one where everything is American.

A few quick projects prior to the layouts appearance at Stokenchurch tomorrow: finally fitting licence plates to the vehicles (the array of 1950s Cuban plates came from the internet and we're reduced to 3.5*1.75mm, the Washington State plates are for someone else). I gave up trying to decide whether the colour relates to the date of issue and whether they would be changed by the expiry date, and just chose the prettiest colours. And a laminated card showing how I packed the stock into box files, to save time putting it all away again...

Conversely I brought one secondhand because I found that when I'm trying to persuade the public to operate, not many like to have Powercab with lots of buttons presented to them. I've since gained a second Powercab when Hatton's had them for £168 last year, but still prefer to run with the Cab06. Once disadvantage I've found is it seems difficult to select speed step 1 and have had to re-tune a lot of Loco's performance to improve slow speed running. I'm not sure whether this is because I have the Potentiometer version, or how it differs to the encoder version in this respect.

On the other hand, to me these abominations represent the absolute nadir of 1970s nostalgia. They were in a box from the in-Law's loft and belonged to my Brother in Law (anything useable went to my Nephew), who probably can't be persuaded to re-enter the hobby if this is what he remembers. My first loco was actually a LNER J50, I wanted a Pannier but my parents somehow thought I had to have something to go with my Brother's Flying Scotsman (no prizes for guessing who the favourite child was...). I later did swap it at school for a Pannier. I still have my second loco, the infamous GWR Holden tank. I brought another GWR150 one at that time and a GWR175 one in 2010. Hopefully Hornby will still have the moulds in eleven years time...

Unfortunately leaving it to individuals would increase costs because the organiser wouldn't get a discount on their regular block booking or use their local knowledge to choose the best places to stay. It'd also be at the mercy of mis-interpreted expenses instructions should there be any last minute changes or unforeseen costs. When it was just me and Mrs298 exhibiting a layout we had some nice weekends away, but with a family now I really don't like staying away and will only do so for special events- I'll also be having to travel more for work now and honestly hate the idea. I also sometimes feel guilty about claiming lots of expenses and often try not to- what if someone fed back that it was "Foreign rubbish" (see other thread) or had a derailment or some other unforseen issue?

Just a few thoughts from me... Model Railways is art, and art ought to be thought provoking. So it's made my week to hear that something has piqued someone's interest for so long (my YouTube video of a trolley pole catcher also seems to be popular at the moment, but I'm not sure why that has so many hits. Not is it art, it's just a mechanical device). Cuba has been modelled before- from @Lineas Cubanas 's projects on here, and also layouts exhibited by the Waveney club and most famously by Peter Smith in HO and O. To me all of those layouts brilliantly captured an essence of Cuba, and I hope those who have seen them also thought so. TBH there was a time probably 20 years ago when I'd flick through Continental Modeller and not bother to read many of the articles and the layouts seemed to feature many of the clichés mentioned, but recently I've made an effort to do so and voting for their 2023 article of the year was a struggle to cut the list down to the six required. I probably still can't differentiate between various Swiss electrics or spot the origins of a narrow gauge cane loco, but reading about them is always a pleasure. But I feel that due to the current exhibition scene it is still harder to be accepted with a "foreign" layout due to less popularity as British outline manufacturers catching up with overseas quality, and regardless of a show having 10 or 30 layouts there will only be one token American and one Continental. It'll be interesting to see if Warners show at the NEC features such outlines including layouts from the Continent as it obviously isn't within their usual remit, although they have featured non-UK prototypes before. And yes, I believe there are people who don't like foreign layouts. Some have been vocal enough to let their feelings known, although I'm not repeating them here...

The buildings were a bit anonymous then, should I name the hotel "El Nido" (the Nest) and model a Vacuum cleaner shop..? (From 007's "No time to die" and "Our Man in Havana")

Stafford was the first major outing for my Cuban layout of which @TEAMYAKIMA mentions, and I made the mistake of assuming it was easily recognisable as the Hershey. I also assumed was well known from the numerous travel documentaries of five to thirty years ago where the presenter arrives on Day 1 in Havana, then gets a boat across the harbour and then the Hershey electric train from Casablanca. The liveries and stock may have changed but it is still essentially the same railroad it has been since the 1920s that I felt was worth modelling (and I've never been either). I corrected the lack of information for Nottingham a few months later by adding display boards to the new fiddle yard front, but without going into too much detail, still think a lot of the public just aren't going to click with it. Perhaps I ought to make it more British, by running a Green class 47 on it as we trialled with @doctor quinn's 4mm scale loco: My next layout will be a model of the Cinc Ponts viaduct on the Soller Railway in Majorca before a full layout based on Bunyola on the same line, but have the conundrum between modelling it as current and easily recognisable, or from a few decades ago when it looked more run down and less of the polished tourist shifter that it is today.

Formations are sometimes listed on Six bells Railtour pages and there is a fairly comprehensive list of sets and coaches at the bottom of this page: http://www.uksteam.info/tours/trs00.htm