Tonight is the fourth part of a series of blog posts (click here for part 1, click here for part 2 and click here for part 3), showing some of the Model layouts that could be seen at the Solent Model Railway Group’s Exhibition held on the 23rd and 24 February 2013.

Crackington Quay – 7mm scale, 16.5mm gauge – Howard Martin, Somerset

Crackington Quay is an exquisite, compact, 7mm scale narrow gauge layout and one of my favourite’s of the day.  Howard was very courteous and frequently stopped the train for photographs, why is always a thumbs-up in my book!  The scene is set in North Devon/Cornwall and is a small fishing quay.  Keep your eye out for this layout!

Benter Railway – 4mm scale, 009 gauge – John Perrett

This is a very unusual layout with plenty of interest!  Set in colliery (based on Moorewood Colliery and tramway) in the Mendip’s; it features a powered incline for wagons to be taken up and down a very steep slope.

The working pit wheel is hand-built and exceptionally fine, taking many hours to construct (by hand!)

  The associated winding house is beautifully detailed, with a visible internal machine wheel and light.

I was lucky enough to be given an inside peak of the inner working’s of winding house (see below).  The most incredible thing about the layout was that it was constructed as cheaply as possible (not that it shows), with multiple different baseboards, crumpled newspaper material, with almost everything being hand-built.  Wow!

Burnbridge – 4mm scale, 00 gauge – Burnham & District MRC

A mixture of mainly Western and some Southern locomotives run through the fictional town of Burnbridge.  Set in the steam to diesel transition era; Burnbridge has a small wharf and has a canal, so plenty of interest!

Courthare Junction – 4mm scale, 00 gauge – Andy Dancy, Kent

We finish this evening’s blog post with a small but perfectly formed layout set in a fictitious GWR/Southern region.

The layout is on two level’s with the GWR on the higher of the two with a wagon hoist that is used to move trucks between them.

More Blog Posts will be published on the layouts of this exhibition in due course.  So watch this space!