With the end of the summer railway season we are moving quickly towards the winter model railway exhibition season. So over the next few days we will be looking at various show layouts I have photographed over the years. So starting with the the South Hants Model Railway 2012 exhibition which was held on Saturday 17th November 2012 at Admiral Lord Nelson School in Portsmouth. It was a great show and there was a wide variety of model layouts on display with big 4 steam, BR steam, BR diesel and modern traction all represented. Due to the amount of photos and videos I took (Admittedly off my iPhone) I will split the show into three parts.

Up first is Cricketers Green (EM gauge) which is a watch the trains go by layout. It does not attempt to represent any particular time or place but on Saturday they were running just BR diesels in part because of the amount of steam layouts there was at the show. The track plan is a double track folded circle, so trains go round the boards twice to complete one lap which is very close to a scale mile. There is a simple passenger station , on an enbankment, at one side of the layout and an extensive array of storage tracks at the other. The layout was also host to a certain Pacer which everytime I looked at it broke down!

The Pacer that hated me! It stalled here, 5 minutes later it derailed and then on the way out I watch it stall and get it hit by the engineers train hauled by a class 47.

Scrapyard Scene

Class 47 I think? Not sure on this one Diesels arent my strong point.

“The layout was originally built by a professional model maker, Colin Hayward, as a result of taking a school party on a historical visit. It was one of the very first examples of a layout built to P4 standards and it made its debut at the South Hampshire Railway Modellers exhibition in October 1981. Colin kindly donated the layout to the East Hampshire Area Group of the Scalefour Society in 1993 and since then, a number of modifications have been made by various members of the group. The trackwork has been completely reconstructed and fully chaired on a removable sub-baseboard. The portion of track in the passing loop has been correctly represented with flat-bottom rail, ballasted with shingle as on the prototype. Turnouts are operated by means of Tortoise point motors. More recently, the “green” scenic work, station platform and lineside fencing have been completely reconstructed and the beach has been added” (South Hants Model Railway Website).

The station terminus at Lee On Solent

The beach front

 

The little Terrier arrives with its train

Another shot of the train

Other end of the layout

The final layout of the day is the Exdale Light Railway a 7mm narrow gauge freelance layout which is a fiddle yard to terminus layout built in an L shape. The layout is a fictitious line somewhere in middle England originally built for the transport of minerals but extended to accommodate passengers and general freight too. Minerals are brought down from the hills through the narrow gauge line and are then shipped out from the lower wharf sidings by a canal. A works complex exists opposite the station to service the operations of the mineral company and the engineering needs of the railway.

GWR wagon on a narrow gauge wagon

Narrow gauge locomotive

The layout as a whole

The works I love the detail in this show

The train on the move!