Saturday 22 March 2014

London Festival of Railway Modelling 2014



I'd often heard of the Ally Pally show but never attended it, so today I took the tube over to North London to visit the show for the first time.  Alexandria Palace is similar to Crystal Palace in many ways, a hill overlooking the city with a TV Antenna.





The venue is a large glass-roofed hall and it was packed with exhibits covering two large rooms with over forty layouts and stands to browse through.


There were several US layouts alongside the various continental and British models, and I was particularly impressed with the large multi-module freemo setup from RS tower. 


It was a little difficult to spectate as the layout doubled back on itself a few times and the inner run was not as accessible to spectators.



The front section of the layout featured the same town scene that was at last years NMRA convention, and it's a nicely detailed scene with multiple mainlines and even some street running for good measure.

The layout that interested me the most was the excellent 'Sweethome Alabama' from Jon Grant, this is a layout that I have seen on numerous websites including Jon's own Youtube blog at  https://www.youtube.com/user/JonGrant4472


The layout is much longer than I expected, and it packs in an enormous amount of authentic US railroading detail, with lots of nicely detailed scenes and a nice selection of buildings and vehicles.




The quality of the modelling is second to none and the layout certainly drew a crowd of admirers throughout the day.
 
Another model of interest was 'Overlord' a British outline layout depicting the preparations for D-Day with some beautifully detailed boats and military equipment.


Overall the show was definitely a very worthwhile visit, the range of exhibits and traders was great, and the BRM stand and video presentations were really excellent.  

The show runs for the whole weekend, so if you are in the London area then I highly recommend checking it out tomorrow or put a note in the diary for next years show.

Saturday 15 March 2014

More Kits Please - We're British.


Another day and another ebay bargain drops through the letterbox.  Or in this case is delivered to the local delivery office as being too large to fit through.

I'm still on the hunt for old early 80's Heljan kits to bulk up my 'kit mingling' parts box, these three rather tattered examples went for just £15 and although the postage almost doubled the cost, they are still a great buy.

Many of these old Heljan kits are the same ones that Walthers repackage and reissue with modern price tags, it definitely makes sense to try and get hold of the older ones cheaply where possible.  In this case one of them turned out to be one of the out of production Merchants Row kits currently selling on ebay for over $30 which is more than I paid for all three.

In this lot I have:
Crooksville Bank Block
(aka Walthers Merchants Row III) 


Ice Cream and Woolworth Store
(not reissued by Walthers as far as I can tell)
 



911 Drug Store
(not reissued by Walthers as far as I can tell)
 


Turns out that the kits are complete and in very good shape, despite what the torn and ripped outer boxes would have suggested.  I expected some missing parts at least, but I was pleasantly surprised when I opened them to discover everything present and correct, with the added bonus of a few extra pieces from some kind of wild west set for good measure.

I particularly like the Drug Store kit as it is designed to fit on an angled spot, just perfect for filling an awkward space next to a set of points or a spur track.

I bought these kits with intention of them being parts fodder, but seeing as they are complete they will most likely become the basis for the city block on my next module.

I also picked up an old IHC "Homes of Yesteryear" kit which is a really nice model of a Victorian wooden house like those seen in the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco. 

 IHC Homes of Yesteryear


Obviously it's hard to tell without having built it, but on examination this kit seems like a really nicely detailed set of parts which ought to build into a great example of an old house.  I picked this one up for only £10 including shipping which is a bit of a bargain considering how detailed it is, definitely appears to be a case where the packaging belies the quality of the contents.

So, yet more boxes of plastic added to the hoard in the loft.  Luckily we expect to be moving to a house with a garage later this year.  So I will be able to get my layout up and running and sort out all the treasure into a proper backlog of modeling work!

Sunday 9 March 2014

Benson Winter Meet 2014


A rather belated updated on this years NMRA winter meet at Benson in Oxfordshire back at the beginning of January.  It's the first meeting of the year and the small hall is always packed with layouts and traders.




This years layouts included the excellent Red Hook Bay, the Gosport modular club, a Japanese layout and a New South Wales based outback line among others.





The show is always worth a visit and the second hand area upstairs is one of the highlights, this year I picked up some Heljan building kits.


If you haven't been to an NMRA meet yet then I highly recommend checking out the Spring Meet at Weston on Trent on 26th April.