The London Festival of Railway Modelling

Does anyone else find joy in taking random trips to other cities for the day?  I can't be the only one who takes a route through London's terminal stations over a simpler route just because you get to see the imposing character of Brunel's timeless roof over London Paddington.

This is what a man's soul looks like.

A lot of people probably think nothing of these monolithic stations, of which there are currently 18 due to laws banning railway lines in the centre of London; but to me, they are titanic, revolutionary-spirited companies saying "Right, those stuffy gits in parliament gave us no rights into the city, let us make Big Ben look quaint and trivial with the very best of what Imperial Britain has to conceive!"

With this in mind, and with comments turned on at last, I am proud to report on my time at the London Festival of Railway Modelling:

Alexandra Palace, looking slightly skeletal but standing tall regardless

This will be a canter through some layouts which caught my eye as well as a general view of the event; in a word, momentous.  The whole show was packed with patrons (something I normally avoid in daily life) and I cannot blame a single one; with not only so many diverse layouts to see, but trade stands containing front-line technology in the hobby, such as automated signalling allowing trains to automatically obey signals.  Comparing this to the National Festival of Railway Modelling in Peterborough, this is a far larger venue with correspondingly more on show; I therefore recommend the Peterborough event to those who prefer a quieter, less crowded environment.

The Winners (in my book)

Taking 1st place is the sentimentally relevant (to me) Leavesden:

The 3rd rail Southern Region in a nutshell...

Not only does this depict the kind of 3rd rail trains I grew up with but it is in O gauge, a scale of which I am seethingly jealous of those who have the space to run it given just how nice everything feels in the hand, not to mention how much detail can be injected into the scene; it is details such as this that build and carry the general atmosphere of early privatisation, where the crisp and striking livery of NSE completely failed to hide the fact that all the trains were based on the same bloody coach design and once you were inside the squeak, rattle and roll gave away their ageing hull to all those on board.  What I am trying to say is that this layout doesn't have any details which leap out, but it simply looks right in every regard, and didn't fail to stir my childhood memories of the time before the year 2004, when desiro units finally came in with their air conditioning and cloud-like comfort.

2nd goes to Portchullin, depicting an area of Britain I have never even been in!  (experience, whats that?):

This depicts the Highlands of Scotland, a curious choice but it stands because more than anything it has made me want to visit Scotland - I keep putting off a trip on the Caledonian Sleeper due to expense and timing issues, and this layout made me eternally ashamed of it owing to the features which genuinely caught my eye:  the water and those craggy rocks which jut out of the grass:

How I imagine introverted nirvana to be like...

Built to P4 standards, this layout also has an uncompromising track plan, which lends to the aura of a region where track needs to sweeping enough to allow reasonably fast running yet snake about to avoid excessive cuttings and embankments.

3rd and final place on the podium, given a lack of capital in my bank for prizes, falls into the lap of Hospital Gates:

This isn't even the best part, although it has that Colonel Stephens half-tramway relaxed-maintenance feel to it.

The main thing I liked about this layout is it's backstory - This is a layout depicting a light railway which serves a Mental Institution; as a result, there is a selection of hand-me-down stock which looks noticeably mismatched (like the dress code of yours truly); not that the passengers would be in a state of mind even qualified to care about that.

Those helpless bastards will need more than god's help where they ended up in life.

The station is an Edwardian interpretation of minimalist design philosophy, an extended greenhouse with rails running into it and a 1 carriage train headed by a tank engine with curiously small driving wheels.

Honorary Mentions

This is the section which contains just pictures of things which took my fancy, captioned by appropriate comments; this post has too many semi-colons as it stands.

82G was an engine depot in O gauge, basically a vision of the good life :)

Edwardian (I believe) murals adorned the southern wall coming into the event

Mirrors furnished the northern wall, hard to envisage that more layouts were behind the glass!

I know this layout was based in Antwerp in Belgium, but it really stirred memories of my time in Holland

Billton Works was the only TT layout present, it was surreal to watch trains which appeared to have the physical presence of OO gauge models yet the nippiness of N gauge models

Copenhagen Fields gets a mention solely for this London Underground portion, doesn't run for reasons of access, but still a neat touch

Essex Belt Lines was the only American layout, and given it's size (taking up the space usually housing 4 layouts), makes a varied and faithful showing of the size of American freight trains combined with low speeds of ~30mph.  The layout has more than this segment, also containing a branch line to a wooded area as well as the plains circuit.

Goldmire is basically a G scale garden railway indoors!  No wonder so many kids are present when Thomas and Percy make alternating rounds, but the other Narrow Gauge locos were noteworthy for their polished look to them.

Giant Organ on a plinth.

Duke Street represents what a 1950's layout may have looked:  It is made strictly of Hornby Dublo items and it strikes me that whoever had a layout like this had a serious head-start at making friends at school.

This Steam Railmotor was captured blurrily on Horton Regis; Steam Railmotors were like the DMU bubble cars of today, only barely able to move themselves, leave alone the odd mail van or milk tank!

Kirkhill Depot plays host to this black 5 railtour, the interesting thing is the car behind the locomotive:  an ETHEL unit.  Converted from class 25 locomotives, these provided electric train heating to trains hauled by locos which had no ETH themselves; as you can imagine, these units never blended very well even when attached to Mk1s painted just like them.

Ever wanted to touch something you really shouldn't ;)

Impressive stained glass window

Lelant, a mixed gauge line which was the last one built to Brunel's 7ft 1/4in gauge in 1877, pity I didn't see any standard gauge stock to accentuate the disparity of the two gauges.

Chance sighting of a Mallet locomotive (centre) and a 3 truck shay (top left)

Weathered 'Gronk' showing just how life-like and O gauge model can get

A ton of large scale locomotives, me likes :P

A tomix N scale Percy in the wild!

I had no idea that anyone could build a railway in the porridge which was the soil in World War 1, but I was wrong, they did and, surprise, these were narrow gauge lines.

 Well that just about sums up the London Festival of Railway modelling, I would like to close by disclosing something I really love about living in walking distance of 2 stations serving the same town, one of which goes straight to London Waterloo; the thing is that a ticket to Farnborough in Hampshire doesn't specify which station you go to (North or Main), it just shows "FARNBOROUGH STNS".

In other words to get to Alexandra Palace I started out from Farnborough Main, changed at Clapham Junction then London Victoria, then took the Victoria line on the LUL to Finsbury Park, then another train to Alexandra Palace.  Then I derpily forgot I was at Alexandra Palace for the return journey and ambulated my woolly head to Finsbury Park, went into London Kings Cross, took the Circle line to London Paddington, Changed at Reading to finally end up in Farnborough North.

I hope you see what I absolutely adore about this :)