Larking Around in Haywards Heath

Saturday saw the Sussex Downs 009 group host their Biennial "member's day" exhibition in Haywards Heath. The club's own layout, the Upsan Downs & Everleight Railway, was assembled for the first (and quite probably the last) time as a 50ft x 10ft L-shape, achieved with the modular format of the layout and arranging the "universal" fiddle-yard in the centre. Parts of this layout are 30 years old, but it is superbly detailed. I spent most of the day operating the Upsan Quay end, seen here.

There were plenty of other layouts, some by members, some by previous members, and some by friends - some even in scales other than 009! John Thorne's Purbeck was voted favourite by the public ("Best Unfinished Layout" - because no layout ever is!). The show went well, plenty of visitors (much better than 2 years ago, perhaps due to a better venue and date), excellent catering, and a good atmosphere.

Chris Ford had his excellent Tal Coed layout on display - recently featured in Railway Modeller, and the first time I had seen it, I can say it is a superb scene but much smaller in reality than it looks in the pictures! Chris had suggested a double-header to compare Skylarks, so having bodged a suitable coupling onto the rear of mine we gave it a go. The Kato and Fleishmann chassis ran at very different speeds, and that train doesn't really warrant a double-header, but they look pretty good together I think!

I also couldn't resist posing my Skylark and the Egger-bash coached on Tal Coed for a photo of them in the countryside. This is a fake though, although these are not large coaches they are too big for the clearances of Tal Coed!

Anyway, for the rest of the photos and the other layouts, click on the link below:

Haywards Heath Sussex Downs 009 Group 2013