Sunday 20 May 2018

SWING Narrow Gauge & Industrial show

Yesterday I took Awngate a short trip down the coast to Littlehampton for the SWING industrial and narrow gauge show. I was ably assisted by my chief train driver.

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We did suffer some problems with the fiddle yard, the wiper contacts are not working too well. I may have to re-think that, but I don't yet have a better solution. There were also the few troublesome trucks, but mostly the layout performed well, and received some nice comments.

The show was at a new venue, the Littlehampton Academy, which meant all the exhibits were in the same hall, a big improvement over the last venue I thought. The style remained the same, a varied collection of layouts covering narrow gauge and industrial themes - though there was even an Irish broad gauge layout - and good trade support including NG specialists and both 009 Society and 7mm NG Association society sales. I did get a few photos although unfortunately I didn't get a program or list of layouts, so I don't remember the names or builders of most of them.

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Both the trophies - voted for by exhibitors, and by visitors - went to this live steam SM45 layout Hambleden Valley Railway. Most live steam layouts are all about the trains with some token scenery, but this was a detailed scenic model railway that happened to use actual steam power, running was smooth and realistic by radio control too. I guess you could say it is more prototypical than most layouts.

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Bridge over the Blythe is a model of the Southwold Railway prototype, and a fine example of railway in the landscape modelling, it's hard to believe this is 2mm scale.

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I liked this US industrial layout, Red Hook Bay, full of finely detailed scenes and the waterfront is superb.

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Another type of waterway, this canal lock on this 7mm scale layout called (I think) Mulldale.

More photos can be found on Flikr here.

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