A social gathering with trains

Last Sunday I joined a gathering of modellers to socialise, discuss models, and occasionally run some trains. I took along Loctern Quay but didn't spend a lot of time operating it, though a few others had a play. The shunting puzzle does draw people in. In fact, mine wasn't the only 009 Society competition inspired layout there. 

Richard Doe had brought his model which used the same baseboard modules as Loctern Quay, although it wasn't completed in time to enter the competition. In front of the fiddle yard a train of skips is loaded with sugar beet, with its unusual lightweight "home-made" loco. 

Over at the station end the skips are tipped into waiting wagons. Nice to see another layout built in the same constraints, and yet with such a different theme. 

Greg Dodsworth built this long narrow layout to fit a windowsill during lockdown. It's simple but nicely done, and what a great use of a windowsill? The push buttons on top of the backscene operate the points. 

Greg also showed some larger scale buildings including this cinema, modelled on the Ultimate Picture Palace in Oxford it brought back memories from my student days. The little cinema showed unusual and cult movies, and when the attendant had finished selling tickets from the window they climbed the ladder to the projection room. 

Giles Barnabe brought this little On30 terminus layout set on his fictional Latin American island of Isla Blanca, which he'd only started building about 3 weeks previously. It may be unfinished (a backscene would help photography!) but it is clear it will have character. 

Ian Roberts had his 1:32 scale 16.5mm gauge layout based on the Dalmunzie railway. I had seen it before but I do like it, the rolling stock is modelled on that of the prototype.

Julian Evison set up his O-16.5 layout St Marys.

Simon Hargreaves brought this under-construction inglenook on his motorbike! That half-sunken barge looks familiar...

Chris O'Donoghue had his whimsical layout Much Meddling and Farr Dyke Railway. 

That's a selection of the little layouts that had been brought along, but the event was more about socialising than the layouts! It was nice to meet old friends and new faces.