Uckfield Model Railway Exhibition 2025

The Uckfield show has got a reputation for high-quality layouts, and this year was no exception. All 20 layouts were modelled to a high standard, and they covered a variety of scales and genres. I've included a lot of photos below, but even so, they don't cover all the layouts - just those that aligned to my interests or stood out to me. 

Rye Sands (00) by William Lloyd was a layout I was looking out for, having seen it on RM-Web. It's small and very simple - just two points - yet scenically interesting. Not just the jetty for the head shunt, the net store, buildings, and collection of sheds set the scene as Sussex by the sea, reinforced by the distant skyline of Rye on the simple but effective backscene. The pre-grouping SECR stock is unusual, and everything fits together with consistency.

Some of the stock is more colourful than others...

The GER tram looked at home, despite being very far from home! (it was the last hour of the show)

Flintfield (P4) shown by Adrian Colenutt featured in last month's Railway Modeller, and was originally built by Vincent De Bode in the Netherlands around 35 years ago. Despite it's age it looked stunning, a layout where you look across scenery and almost forget it is a model. It's another pre-grouping layout, meaning interesting and colourful GE stock, and it ran faultlessly including auto coupling (which is not a given for P4!). 

Ditchling Green (O and O16.5) shown by Rex Davidson and Stephen Williams was another layout I was looking forward to seeing. It was originally built by Gordon Gravett in the 1990s. I remember seeing it in Railway Modeller and being captivated by the detail and atmosphere, the clever use of space, and the narrow-gauge crossing. This was the first time I'd seen it in person, I have to say the village buildings and the (new) backscene set the location perfectly. 

East Lynn Quay (S) shown by Simon Dunkley (but the work of the Late Trevor Nunn - see comments) caught my attention as it is beautifully modelled, including the sailing barge and quayside buildings, as well as being in an unusual scale. 

Its operation was also interesting - yes, that is chain shunting! This was used extensively, a prototypical working practice that is rarely modelled. I understand the wagon turntable works too. 

Devil's Bridge (009) by Andy Cundick is instantly recognisable for those who know (or have seen pictures of) the prototype. It's modelled in the early years of the line.

St Oswalds (O-16.5) by Tim Crockford is a small but beautifully modelled shunting layout in the style of the Welshpool & Llanfair. 

Fryer's Lane (P4) by Mark Forrest - set in the 90's, I'm not sure this can be called "modern image" any more? 

Laxfield (P4) by Rod Cameron - another venerable P4 layout, built 40 year ago by John Watson.

Janes' Creek (EM) by Andrew Browne is based on the real place in Strood, Kent, and is another pre-grouping layout set around 1920. There were superbly modelled sailing barges and quayside industrial buildings. The deep foreground with sailing barges did make photography difficult though!

Pwllheli (P4) by Jonathon Buckle - I've seen this layout before, but its high standard of modelling and attention to detail modelling the prototype still impresses. 

Todmorden Midland (N) by Ed Purcell is a well presented and attractive yet compact model. This corner reveals an industrial saddle tank beyond a canal, note the submarine...

Roman Road (OO) by Oliver Turner is another simple but atmospheric cameo layout, of which Ollie has made a few, featuring the unusual overhead wire DC in a bleak marshland corner of Kent. 

That's just a sample of the layouts. I spent a good three hours at the show, including chatting to a few friends, an excellent day out. 

Uckfield 2024

Once again the Uckfield show presented an array of top quality layouts covering a range of themes, any would have been star attractions at some smaller shows. I think there were about 20 layouts so I won't try and cover them all here, but here are some of my favourites, mainly focusing on the narrow gauge and light railway themes. 

Bunkers Lane (O9) - Bill Flude. I've seen this grow on NGRM and saw it at Alexandra Palace, but it rewards another look. It's colourful and fun, with lots of details, trains are always moving (with sound too), and being double-sided there's a lot more to it than you first realise. 

Nettlebed Lime (SM32) - Giles Favell. Another layout I've watched develop on NGRM, this features radio control realistically weathered locos with "steam" (actually water vapour), drivers who move their heads, and of course tipping lime trucks. 

Hexworthy (009) - Michael Campbell. Yes, my own little layout, which I felt like an imposter amongst the high-quality finescale layouts. It did attract a lot of nice comments, and the working playground went down well.

Clereley End (O16.5) - Peter Jackson. A compact and nicely done 7mm NG line, and yes that's a Bachmann quarry Hunslet just like the smaller one I was running on Hexworthy!

Sandshifters (P4) - Steve Howe. This layout was built on a surf board - yes, seriously! A delightfully minimal depiction of a light railway it looked great, with quirky rolling stock. 

Tucking Mill & William Smith's Wharf (2mm finescale) - Jerry Clifford. This delightful model depicts a GWR and S&DJR branch in Somerset. The detail belies the tiny scale, it oozes atmosphere and runs beautifully too.

Ruyton Road (P4) - Paul Bannermann. An imaginary terminus of the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire railway run by Co. Stephens, this tiny layout had the atmosphere just right and looked surprisingly spacious. 

Conyer Creek Signals (O) - Greg Coomber. A pre-grouping minor branch set in Kent. Being O gauge it was a large model, but used that to provide spaciousness rather than filling it with station. The scenery is excellent, the trains look superb. 

Hoath Hill (3mm scale, 14.2mm gauge) - Geoff Helliwell. A gypsum mine set in sussex as an excuse for a variety of mainly kit built industrial locos. Just look at that Garratt!

St Ruth (2mm finescale) - Midland area group of the 2mm Society. An ambitious layout for this scale and recognisable as Penzance, with a few tweaks, and with the lighting looked even more impressive at "dusk". 

I'll stop there even though there were more excellent layouts, and lots of light railway and industrial themed layouts. Good trade support too. Looking forward to next year already!

Exhibiting Hexworthy at Uckfield

Back in the summer I posted how I'd made new, longer, support beams for Hexworthy as it is longer than Awngate was. In the run up to the Uckfield show I painted the beams, and the upper part of the trestles, in the same grey paint as used for the facia of Hexworthy. I didn't bother to paint the lower part of the trestles as they are hidden by a drape. I've also marked on in Sharpie which way round the trestles go and where the beams locate. The bolt just pushes through to secure the beams in place - I could add a nut, but gravity does the job well enough!

I used to attach the drape with drawing pins but that was a bit of a faff. I know Velcro is often used, but that involves sewing. Much easier to just clip it in place... so I got a bulk pack of bulldog clips and screwed them in strategic places along the front beam and inside the trestle legs. They're located so they don't prevent the legs from folding together of course, shouldn't catch on things in transport. 

The coffee mug/tool shelf also got a lick of paint, as did the display board panel. I've added a 4-way extension lead to the inside of the inner leg one end to keep the wiring tidy, and help speed-up set up that little bit, the cable just wraps around the cross-members. 

Assembled and with the drape added it looks neat, the visible parts of the support structure in grey to match the layout. The bulldog clips are mostly hidden under the layout which overhangs slightly. It takes just a few minutes to assemble and dismantle. 

Finally, I made up a couple of information pages for the display panel, I've kept these brief with big text and pictures. The first gives the background and location for the railway, convincing enough that several people at Uckfield asked if the line was still there or wondered why they hadn't come across it! The second explains 009 and the stock used, provides a list of animals to spot (keeps kids amused), and has a QR code/link to the blog. There's also another sheet with maps showing the station location in more detail and the Tors visible on the backscene, just in case people are interested, that's kept in one of the bulldog clips. 

Here's Tim Sanderson casually at the controls, sitting on the high stool in front of the fiddle yard. 

More on the show itself to follow... but the layout seemed well received with lots of nice comments. The playground of course was a star attraction. There were some running niggles - couplings misbehaving, the occasional unexplained (and unrepeatable) derailment, and a mystery short-circuit which appeared occasionally, but fortunately went away quickly too. However, mostly things ran well and we were able to keep things moving - at times with four trains in the station!

Uckfield 2023

Yesterday I was at the Uckfield model railway exhibition helping Robin Edwards with his O14 layout Tony's Forest. I've seen this superb layout a couple of times and it was a pleasure to operate. As the name suggests, it is set in a forest which is beautifully modelled with big trees, undergrowth and flowers. There's also a quarry loading screen under which wagons can be loaded. 

Uckfield has a reputation of showing high quality layouts, and this year was no exception. My favourite was Rodmell Green, a 009 layout by Allen Etheridge on its first showing. This showed industrial narrow gauge with appropriate stock and muted, gently weathered colouring giving a consistent finish. 

Inside a shed, the skips were unloaded using a mechanised arm magnetically lifting loads out. Allen said he'd been inspired by the method I used on Thakeham Tiles having seen it in use at Uckfield a few years ago, although his unloading arm was motorised rather than using a manually operated mechanism as I did. 

This year's show was in part a tribute to the late Iain Rice, who did so much to develop approaches to layout design and exhibiting through his books, as well as techniques for building finescale models. The show included no less than 5 layouts (in P4 or EM) Iain had built or been involved in building, including Hepton Wharf and Butley Mills which I remembered featuring in some of his books, and the impressive Longwood Edge, although my favourite was one of his later layouts Trerice. This is a compact and characterful layout with its China clay dries. I did see this layout with Iain operating at a previous Uckfield show, and it was nice to see it still being used in new hands. 

Another nice compact but interesting layout was Arcadia in the unusual S scale (1:64) by Richard Barton, based on Colonel Stephens practice. In this scale everything must be hand-built, and everything looked and ran perfect. 

Another compact and characterful layout was Ewe (OO) by Rob Gunstone. The track plan is simple, the same loop and two opposed sidings as Chris Ford's Dury's Gap, with a Wisbech and Upwell tramway setting on the banks of a waterway. The lush scenery threatening to overcome the tracks, grey big sky background, and nicely weathered trains worked together beautifully. 

In the last 15 minutes of the show I ran one of my O14 locos on Tony's Forest. I'd crudely fitted a pair of Greenwich couplings to my Hudson Hunslet in place of my usual Microtrains, which surprisingly worked with Robin's stock. It did look rather at home in the forest. 

So an excellent show, an enjoyable day, and a big thanks to Robin for letting me play with his layout. There are more of my photos of the event including other layouts here.