Uckfield Model Railway Exhibition 2026

Last Saturday I made my annual pilgrimage to the highlight of the local club exhibition calendar - the Uckfield exhibition. This has a reputation for attracting high-quality layouts, and this year was no exception.

Coalbridge Street (HO) - James Hilton. It was nice to catch up with James as since the demise of Expo-NG he rarely makes it to the South-East. 

I know nothing of Canadian SG, but as usual with James' layout, that didn't matter as the atmosphere is what it's about - and it has more of that than than you'd expect for it's tiny size.

Keindorf (HOe) - Tim Ticknell. Austrian narrow-gauge. 

Nethercombe Quarry (O-16.5) - Adrian Ponting. Just a narrow gauge mineral railway, no frills, but nicely done.

Port de Crozon (1:50, 18.2mm gauge) - Gordon & Maggie Gravett. The masters of scenery have built another stunning layout based on the metre-gauge railways of Brittany. 

It doesn't even need a train in sight to wow you. And one glance tells you it is unmistakably French.

Compass Point (009) - Chris O'Donoghue. This remains a popular, and dare I say it, fun layout, and I'm surprised it's taken this long to appear at Uckfield. I think the estuary is one of my favourite scenes. 

While the slipway, boatyard, and ferry provide the crowded feel of many harbours combined with a very simple track layout that feels right at home. 

Marlborough 1865 (1:76, 28mm gauge or OO-28) - Andy Cundick. Andy has moved from narrow gauge through standard to the opposite extreme - GWR broad gauge. As usual, the modelling is excellent, and the sky threatening. 

Tellindalloch in Autumn (OO) - Terry Tew. Having seen this in Railway Modeller, this Scottish layout is surprisingly compact in the flesh, and the autumn forest and mountain stream are impressive. 

Surrey Arms (EM) - Martin Marrison. A surprisingly compact but busy terminus somewhere in London, evoking the spirit (although not the track plan) of the famous Minories concept, and showing fine modelling and subtle colouring.

Corrieshalloch (2mm finescale) - Anthony Yeates. Astonishing to think that this scene is 2mm scale, and the section photographed is probably less than 2 feet long, this model based on the Highland Railway achieves dramatic Scottish scenery in a relatively small space - and looks superb. 

Littledene (OO) - Andy Jones. A fictional light railway with delightfully quirky stock.

East Lynn (S - 1:64) - Simon Dunkley. Great Eastern in a scale where everything has to be hand-built. Respect!

A Dreary Tuesday - in the Dearne Valley (OO) - Chris Matthews. I guess it lives up to it's name, although I saw it on a Saturday. Just needs a way to model rain and blow a cold wind over the spectators. 

Cranwood (O) - John Smith. A nice model set in Dorset, and featuring a radio-controlled bus. I wondered whether that was for the rail-replacement operation on the Sunday?

Abbeymouth (P4) - Jeff Day. The archetypal GWR branch terminus very well executed. 

So another great show, and with good specialist trade support too - although I spent most of my time engrossed in the layouts. 

Aldershot exhibition 2026

Last weekend I took Hexworthy over to Aldershot for the Farnham & District MRC exhibition. The show took over several halls and classrooms in a school, making for a but of a maze but hosting a good number of interesting layouts. Here's a few of my favourites, some I've seen before but some I hadn't.

Ventnor (O) - Charles Harrison is a condensed model of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. With its miniature turntable, gang-plank island platform access, and tunnel at the station throat, the prototype looked like a model but you wouldn't make those features up! 

It's a lovely model that captures the prototype atmosphere well. 

Lochty (EM) - Andy Cundick. Delightfully bleak (Andy needs to figure out how to model rain!) and the trains are very finely modelled. 

Montarola (HO) - Paul Hannant. Unusually depicting an Italian prototype, the model beautifully captures the Mediterranean coast and Italian harbour town giving a holiday feel. 

Buxton (2mm Finescale) - Dave Tuck. Just occasionally, a model comes along that is difficult to believe it is such a small scale. If I had said this was 4mm scale you would think it a fine and highly realistic model... but this is half that scale. 

Of course, that station is instantly recognisable as Buxton, but most of the action took place in the yard beyond. 

The narrow gauge layouts were up to standard too. 

Bowaters Paper Mill (O-16.5) - St Neots MRC. I've seen this before but am still impressed by the detail and atmospheric colouring. It's an interesting prototype too.

Swillybegs (O-21) - David Holman is another layout I've seen before that is full of atmosphere. It captures the Irish narrow gauge beautifully. 

Hexworthy seemed to go down well with the many families and couples visiting, the playground proving popular as always and find the animals keeping some entertained. Here's Andrew concentrating at the controls. 

Andrew had brought a train of his own too... can you spot it? 

Hexworthy at Aldershot

This coming weekend I will be taking Hexworthy to the Farnham & District MRC exhibition in Aldershot. Full details of the show are here.  The line-up of layouts looks excellent, so well worth a visit - and do say hello if you do!

Worthing exhibition 2026

On Saturday I popped into my local exhibition by Worthing Model Railway Club, held at a new venue which had space for a reasonable number of layouts. The programme doesn't have much detail and I didn't make notes... but here are a few of the layouts. 

Not sure if this layout was listed in the programme, a rather traditional GWR branch line terminus in OO, with some nicely modelled and characterful buildings. 

Wendover was a very fine detailed model in 4mm scale. Sadly, the lighting was directly overhead making photography tricky. 

The Cruel Sea featured this highly detailed model corvette along with a dockyard - in N. The scene is inspired by an old movie. The subtle colouring and lighting is very effective. Operation was a bit less interesting - two trains shuttling at speed on separate tracks - I don't think that's what this one is about. 

Thredy's Wharf (O gauge) had this nice mobile crane. 

It also had a loco shed at the front of the layout, with the detailed interior open to view - a rather neat idea and nicely done. 

Small Dole Sidings (OO) was a modern image Inglenook shunting puzzle, working rather well. 

Larger and Lime Works - American NG in On30.

Wandleford (OO), a simple yet effective layout for watching trains go by. 

My favourite feature is the garden at the front, hosting a charity open garden event with stalls visible at the far end, it also has a working miniature railway (the blur passing the lawn!). 

Tittleworth was the only 009 layout. A bit of a rabbit warren, it looks nice enough if a little crowded with tracks. The RTR trains were rather short, and disappeared off stage for long periods before another appeared. It's party trick was that it was fully automated - note the operating colour light signals.

I took a peek around the back - like an iceberg, two-thirds of the layout was out of sight, which explains the long pause between trains. The electronics is rather frightening - this layout was part of the MERG stand and shows the electronics can become a hobby within the hobby. 

My favourite layout was Canute Road Quay, a OO shunting layout set in Southampton docks. A Cameo-style shelf layout it's compact and relatively simple in layout, but looks right. 

The engine shed is tucked out of the way and is easy to miss. 

Shades of grey

I thought I'd better paint the boards before progressing further. It would be easier before there is (more) track and scenery added, and as it's best done outside, before the weather turns!

Loctern and Hexworthy were painted with a grey primer from Wilkinsons that proved to have a suitably dark shade and nice finish. However, that was oil based meaning it took ages to dry and brushes were a paint to wash - anyway, Wilkos is long gone. I got a water-based grey primer from B&Q which allowed me to get a couple of coats on and the boards back indoors before the moody skies looked too serious. 

Sadly, this paint turned out to be paler than expected, and much lighter than the grey I previously used - as compared below. The aim is for a neutral grey which won't distract from the scene, and I wasn't convinced the light grey would do that. It also had a chalky finish, I mean it is meant to be an undercoat, but clearly I would need a top coat.

So back to B&Q and I picked up "Princeton", a dark grey that proved to be a close match to the other layouts. It's also water-based so dried quickly, and being quite gloopy care was needed to avoid runs - there are a few, but not in obvious places. Note the card used to protect the existing scenery.

With the paint dry the latches and sockets were refitted and the pelmet and fiddle yard reassembled. It looks a lot more presentable on the outside now.