Epping MRC Exhibition 2017

The 2017 Epping Model Railway Club's exhibition at the Thornleigh Brickpit Stadium was on again over the June long weekend in Sydney. I was there on the Saturday and enjoyed the day immensely.

There were about twenty layouts on display with one layout being a real surprise. About 25 trade stands were also in attendance to help railway modellers part with their money!

Here are some layouts that caught my eye.

The big surprise was the layout, Southern Highlands (NSW, HO scale), which is an updated version of the late Rodney James' layout Exeter. Southern Highlands is owned by Warren Herbert and Rohan Fergusson. Exeter had previously been exhibited only once before, in Brisbane, so this layout appearing again at an exhibition was a real bonus. Watching long trains meander through the scenery was quite the railfan's delight.

A-Tractiv Effort (NSW, HO scale), in its protective perspex encasing, showcases some superb suburban structures within a railway environment. This layout represents a fictional location on the Short North with the replica buildings coming from actual structures in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie. The reliable H&M Duette remains the power source for this DC layout running trains in the period 1980-95.

Mango Mango (On30) was a new layout from Geoff Small representing the 2' cane railways of northern Queensland. The layout is freelance but effectively conveys the impression of narrow gauge sugar cane railways in the Queensland tropics. Geoff added some nice scenic touches and a bit of whimsy to this layout which just made the layout all that more appealing.

Western Rivers (NSW, HO scale) is a model railway based on Menindee on the Darling River in far western New South Wales. This layout had some terrific features such as the waterways, the paddle steamer "Adelaide" (the prototype of which was built in Echuca in 1866 and which still operates as a tourist attraction) with smoke billowing out from its funnel, and a great mix of bush sounds that made it feel you were out bush rather than inside a suburban hall.

Smugglers Cove (USA, On30) made another exhibition appearance and never fails to impress. The layout is the work of the late Geoff Nott and Michael Flack based on a New England theme from the northeast of the United States. Amazingly, the majority of the wonderful buildings were made of card. This layout is truly brilliant.

Binalong (NSW, HO scale), from the Epping Model Railway Club, made another exhibition appearance too. This layout is also a quality layout that showcases some fine modelling. Watching a sound-equipped lash-up of diesels or a thundering 57 class with a long rake of freight wagons traverse the length of the layout is quite a sight.

Mungo Scott (NSW, HO scale), from the Sydney Model Railway Society, was also making another exhibition appearance. This layout is based on the Mungo Scott flour mill near Lilyfield in Sydney.
It is good to see that a part of Sydney's industrial history is represented by this layout.

Jay Dubyew North Yard (HO scale) was a US-themed industrial switching layout from the Platform 1 Model Railroad Club. The layout is only 3m x .3m in length, including a small fiddle yard, proving anyone can find the space for a model railroad. Platform 1 showcases micro layouts, especially Inglenook designs.

Sandford (British, N scale) was a nice little layout showing a fictitious location on the East Coast railway line between York and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. A good range of model trains, representing the period between 1946 and 1966, kept the punters happy.

Another well displayed small model railway was the N scale NSW layout, Dunblurtin, based on a fictitious location in the Southern Highlands of NSW. Strangely, the station name board spells the town name Dunblertin!

The Beach (NSW, N scale) represented a fictitious coastal village with a very appealing townscape, a jetty jutting into the sea, and general scenery that made me reminisce of my coastal holidays as a kid in the late 1960s.

Tarana (NSW, N scale), exhibited by the Georges River Model Railway Club, made another exhibition outing at Thornleigh. The layout is based on the station of Tarana on the Main Western line approximately 200km by rail from Sydney.

And once again, the popular Lego layout was on display to entertain the kids.

Other layouts included Dirt, Mosquito Hill, Dee Valley Vegetables, Sydney 1876, Koolabar, Steve's Follie, Western Front 1917, and Thomas and Friends.

Epping Model Railway Club Exhibition 2016

The 2016 Epping Model Railway Club's exhibition last weekend was a good one.  There were 22 layouts on display and 23 commercial exhibits. As usual, the second hand stall was very popular for sellers and buyers alike. The modelling clinics were a little different this year with a focus on building home layouts. The clinics were managed by David L. from the Epping Club in concert with the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) who manned the stand and answered questions from the public relating to all the facets of building a home layout. Great idea, David!

I caught up with a good many fellow modellers at the exhibition and still managed to actually see the layouts on display. Here is a sample of the layouts that caught the eye of my camera.

Goulburn (Australian/NSW, HO scale) was a new exhibit from the Guildford Model Railway Group. The layout is 6.5 metres (22') long and 2.8 metres (9') deep. The main feature of the layout is a wonderful model of the prototype Goulburn station. Other building features include the long run-through goods shed, steel footbridges, and the workshop area with overhead crane. Trains from the period of the 1960s to the present day made their appearance, reflecting the individual membership's era preferences. The layout is operated by conventional DC control.

Gordon (VR/SAR HO scale) was a layout I had not seen before. It represents the prototype in near the Dandenong Ranges top of the Great Dividing Range between Melbourne and Adelaide. A good variety of Australian locos and rollingstock from the 1960-1980 period was on display. Interestingly, the May and June 2016 issues of Newsrail feature two articles on the prototype Gordon station.

Bullo Pit (British, O scale) is a 7mm/foot scale layout based on a real location in Gloucestershire in the 1920s. The layout represents the tidal inlet from the River Severn and associated rail infrastructure. There was plenty of shunting going on with a range of four-wheeled wagons.

Erbschaft (German, HO scale) is a fictitious town set in the 1960s.  The layout is Marklin with centre-stud track and a good range of locos and rollingstock. Buildings are mainly kit-built structures from Faller and Kibri. Erbschaft was a very nice medium-sized layout.

Over the Fence (Australian/NSW, HO scale) was a new layout to the Epping exhibition, although it had debuted at Sandown in Melbourne earlier in the year. Once again the houses and buildings on the layout represented superb renditions of real structures modelled to scale in styrene. A double-track main line kept trains moving throughout the day; a highlight being the running of an Auscision Countrylink XPT that looked superb snaking its way to the rear of the houses. The durable H&M Clipper transformer powers the trains and never seems to miss a beat.

Oddwalls (NSW, HO scale) made another exhibition appearance from the craftsmanship of Geoff Small. Oddwalls represents a fictitious rural NSW town set in the 1960s. The station area with the main street and country-style buildings are the central scenic highlight of the layout with plenty of detail to be spotted throughout. This layout is compact-sized and an entertaining NSW-themed layout that runs well and looks great.

Wumbat (NSW, HO scale) represents another fictitious NSW rural-based layout. The layout dimensions are 3 metres by 1.2 metres and consists of six modules. Note the impressive way the layout is displayed in a theatre-box style of presentation.

Industry Lane (British, OO scale) is based on a fictitious industrial branch serving a number of industries: fuel/oil, cement, and a large manufacturing complex. The focus of the layout is shunting and this is accomplished using short wheel-based freight wagons and a single locomotive operated with digital command control (DCC). The entire layout, including fiddle yard, is only 1.5 metres (5') in length. The fiddle yard uses a sliding traverser to move trains on and off the layout. I really enjoyed this layout and admired what could be achieved in a relatively small space. Industry Lane was my favourite layout from the exhibition.
 

Moonan Flats (NSW, O scale) represents a what-might-have-been scenario had the real railway reached this town in the Barrington Tops of NSW. The station layout is simple but highly detailed, enabling a good showcasing of NSW outline O scale locomotives and rollingstock.

 

Wallerawang Junction (Australian/NSW, HO scale) is based on the prototype station on the Main Western line beyond Lithgow. The era modelled is the 1960 to mid-70s period when Wallerawang was a busy rail station and yard. There was plenty of steam and diesel train action on this layout.

Bullenbung Creek (NSW, HO scale), the featured layout at the Modelling the Railways of NSW Convention earlier this year, made its first Epping exhibition appearance. The layout took its inspiration from Belfrayden on the Uranquinty-Kywong branch line. This lightly-trafficed rural branchline has been well modelled using hand-laid code 55 rail soldered to PCB sleepers. The layout is operated using DCC and locos all have sound. My favourite was the 24 class (2417 pictured below) which performed its duties with no-fuss aplomb.

The Yard (NSW, HO scale) was another NSW-themed layout making its first appearance on the exhibition scene. The focal point is indeed the yard and the Pioneer cement silos. Other rail-served industries included stock pens, loading ramp and goods shed. Track is Peco code 83 with insulfrog points operated by Tortoise switch motors. The layout uses an NCE Pro Cab for DCC operation.

Stikodelom (NSW, O scale) showcased some quality O scale locomotives, rollingstock and scenery. The location is fictitious but certainly has that generic rural NSW feel about the place. The Beyer-garrat (pictured below) is a very impressive sight in this scale.

Bethungra was the new layout from the Epping Model Railway Club making its debut exhibition appearance. The trees on the layout are superb (well done, Phil). Unfortunately, I don't have any photos but can direct you to this Youtube clip from John Thoroughgood who captured the layout in a nice two minute video.

And of course, there was the ever-popular Lego layout.

I really enjoyed the exhibition and the opportunity to chat with friends from the hobby.  I'd like to thank the Epping Model Railway Club for another successful event.

Upcoming model railway exhibitions

I have a busy weekend coming up.

This weekend is the Queen's Birthday long weekend. That means there are model railway exhibitions on in Adelaide and Sydney. I will be attending both exhibitions this year.

The Adelaide Model Railway Exhibition is being held at the greyhound track, Angle Park. The exhibition opens at 9am on Saturday and I'll be wandering in some time after 10am. I will spend the day there and then fly to Sydney on Sunday morning.

On Sunday I will go to the Epping Model Railway Club's exhibition at The Brickpit, Thornleigh. The exhibition opens at 10am which will give me time to get there from the Sydney domestic airport terminal (but not by suburban train as the Main Northern Line and the North Shore Line are both closed for trackwork).

I hope to catch up with people and visit the commercial stands at both exhibitions. Should be a great weekend.

Epping Exhibition - one week on

I am back in Canberra after a week down in Melbourne with a work assignment. I return to Melbourne later in the week and I have plenty to do before then. In keeping with my tight schedule, here are some of the photographic highlights from the Epping Model Railway Exhibition.

First up, we have the award winner for best new layout - Grischun. Greg C.'s Grischun is representative of a Swiss alpine town with main and narrow gauge lines in HO scale. The scenery is superb, as one might expect from a Swiss-based layout. The catenary and running qualities of the layout were also of a fine standard. Grischun is a very good example of  a well-detailed and compact exhibition layout. I was also impressed with Greg's use of a painter's pole and roller for the lighting stands - very ingenious!

The next layout is Geoff Small's Oddwalls - a layout first exhibited earlier this year at the Canberra Model Railway Exhibition. The layout is HO scale and showcases a small rural town in the mid 1960s. This layout is another good example of an effective exhibition layout without taking up too much space. Oddwalls is a very well designed layout with good topography, a busy little town, and a nice parade of trains on the double track main line to keep the exhibition-goers entertained.

Another well presented exhibition layout was Bowen Creek. This HO fine scale layout has a relativiely simple track plan within some superb rural scenery. The layout is exhibitied in the box-showcase style with good internal lighting. The modules are constructed of 20mm square steel tube and the backscene is one continuous length of material used for advertising banners. This is a high quality layout for discerning tastes - a real standard-setter for quality.

Another exceptionally presented pair of layouts was Sunny Corner/Lily Flat. These two diorama-style layouts had some amazingly detailed and natural scenery. Both layouts were On30 and showed how effective the larger scale can with superb scenery and quality modelling.

Wallerawang (HO scale) is another fine layout, based on the station west of Lithgow, and presented by the Guildford Model Railway Group. The layout is 6.5 metres long and 2.8 metres deep, including the 14 track storage yard at the rear. The station buildings are the signature piece of this layout.

A perennial favourite, Jembaicumbene, was on show again. This HO scale NSW-based layout has had a very long exhibition life but still has plenty to offer the crowd. A good range of trains and a nicely detailed townscape are features of this layout

Branigate (or is it Brani Gate?)is a US-prototype layout in HO scale. A feature of this layout is the ability to change the lighting to reflect a particular time of the day. This was an interesting feature that might become more popular in the years ahead.

Turning now to some different track gauges, Duck Creek was also making another exhibition appearance. Duck Creek is HOn30 (i.e. 2.6" gauge prototype railway) based on the famous Puffing Billy railway in Victoria.

One of my favourite layouts, the Japanese N scale Enoshima, was also making another exhibition appearance. Every time I see this layout I find some new and interesting part of the city scene that I had overlooked before.

The Lake and Dale is an O scale narrow gauge layout based on the Lake District in England. It features a fine station scene and bridge with some typical English scenery.

In N scale we had Tarana and Carlo. Unfortunately, my photos of Tarana didn't come out so well. But making a new appearance at Epping was the suburban-electric layout, Carlo. Carlo is loosely based on the terminus of the Carlingford Branch at Carlingford, a suburb of Sydney. In real life, Carlingford was supposed to link up with the Epping to Parramatta leg of the now defunct expansion of the suburban network.  Maybe Carlo will feature an extension next year to show how it's done!

As always, the second-hand store was popular and retailers were well represented.

And finally, this is what the new Australian Journal of Railway Modelling looks like for those of you who may have missed seeing the new issue at the Epping Exhibition.

 Check out the AJRM website for info on how to purchase the magazine.

Epping Model Railway Exhibition 2011

The Epping Model Railway Exhibition is on this coming long weekend in Sydney. The exhibition is on at the Thornleigh Brickpit stadium at Dartford Road, Thornleigh. Full details here.

The exhibition promises to be be bigger and better than last year. It's no secret that the lads from the Epping Club have their sights on having Australia's best model railway exhibition. I understand this year the exhibition will have more layouts and commercial vendors than last year.

I also hear that it's possible a former Australian model railway magazine might make a long-awaited reappearance at the exhibition. After seven years, the Australian Journal of Railway Modelling will be making a belated return to the model railway scene. The website details the magazine's progress. The website has a temporary redirect on it but will be upgraded soon. The new issue (No. 11) is currently at the printers and expected to be ready by the weekend.

I will be at the exhibition on Saturday morning and most of Sunday. I hope to catch up with lots of people over the weekend, and I will certainly be interested to hear what you think about the the new issue of AJRM. I think people will be suitably impressed.

See you on the weekend.

Layout lighting - Epping MRE

I received an email from a rather well-known US model railroad identity asking me about the layout lighting Peter Lewis used on his A-Tractiv Effort layout. Since I often take photos of layout lighting as a personal interest, I had some photos to send to him.

I then started to think that perhaps I could write a post on layout lighting at model railway exhibitions, using the Epping Model Railway Exhibition as a starting point for an ongoing look at the issue. After all, in a previous post I was quite critical of poor layout lighting at the Sandown exhibition.

There are really two perspectives on the layout lighting issue at exhibitions. The visitor wants to be able to see the layout displayed so that he/she can actually see the trains, buildings, and scenery as easily and realistically as possible. Th exhibitor wants to use layout lighting to show the layout as well as can be, within the constraints of time, cost, portability and ease of setting up (and down) at exhibitions. The biggest challenge is providing even light across the entire layout on display and to minimise shadows (and still within those exhibitor constraints). It's a tough ask.

The following photos show examples of layout lighting from most of the layouts at the Epping Model Railway Exhibition last weekend. Layout lighting is usually a subjective issue, so I just want to illustrate the types of layout lighting on show last weekend. I will, however, exclude my personal comments on layout lighting for photographic purposes since most visitors to an exhibition aren't there to take photos of the layouts.

The first photo (above) is of the layout, Dungog. The layout used hooped lights in a rather art-deco looking light shade. I don't recall the lamps being obtrusive as the photo might indicate and the layout lighting seemed adequate for viewing purposes. By using single lights in fixed positions one must be careful in trying to provide an even light across the display area.

Geoff Small (Smaldon Curve) used spotlights attached to an overarching frame. The spotlights are in fixed positions but the heads can swivel to adjust the focus of light on the layout.

Another form of spotlighting was in the shape of this under-cabinet light unit attached to a tubular post on the Myallie Yard layout. There were two of these fixtures on the small loco-depot based layout. I have seen these under-cabinet lights at the local hardware store but I am not convinced they provide sufficient even light.

A common form of layout lighting, especially on layouts at home, are fluorescent tube lights. You can see the double fluorescent tubes used here on the Ober Franken layout. The tubes cover the full length of the front of the layout and therefore provide a consistent and more even coverage of light, something that spotlights often find difficult to do. In this case, the tubes are part of an overarching frame over the top of the layout.

The N scale South Bend layout is 7.5 metres long and therefore offers both lighting challenges and set-up challenges. The layout uses fixed positioned lighting (fluorescent, I think) within a boxed light shade.

The previous layout examples featured lights that were fitted to posts of some kind and "hung" over the displayed portion of the layout. The next two examples show how the lighting is part of the actual layout structure within a "showcase" type of presentation. The first layout is the HOm Bergun and the second layout (with two photos) is the HO scale A-Tractiv Effort which is fully enclosed, the front panel being clear Plexiglas. Note the double fluorescent tubes used under the front fascia on A-Tractiv Effort.

The layout lighting on these two layouts was bright, even, and integral to the actual showcase design. I certainly find this type of lighting, when it is well done, to be of high quality. However, I don't know whether this type of lighting in a showcase design is more difficult to build and move around than the light and post method employed by the other layouts at Epping. Perhaps an exhibitor could give me some thoughts.

I do know, from helping set up layouts at exhibitions, that layout lighting is not a simple thing to do. The planning and construction methods are important but perhaps compromised in terms of ease of transport and setting up. Layout lighting is, as you can see, as varied as the layouts themselves. And layout lighting for exhibition layouts is different to layout lighting styles for home model railway layouts.

Layout lighting is an interesting topic and something I will return to every now and then in the future.