Manchester Model Railway Exhibition

Manchester MRC have changed the date this year, due to Warley changing their date to MMRC's old slot at the beginning of December. (Unfortunately this now clashes with Dragonmeet - you can't win!)

The Manchester show was still at the same venue, the New Century Hall near Victoria station. There were a large number of high-quality layouts, even if a lot of them were steam age ones. Two of the best, as far as I was concerned, were "Europe 3", a large HO-scale Italian layout set in the present-day with an assortment of FS Bo-Bo-Bo electrics of various classes, and "Mostyn", just about the only large P4 diesel-era layout in existence, with their large collection of class 24 and 25 'rats', and a special guest appearance by an ex-works regauged Heljan blue 47. While this layout still has some way to go, especially stock-wise, what they have so far is very impressive indeed, and challenges the kettle-centric world of finescale modelling.

The Manchester club's own 'Dewsbury Midland' was in evidence, of course; the last couple of times I've seen this layout they were running it with 70s blue diesels, this time they'd turned the clock back to the mid-60s, mostly grimy steam.

Other layouts that caught my eye were "Fort Nevis", 2mm fine-scale based on Fort William in Scotland with an extra couple of sidings, operated with a fleet of class 37s, and "Grange over Sands", an accurate N-gauge model of 'The Dawlish of the North', and the large N-gauge main line "Starbeckbridge".

Of course, the traders ambushed my wallet as usual; but I had been looking for the Minitrix Swiss intermodal set for quite some time.