Blackburn Show

I missed their show last year because I wasn't 'up north' at the time. Blackburn always put on a good show with high-quality layouts, and this years was no exception.

The stars were three very big layouts; The Farnham MRC's Basingstoke, a accurate copy of the prototype station in N gauge. The layout is set in the late sixties just before the end of steam, on what was then the last fully steam worked main line in the country. It's the sort of thing you can only do in N, with a 30 foot scenic section taken up by the four track mainline, six platform station, locomotive depot and extensive freight and carriage sidings. It also shows just how good Peco code 55 pointwork can look when well laid and ballasted.

Then there was Europ 3, another big multiple track layout, this time in HO, set in Italy with overhead electrification, with a procession of passenger and freight trains representing just about every country in Europe, hauled by a large fleet of Italian electric locomotives. I like the clever way they use mirrors to produce optical illusions at each end of the layout, to disguise the hidden sharp curves of the track as they double back to the extensive fiddle yard.

Third biggie was Oxenholme, an OO gauge representation of the real life junction of the Windermere branch with the West Coast Mainline, set in about 1960 before dieselisation, although there were few brand-new diesels in evidence, including a brand-new Metrovick Co-Bo.

I also liked the two large scale narrow gauge layouts; Bridport Town and Three Chop Mill. The former, despite being a totally fictitious railway, had a lot of atmosphere and believability, while the latter featured a very high standard of modelling and detail. American logging layouts don't usually appeal to me at all; the high standard of this one was the exception.

My bank balance got of lightly this time, perhaps because I left my credit card at home. I did pick up a new Bachmann RES BG for my next British layout, plus a couple of N Scale Intermodal containers (OOCL and Uniglory) for my current Swiss layout.