Warley 2004

Virgin Trains Saver Return to Birmingham
- �28.80

Two day ticket for the Warley MRC exhibition
- �15

Overnight Accommodation
- �39.95

One Dapol GWR 14XX tank engine
- �49.95

Expression on Steve "Electric Nose" Jones' face
- Priceless!

Warley (the Gencon of model railway exhibitions) is over for another year.

Nice to meet Steve Jones at last; he spent the weekend on the DCC demo stand. Other familiar faces were Alan Monk and Steve Grantham from my old club in Marlow, and the dreaded Roechard Wibd (seen playing with Norwegian kettles on "Ulvik")

Saturday morning saw the usual feeding frenzy at some of the traders, and the predictable scrum around the Bachmann and Dapol stands. Both companies had a display of their new models. Bachmann's surprise new model in the Graham Farish N gauge range turned out to be a test moulding for a "Super BG"; something for my CJM 67 to pull! The chassis is all-new, not based on the old Farish BG chassis, and far more detailed. They also displayed test mouldings of the previously-announced 57' Mk1 suburban coaches. Dapol, meanwhile had some new liveries for the class 73 electro-diesel, and a preproduction version of the 45xx "Small Prairie".

I was very tempted by the 73, which really is a superb model, and very much moves British N gauge forwards. But I can't justify one for a layout based on the west of England. Maybe a self-contained shunting plank based around it, using freight stock I've already got?

The N-Thusiast class 22 looked a little better in the flesh that the photos I'd seen. But not much. While I'd like model of one of these short-lived little diesel-hydraulics, I'm afraid Dave Jones' offering fails to capture the appearance well enough for me.

As always, there were some very good layouts; I even liked some of the narrow gauge ones!. I find a great many narrow gauge layouts rather twee, especially the freelance ones. But "Dduallt", based on the famous spiral on the Ffestiniog railway and set in 1988, and the finescale "Borth-y-Gest", a 'might have been' set in the same top left-hand corner of Wales both featured some fine modelling without the slightest trace of twee.

Some of the best layouts were the smaller efforts; one that really impressed me was the 7mm "Braunstone Gate", inspired by Vic Berry's scrapyard in Leicester. The whole thing just oozed atmosphere.

There were a good selection of N gauge layouts, most of which seemed to be diesel-era. My favourite would have to be "Sea Wall", based on the West of England main line between Dawlish and Teignmouth, with the distinctive red cliffs and tunnels through the headlands. When I'd seen the layout before, it has been running transition-era kettles and green diesels. This time it was a mix of blue era and privatisation era diesels; they even had a couple of scratchbuilt clay tigers.

I spent too much money again; apart from the ultimate sad kettle already mentioned, I now have a complete 7-car set of Farish Mk2 coaches in First Great Western 'Flying Fag Packet' livery, some more Artrans grain hoppers (which will become china clay Polybulks), some ATM Y25C bogies (now I can make a start on the pile of unbuilt wagon kits) and another Minitrix twin car transporter. Unfortunately the price of these things makes a complete block car train rather too expensive, but the three of them I've now accumulated will look impressive as part of the consist of a wagonload freight.