Trains in the Cowshed

I'm recovering today from the N gauge show in the Leamington 'Cowshed'. Many excellent layouts; one of my favourites was the narrow gauge French one, using Z gauge track. Most of the best diesel era layouts I've seen before; the ever excellent Kings Park with it's eight running lines where there's always something moving, or the compact but atmospheric Shaweport set in 1990s potteries area. Morpeth is new to me, a big layout set in pre-electrification East Coast main line when the Deltics pulled the top expresses.

As well as being an show of layouts, it's a major opportunity for the trade to show their wares; Bachmann and Dapol had big display stands, and most of the smaller cottage industry people were there too. I finally got to look at the finished version of Dave Jones' class 121 bubble car (not terribly impressed, I'm afraid)

Over at the Bachmann stand the Metro-Cammell Pullman cars look magnificent, especially the blue/grey ones I remember seeing at Kings Cross in the 1970s. It's really, really hard to justify them on a 70s/80s/90s/00s layout set in Cornwall. Early test shots of the TTA look good; the Peco model was good for it's day, but is now rather long in the tooth.

Rather outside my era are the Dapol Gresley coaches, although they certainly look impressive. They're the first British outline coaches that really come up to the standards of continental models by Fleischmann, Minitrix and Roco. They'll also be selling at Fleischmann-level prices, so we'll have to see if the allegedly price-sensitive British market is prepared to pay for quality.

Dapol actually had three new steam/early diesel era wagons on sale, a 21t hopper, a 12'wb 21t mineral, and the grain wagon. They look nice, especially the grain hopper. Not sure if I can justify any of these in Cornwall.

The preproduction sample of the Cargowaggon looks an impressive beast, although they've allegedly missed an umlaut from the tri-lingual lettering. I'm still not convinced that the shade of blue is quite correct, and might well need a bit of weathering to darken it.