Llangollen Garden Railway Show 2026

Sometimes, I get around. A couple of days in Yorkshire were followed by a trip to Llangollen for the garden railway show. It's an excellent event, which I've attended every year. 

This time, I had a bit of a mission. First, the G scale society had asked me to judge their modelling competition. Second, the Indian Railways layout will be at the NEC in November, and so photos and video would be very useful. 

Spaghetti Junction in the rain is never fun, but things had dried up by the time I made it to the venue. OK, the hilltops were hidden in the cloud, but we were indoors. 

As ever, there was a good mix of trade and layouts. 

A quick chat with the owner of the Indian Railways layout has hopefully secured me a feature for the appropriate issue. I spent a lot of time taking photos, and video of the event. The trouble with video of live steam layouts is that a single loco will tend to circulate for 20 minutes or so. I ended up standing in the middle of the hall, racing between layouts to obtain a variety of shots. 

The rest of the time, I chatted. To the trade, looking for feedback on the Stoneleigh show, and gossip. The operators and visitors on the lookout for future articles. There were some cracking models, that I hope to bring to Garden Rail readers in the future. 

Judging the competition didn't take long - there were only five entries, but each was very interesting, and accompanied by an information sheet, which I found both useful and interesting. 

The cake situation wasn't great. A couple of white chocolate cookies on the official coffee horsebox, but fortunately, Bob came to the rescue with some delicious fruit cake baked by Mrs Bob, who I was able to complement. 

All in all, a very enjoyable show. The good news is, I checked with the organiser and it will be on again next year. So, keep an eye out for the date. 

There's more photos from the event on Flickr.  

Saturday Film Club: The Dry Fit

Another video from me. This time, providing some sage advice for anyone building a kit. 

The missing seagull

 

Written in permanent marker on the back of Melbridge Dock, are the words "7 seagulls". 

Pretty soon after the layout appeared at shows, people took to counting how many of the birds were on the model, and so I jotted it down so we didn't have to remember. Later, when the information boards were added to the front, seagulls became part of the spotting list. 

Remembering this, I checked how many gulls were on show, and there were six. 

Disaster!

Fortunately, in the bolt box, there is a little jar of details. I keep these handy in case something is damaged, and we need to stick a box or pallet over it. In there was a seagull, who was quickly superglued to a rooftop. 

I'm not sure if anyone counted over the weekend, but at least if they didn't, the numbers were correct. 

Oh, and if you are interested, the 4mm scale birds are whitemetal models from the Springside range.  

Not in the stock box

Not all my loco fleet made it to the weekend. A week of testing at home persuaded me that there were a couple of models that would be more trouble than they would be worth, So, they stayed at home, and also missed out on a proper photo, having to make do with mobile phone shots. 

First up, the Garratt. No great surprise here, it's always been a problem child. We have shunted with it in the past, just so I could say I had, but the front power unit seemed to have an aversion to some of the points, and there is still a stick spot in the mechanicals. With more time, and more shows lined it, I'd have it on the bench and work out if the running maladies are mechanical or electrical. I suspect a bit of pickup tweaking would help, but that's for another day. Let's face it, this isn't exactly the perfect shunter for a 6-foot layout!

The other was the Lewin shunter. 

To be fair, this has never been part of the Dock loco fleet, but as it's a very appropriate model, I decided to try it out. 

There are a couple of reasons it wasn't practical. The first is that the model runs on Gibson wheels, and these are a little finer than the Romfords the track is built for. Matching track and wheel standards are a must for reliable running, and this wasn't happy with a couple of the points. 

A bigger problem though, is that massive dumb buffers. The gap between them is a pretty small target for the Sprat and Winkle hook to find, and coupling up was more miss then hit. I'm not sure what I could do about this, those buffers are a bit part of this model's look, replacing them with something more conventional would ruin it. 

Fortunately, I'm not short of rolling stock, so this isn't a problem, but it shows that you have to make hard decisions sometimes in the name of reliable operation. 

'Layout in a Day' in Garden Rail July

Can you build a garden railway in just 8ft x 6ft, and do it in a single day?

In our July issue, the Garden Rail team proves the answer to both is yes - as our ‘Layout in a Day’ wowed visitors at this year’s National Garden Railway Show.

Also in this issue: metal 3D printing, making the most of Mostyn vans, personalising a Mini Plant locomotive, building a sheep wagon, a manrider for your permanent way staff, and a 16-ton mineral wagon for Gauge 1.

Plus reviews of Gaugemaster’s G scale BR diesel, a 16mm De Winton, and a look at a garden line powered by clockwork — along with all the latest new products for larger scale modellers.

 Garden Rail is available from all good newsagents, and our online store: https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/