Llanfair haul

A small pile from the show this year. Most of it comes from the Fairbourne Railway, who were selling Christmas and gift tags that will be perfect for my railway friends in the festive season. Stupidly cheap too, I wasn't going to pass them up. 

They also had a copy of The Narrow Gauge magazine, with an article of Isle of Man trains I've not seen. I didn't buy the other Manx booklet in the box, as I'm sure I have at least two copies already. Best leave it for someone else... 

The big buy was a Plateway Models motorised pump trolley kit. Now, you may remember there was one in the Llangollen stash. So why buy another? 

Simple - I rushed the build and it all went very wrong. Wrong enough for the kit to end up in the bin in frustation.  

But I really want this model, so I'm going to give it another go. With the benefit of hindsight, I hope to produce a working trolley, and series of blog posts this time. 

Llanfair 2026

Wales is lovely, but it's a long way away, and the roads are wiggly. The trip was worth it though, as Llanfair show continues to improve. The atmosphere was great, especially in the gym, where Indian Hill Railways set off the fire alarm with the coal-fired locos. 

I arrived early to drop off the Corris loco with Accucraft after the Garden Rail review. Then, back outside to join the queue to pay to come in, and bask in the sunshine whilst booking another day out on my phone. 

Inside, there were plenty of layouts, with everything working well. The Telford tram shown above really appealed, being meths fired and quite old. There was a matching coach which appeared later .

Trade was really good. As is my usual plan, I chatted a lot, and picked up a couple of items for GR reviews in the future. 

Kes had brought along a selection of locos from here late father's Compton Down Railway, and these always resonate with me. No expensive live steam, lots of make-do and bodge, including one sat on a Hornby 0-4-0 O gauge loco. My favourite was Sampson - live steam, but with stick-on decoration which is wearing/weathering nicely. It's really taken on the look of a working engine that gets a wipe down with an oily rag. 

And there was cake. 

After my early start, I needed a cup of tea, and used it to wash down a bacon butty once I realised they knew how to cook the stuff. No just defrosted meat here!

Lunch was a turkey and cranberry roll, followed by Victoria Sponge. Chosen because a couple of people, knowing my interests, recommended it, and they were right. My only moan was that both the ticket desk and cafe were cash-only, or I'd have brought some Welsh cakes and bonag for later consumption!

The thing about Llanfair, is that it's part of a bigger event, and I really wanted to make the trip to Welshpool for the narrow gauge railway show before it closed at 5pm. It can take half an hour to drive there too, especially if you get stuck behind a steam lorry as I did a couple of years ago...

Held in the shed at Welshpool station, the show is a bit of fun, but there are always a few quality layouts to be seen, and again, good chat to be had. I'll be photographing Andy's VoR layout seen about later in the year, so it was handy to catch up. 

The layout that really caught my eye though, was Little Knittington. 

I'm sure many people will scoff at it as a silly knitted model, but look closely, there is so much detail in here. The time and effort taken to create it must have been immense. As for the imagination, more than your average fine-scale layout I suggest. We need a bit of this at normal shows, if nothing else to appeal to the general public who will probably see it for what it is - fun. 

Anyway, another good show. There are plenty more photos over on Flickr.  

Phil's lecture

 

Just over a week ago, I gave a talk to the Lutterworth Railway Society. Entitled "The Joys of Model Railway Publishing", I used my "career" writing for model railway, and other magazines as the basis for a look at how publishing for our hobby has changed over the years. 

It's an interesting world. Those early articles were wordy, and light on photos. Tony Wright shot my first layout on a medium-format camera, and took 12 images. Yes, just 12. When I come back from a shoot, I'm looking to have 50+ to choose from, and that's the stacked ones. The process can involve 1500 pictures taken on the day. 

A bigger change has taken place with practical articles though. A picture is worth a thousand words, and they are so much easier to take now. No more waiting nervously for the photos to be processed, knowing that it wouldn't be possible to reshoot them. Reproduction is better now, so we show people what to do, instead of just telling them. 

There are also articles I no longer need to write. Cutting up diecast lorries because there wasn't much choice available? No point in that now, at least in 4mm scale. 

We also look at how model railways got me work looking after websites, and how the web has changed publishing to. Even this blog makes an appearance. 

The good news is that no one fell asleep. Some enthusiastic applause finished the evening - and I remembered to listen to this, something I used to be hopeless at when giving conference presentations years ago. Allow yourself a few seconds to bask in the adulation rather than running off the stage. 

I enjoyed it. Public speaking doesn't scare me, quite the opposite, so I'm going to see if I can do this again. A couple of contacts have been supplied to me, but if your group fancies an hour + Q&A (my favourite bit) of my waffle, hit the Ask Phil button on the right-hand side of this page, and we'll have a chat.  

Saturday Film Club: The Down Bristol Line, as seen from the Driver's Cab at Pendon

People are always coming up to me and suggesting that it would be fun to put a camera in the front of a model train.

Well, this video from Pendon shows why I disagree.  

The problem with most model railway layouts, is that they are designed to be viewed from the front. What the camera sees is lots of scenery on one side of the track, and a giant (relative to the scenery) room on the other.

For me, this doesn't work. When I photograph a layout, I'm happy with this First Person View, but that's because I can remove the room, and replace it with sky, so the illusion is maintained. While this is possible with video, it's a lot of hard work. 

This makes me suggest, that if it doesn't work on one of the greatest models in the world, what chance do the rest of us have?  

Carrying road vehicles

 

Visiting a wargaming store last week, reminded me that I took this photo when Melbridge Dock was on display. It shows how I cart the selection of 4mm scale road vehicles around in a case designed for transporting little figures. 

Essentially, there is a layer of shaped foam top and bottom. When the case closes, the models are gripped by this. I found that this was a little severe; we are talking plastic models, not metal soldiers, but cutting the points off the foam helped. 

My Dad used to enjoy the job of removing vehicles and putting them in the case. He'd let me deal with the locos and rolling stock, but wasn't so worried about these bits. It's sobering to think that when I got them out for display, he was probably the last person to touch them.

Unfortunately, Games Workshop don't sell these cases any more. I bet mine is 30 years old, but I found something from Green Stuff World that looks adaptable.