19 April 2009 - Narrow Gauge at Wimborne Model Railway Exhibition

With no specialist narrow gauge modelling events scheduled for April this year, there was a possibility of a photo famine, but fortunately, the excellent biennial Wimborne MRX, thanks to a heavy narrow gauge following in the ranks of the hosts, the Wimborne Railway Society, can be relied upon to come up with the goods and this year was no exception, with 4 good layouts providing welcome relief amongst the engines with milk churns instead of brass domes on top of their boilers (picture a a GWR loco.....) and (horrors!) - DCC modern image with authentic diesel sound effects - arrgh!

For our delectation and delight, we had: Roy Wood's 0-16.5 Crichel and Peter Hollins' 0-14 Norden Mine in 7mm scale, with the still-growing 30 feet plus of the host Society's Tarrant Valley and John Thorne's Purbeck in 009. I've photographed all of these layouts before, but still welcomed the opportunity to point the camera at them again, particularly Crichel, which I've snapped about 4 times previously since 2003, each time unsuccessfully! Norden provided a further opportunity to supplement a single visit at the Weymouth MRX in October 2007 (Volume 4), whilst both Tarrant Valley and Purbeck had a number of new items of rolling stock previously un-snapped. I hope there is something in my selection to please most of you!

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