07 January 2023, Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust MRX, Edington

I wouldn’t have normally considered driving nearly 100 miles each way to visit a small village hall sized model railway exhibition, however when I learned that Toby Hollins-Jones was attending with a new “miniature-miniature” railway in 005 scale (yes – 00 scale, 5mm gauge track), then, having known Toby and his outstanding modelling skill, since first meeting him at a Wessex NGM event when he was about 11, or maybe even younger, I was determined to try to get to this little show to see what delights he has come up with this time, even if 200 mile round trips by car at the post-Covid cost of living crisis we are all in at present, and the still astronomical price of fuel acts as an ongoing restriction to how far one can afford to travel!

 I was not disappointed and an added bonus was to discover that Toby’s Gorsaf Llanbobble was one of 3 NG layouts attending: Peter Hollins with Burrow Mump in 1:24 scale (but on a unique 25mm gauge track) and what has become a regular fixture in several recent reports, Richard Holder with his Woodbury Wharf. Overall, it was an excellent day out, well worth the distance travelled and I’m glad that I made the effort! (But my next visit to Somerset, just a week later held a couple of surprises – to be revealed in the next report!)

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24 September 2022, Small & Delightful Group Open Day, Compton Dundon

For the benefit of those who may not be aware, the “Small & Delightful Group” (S&D Group) is a small band of modellers who generally hail from the area around Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury in Somerset, and for 25 years between 1992 and 2017 organised and ran the great and much missed Narrow Gauge Southwest in Shepton Mallet annually in February. Whilst NGSW has been retired for similar reasons that other large specialist shows have fallen by the wayside – ageing group of organisers, health issues, growing uncertainty regarding access to the venue etc, the group members continue to enjoy and participate in the hobby, and for some years they have also put together a biennial gathering in the village of Compton Dundon, so that they can enjoy meeting up and showing their own layouts, as well as invited ones, plus of course creating an access for visitors to the famously superb cakes and refreshments provided by the Glastonbury Lions Ladies!

 Like everyone else, Covid caused long gaps between being able to put the open day on, and I was very surprised to see that for my part, I had not been able to attend for other health etc reasons that didn’t include the Covid lockdowns, since way back in 2016, so this was a “must attend” in my own diary.

Very poignant as it turned out, because two very well known figures in the narrow gauge model railway hobby, Howard Martin and Rod Allcock both attended and, although it wasn’t known then, this was to be the last time that I met either of them, as they both sadly passed away in early 2023. Both Howard and Rod are much missed by the great number of people who knew them.

LATE NEWS: 16 July 2023 edit: I have just learned that Barrie Baker, a close friend of Howard’s, has announced that it is hoped to put on a special show at Compton Dundon in February 2024 as a fitting “Bye Howard” event and he hopes that a large number of modellers will be able to take part. Within 24 hours of seeing this announcement in NGRM-Online, I read that there were already 24 layout owners committed to come to what will be a superb day out and a fitting memorial. Watch out for further announcements online and hopefully in the model railway press and I certainly have it in my own diary as a fixture not to be missed!

Barrie Baker (left) and the late Howard Martin with Howard's famous (or infamous!) NG Southwest exhibition manager's 10 inches to the foot ruler

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25 June 2022, Oxfordshire 009 NGM Open Day, Steventon

Good to see things starting to return after the long Covid lockdown months and my next outing was 2 months after NG South to Steventon in Oxfordshire for the Group’s open day, just like NG South, 4 years after the last one was held in 2018.

It was also very good to find that the Oxfordshire Group had taken the trouble to produce a show guide, it makes things much easier for me and indeed for everyone who has attended, to have some layout descriptions and notes to help us remember much later on what the event was like, what a layout might be called and whose trainset it was and all that!

For the previous 2 years, the Group has been very busy creating and developing their Group Modular Layout and this event has been their first chance as far as I know, to present it to the public. Naturally the result of their endeavours will be revealed in this report, as well as a good number of invited visiting layouts. Unfortunately a late cancellation of Richard Holder’s splendid little layout Woodbury Wharf due to a positive Covid test left a big gap to be filled, but at the 11^th hour, this was filled by Malcolm Harrison with his Himalaya & Darjeeling 009 layout Achalraj.

As it always is, an excellent day out was had, well worth the journey for me and many others, some of whom travelled long distances and renew acquaintances with friends and colleagues in the hobby. I hope you enjoy my photo report of the day and, as with other reports recently, apologies for the long delay after the event before I have been able to get it done. I live in hope of catching up to date – sometime!

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23 April 2022, Narrow Gauge South, Barton Peverill College, Eastleigh

As Wessex NGM Exhibition Manager for NG South said in the Complimentary Show Guide: "Welcome Back"! 4 long years since the last Biennial NGS was held in 2018, and coming out of the Covid Lockdowns, it was a huge challenge to not only put on a great show and to round up top class layouts, but also to convince a nervous population that it was now safe to attend a big show like this. Although numbers were not surprisingly a bit short of target, there were still enough enthusiasts prepared to travel and come to the show to make it a very worthwhile and viable reward for the enormous amount of effort put in by Tim Couling and his small team of volunteers.

In my introduction text to the report on the last NG South, back in pre-lockdown 2018, I referred to it as the 14th biennial Narrow Gauge South so I started my first draft for this report as a welcome to the 15th NGS. A bit of a surprise therefore to find in the show guide for the next NGS, ie this one in 2022(!) that it started with a welcome to "the 20th" NGS. Not to worry, one of us is 6 shows out of sync, and I'm sure that history will determine who got it right, but it doesn't really matter, as the main thing is to celebrate that it has returned, despite the restrictions that we have all had to bear during the Covid crisis period!

NGS has been run every 2 years (except for 2020!) since 1982 and is now the largest and longest-running specialist narrow gauge model railway show in the UK. Indeed, since the retirements of Expo NG and NG Southwest it can be said that it is one of only two of these large events left - good to see that NG North is still going to continue, following the tragic loss of Andrew Kirkby.

So, on with the show as they say, and how to present the best representation that I can of this momentous occasion! As with previous large reports, and in order to cover as much of the show as possible, I have decided to split the report into no less than 4 parts. Access them in the usual way by clicking on the link text under each of the 4 photos below to open up individual albums for them.

 I hope you enjoy the report!

PART 1

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Well Part 1 got us about a third of the way around the main hall and took me about an hour and a half to get round, so it's time for a coffee break and on the way back from the college restaurant was a good opportunity to dive into the adjacent Nobel Hall where quite a large number of layouts that wouldn't fit into the main hall had been placed.

PART 2

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Moving on, still loads more to see. We're back in the main hall again and after a hearty lunch ready to resume the marathon!

PART 3

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We've now seen every layout that was present at this huge show except for one, which I have saved for the last section of the report. Dick Wyatt's Dovey Valley 009 layout was built in 1976, was first published in Railway Modeller magazine in 1979 and has appeared in well over 150 model railway exhibitions in the ensuing 46 years. Due to his own health reasons, Dick made the decision to retire the layout a while ago and so it was by great good fortune that exhibition manager Tim Couling managed to get Dick to agree to bring the layout out for one last time to Narrow Gauge South 2022. it seems only fitting therefore that I should allocate "star status" and provide an extended report for this superb layout that has appeared all over the country, a number of articles in modelling magazines and even an appearance in a Two Ronnies TV show. I am also very grateful to Paul Steedman who came to the rescue when I discovered that I had taken a large number of close up photos of parts of the layout and its stock, but very few of the overall layout itself. So Paul has kindly let me use a dozen or so of his own images which provide a good selection of overall views before we get down into the weeds as it were. 

I do hope that you have enjoyed this big report - only the third one of this size that I have done, and although I managed to get a 2 part report submitted to 009 News shortly after the show, I very much apologise for the fact that, because of a number of distractions in my life, including family health matters, I have not been able to get this published until 15 months after the event! I was going to just let my blog fade away actually but because a number of people in the hobby have told me that, with some 14 years worth of events visited and reported on, the blog has become quite an historical archive of illustrated reports on narrow gauge modelling events for people to visit and enjoy, I have got myself together and intend to attempt to get back up to date. Please let me know if you spot any errors or howlers and I can then get them put right, in the meantime, please carry on and visit Part 4!

PART 4

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