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COPYRIGHT: PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH BEFORE CONTINUING!

All photos in this Blogspot and those accessed in Google Images via the links in each report are my Copyright and may be saved for personal use only. They may not be republished elsewhere without the written permission of the Copyright holder.

Hello and welcome to my twice reinstated and updated photo reports of visits to narrow gauge model railway layouts and events! Following the sudden and untimely cessation of Fotopic in March 2011 and with it the loss of my photo galleries, I started this blog in order to try to keep my "Roving Reports" available to those who enjoy viewing them. I have linked this blogsite to the old galleries which I originally rebuilt and posted in albums in Picasaweb. Once all the old reports had been rebuilt, I have continued to add completely new ones to cover my visits to events from April 2011 onwards.

In August 2016 Google blocked access to Picasaweb in order to force everyone to use their "much better" Google Images, so I had to do the whole exercise again. Thanks! .

Meanwhile......Because of the way this Blogspot works, the most recent postings appear first and the oldest ones last. Each report contains a link to the Google photo album plus captions for that report. The link will take you to the front page of the Google Album for this report. Left click on the first photo and it will open into a manually operated slideshow. A panel should open alongside the image on the right showing the number of the photo and the caption text. If it does not appear, click on the small white disk top right of the photo panel and it will open. Move forward or backwards by clicking the right or left arrows on your keyboard. When you have finished viewing, click the back arrow showing top left of the photo panel and this will take you back to the album opening page.

Close it in the normal way by clicking on the "X" top right or click the return arrow top left of the Windows screen to return to the blog, depending on which browser you use. Once back in the blog, any report can be accessed sequentially from the blog by scrolling downwards and if required, click on the "older posts" link at the bottom of the list, or simply go to the Blog Archive on the right of the window and select any report by simply clicking on the title.

Tuesday 5 November 2013

26 October 2013, Expo NG, Swanley

Expong time again! Just 4 weeks after the 009 Society 40th Anniversary Convention, I was half expecting ExpoNG to be a bit of an anticlimax, but I was very much mistaken. The day was much the same formula as normal – 65 stands with 18 of them being layouts, but supplemented by another half dozen or so within the society and trade stands, plus 5 more entries for the Dave Brewer Challenge. I thought that the layouts this year were of particularly top quality with some really stunning examples of modelmaking across the spectrum and in a variety of scales. In fact, my shutter finger was so busy trying to keep up with constant stream of superb photo subjects that I found myself in front of, that I have had to split this photo report into 2 parts in order to try to give a worthwhile impression of the day as a whole.


Many people describe ExpoNG as “a trade show with some layouts” which is rather unkind, but there are a larger proportion of trade and society stands present at this event than one normally finds at the other “national” narrow gauge model shows, Therefore I thought it appropriate in order to present a valid impression of what a day at ExpoNG is like, to include a reasonably wide selection of photos of the trade and association stands with some of the people who provide these specialised services to the hobby in addition to the normal layout photos. Obviously I did not have the time to include every one, but I have tried to be as fair as possible and to include some of the regular attenders that don’t normally get a mention in these post-show reports. Part 1 therefore is rather heavy on people and trade stands, but there are also some super layouts included!


As usual, no stars awarded to the White Oak Leisure Centre for the catering but all deserved accolades to the bakery shop in Swanley Village High Street where it is always packed by 8am on the morning of ExpoNG by those “in the know” about where the good food is! ExpoNG 2013 celebrated 3 anniversaries – 30 years of ExpoNG, 45 years of the hosting Greenwich & District NG Railway Society and 40 years of Meridian Models. It was a very pleasant day amongst a large number of like-minded narrow gauge fans. Much appreciation to Hazel Brewer and all the Greenwich Society members for their hard work.



Part 2 continues with more layouts and models, with a wealth of top quality modelling still to be seen. Although producing this photo album with nearly 180 photos and captions to be added, is quite hard work, and very time consuming, I have really enjoyed the task of selecting and arranging the album and I hope that you enjoy it equally. The most difficult task for me was in having to decide which photos NOT to include in order to keep the size of the reports down to a relatively manageable size! I look forward to meeting some of you at future events and I do hope to continue to be able to produce these photo reports particularly so that those who are unable to attend either through distance, health, or personal circumstances may be able to attend “virtually” via my photos.