layout tours

As part of the Trainz weekend Saturday afternoon was devoted to having a look at some local layouts. For some odd reason I got to play driver to 3 other lucky modelers. We then set foot off into the wilds of Cashmere. As a bynote, Marks model works product list is unlikely ever to be graced by a GPS unit ('At the next intersection, go thataway').

First up was Peter Ross' layout.

His currently completed scene is the Amberly Lime works. This is a nice piece of modeling, but for some reason it just didn't 'do it' for me. I think mostly as it is a nice uncluttered scene, but it takes up far too much space. Maybe I'm just bias against S scale. Maybe because I'm not quite sure that the colours are correct (well to my eye) and that there needs to be a bit more green in the base.

Next up was Neil Andrews 9mm layout (the GPS was OK with this). This is huge and features an enormous number of trees made from almost any material you can think of. This layout had atmosphere that I did like. Then again I do have a soft spot for 9mm (I think most 9mm modelers do indeed have a soft spot..)

Finally, and for something completely different, we visited Glen Anthonys garden railway. I've never been impressed by these (maybe cos I've only seen them in magazines). However Glenn has produced a charming layout with some very nice rolling stock and structures. Hes an ex Nz120er who made the jump to the largest scale he could find, skipping all the inconveniently small ones along the way.


The C and old style train in among the plants are just great. Don't forget this is in winter as well.

And I just had to take this shot.

'It scales out to 9" gauge'