In this week’s post I am continuing my overview of the layouts at this year’s NMRA (BR) convention which was held in Bournemouth last weekend.  You can find the first part here.

The first layout for this week is Drew, Iowa.  This is a HO club layout built by the South Shore Group.

“Rural railroading in deepest Rural Iowa, it’s continued existence is due to the grain and feed elevators at one end of town. Drew, Iowa represents a small town on one of several branch lines running aimlessly through Granger Country waiting for the axe to finally fall. In the meantime it struggles to run short trains up the overgrown dilapidated track. Currently running in a Milwaukee Road guise; buildings are either heavily weathered kits or scratch built to suit. The track was laid like that on purpose. (Honest – track that bad takes a lot of care to lay to be effective – more time than well laid track!) (X2014 News, NMRA (BR) Convention Guide, 2014).

The track work really is superb on this layout, not only because it looked so dilapidated but because it ran so well.

I should also mention Andrew Dunn, who built the beautiful Stout Oak, Iowa (which I featured last week) is also a member of the South Shore Group and at the age of 17 built this layout as well,  the group has since added to Andrews master piece giving us the fantastic layout we have today. You can read more about the group and their layouts here.

The next layout is Sumach Grove, an On30 layout built by John Levesley.

“Sumach Grove is my first go at O scale 1:48th railway modelling. Its a fictional narrow gauge railroad with a 30” Gauge located in the NW N Carolina, E Tennessee, Virginia area of the USA in the 1930s, based on a place I’ve never been at a time before I was born. The two volumes of “Slow Trains down South…. Daily ‘Cept Sunday” by Mallory Hope Ferrell, Thomas Fetters two books on “Logging Railroads of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains” and “Extra South” by H Reid have been the main inspiration for the line. It is (or when fin-ished will be) a railroad of the deep South.

The location is Sumach Grove on the Sandford and Sumach Grove RR. S&SGRR trains are usu-ally local way freights and the occasional passenger railcar. Additional rail traffic can be either mineral workings of manganese or felspar from North Bend Mining, or timber traffic. Mimick-ing a real life practice in the region, narrow gauge mineral and timber cars are loaded piggy-back onto standard gauge flat cars for transfer to mineral processing plants and sawmills down the valley. Buildings and structures will be in a transitional phase. Some I’ve bought second hand to use until stored craftsman kits are completed, some are mine, some are even scratch built.

The six modules can also be operated as a switching layout which is how (at the time of writing) I anticipate it will be operating at the Convention. Control is by a Gaugemaster and MRC DCC system, turnout switches are thrown using Blue Point switches to operate push rods. Operation is directed by a switch list.”(X2014 News, NMRA (BR) Convention Guide, 2014).

And what 1930s narrow-gauge railroad is complete without a Shay locomotive?!

You can read more about John Levesley’s Sumach Grove here as well as finding some more, and better, photographs, including photos of the layout from its start.

The Bearwood Group’s HO Modular Layout is the last layout for this week.

This modular layout consisted of a nicely modeled city scene and large mill in an industrial area.  The majority of the running on this layout took place while I was giving my clinic on 3D printing so I missed most of the action but I was able to get a few trains.

This crane is fully DCC controlled with moving jib and rigging.

I was also able to catch a Warbash streamliner as it streaked though the city.

This layout also had an interloper; my 3D printed Re-Built UP excursion train tender behind a huge Gas Turbine.

Here is a comparison between the correct tender and mine.  Mine was sprayed with Flowquil’s UP Armor Yellow paint but I think it’s a bit too yellow although I’m very pleased with the overall tender.  Even the brake wheel printed crisply.

The tender coupled up perfectly and ran smoothly as you can see in this video.

In next week’s post I will show you the last four layouts from this year’s NMRA (BR) convention.  This will include the largest layout as well as a truly spectacular Hon3 layout and two fantastic HO switching layouts.

This weekend I was at the National Model Railroad Association (British Rigion)’s Annual Convention in Bournemouth.   In this post, the first of three, I am going to share with you some photos and videos of the layouts at the Convention.

The event was held at the Carrington House Hotel who provided a nice large room for all the layouts and trade stalls.  This photo, taken from the stairs, shows one end of the hall.

The first layout I am going to share with you is Horsethief Bridge by Ant Quinlan.

“BNSF Horsethief Bridge marks my return to railway modelling after some 28 years and is based on the ex Spokane Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S)line which runs along the north side of the Columbia River Gorge in Washington state, just along from Horsethief National Park. The period modelled is generally from 2006 onwards when BNSF introduced their “swoosh” logo. I try to run a broad selection of trains that are found along the Gorge includ-ing domestic and international inter-modals, trailer trains, the Swift roadrailer, autoracks, Amtrak’s Empire Builder, grain trains, coal trains from the Powder River Basin and my personal favourites – manifests.” (X2014 News, NMRA (BR) Convention Guide, 2014).

All of Ant’s locomotives and rolling stock were very nicely weathered.

The layout captured the warmth of the Washington sun, not so easily captured in photos.

The single track bridge was a nice focal point on the layout.

As the trains emerge from the tunnel mouth they cross the Columbia River on the bridge before entering the double track section.

Halfway along the double track section is a maintenance-of-way spur.

A local BNSF MOW train awaits orders in the MOW spur.

Here is a video of a BNSF container double stack train running through the layout.

There was also an interloper on the layout, a Monon Railroad Alco C-628 working as a pusher on the rear of a coal train.

This was not one of Ant’s beautifully weathered locomotives, it is one of my new products undergoing a few tests. Ant very kindly offered to test it around the layout.  Here is a video of it running over the bridge.

The Alco C-628 is actually a dummy locomotive, the chassis and drive mechanism has been used as a donor for a DT6-6-2000.  This spare shell has been mounted onto a 3D printed chassis and trucks.  Here it is again working as a mid train helper.

The kit for the dummy C-628 will be available soon and it will be covered in a later post but for now here is one more shot of it on Horsethief Bridge.

To finish off BNSF’s Horsethief Bridge here is the Amtrak Empire Builder running through the layout.

The next layout is Stout Oak, Iowa by Andrew Dunn

“A fictional narrow gauge short-line running somewhere in rural Iowa. Outliving the Bellevue and Cascade Railroad, however widely unreported, due to its small size and sketchy rail service.
It owns an eclectic mix of rolling stock from small ex-industrial diesels to steam locomotives built for export but never sent due to the outbreak of war; moving general merchandise; grain and coal with the occasional passenger (catered for by a motley collection of rail-cars) this run-down Granger Road ekes out its existence making do and fixing what’s broke. The layout buildings have all been scratch-built and rolling -stock heavily modified or scratch-built to suit.” (X2014 News, NMRA (BR) Convention Guide, 2014).

This layout had some truly wonderful scenery, this view with the pickup truck was full of detail.

Andrew said that he researched the vegetation for the areas which would be growing that time of year to help bring realism to the scene, the taller plants you can see around the layout are corns.

Andrew certainly achieved his goal of creating the look of a ‘run-down Granger Road‘.  The track work and track overgrowth was spectacular.

The last layout for this post is the British Region HO Modular Group’s modules.  The modules were presented by Harry Brown, Tom Winlow and Peter Lloyd-Jones.

The modules worked well together forming a large switching layout centered around a straight through main line.

All the rolling stock on the layout was very nicely weathered making the scenes look very realistic.

The locomotives were also nicely weathered, this Geep looked like it had been worked hard but was still running strong.

Each module had a nice array of buildings for a variety of industries, all very well modeled.

The two main switching areas were separated by a river spanned by this bridge.

The main line down the center looked well maintained whereas the spurs and yard tracks had a very nicely done, less cared-for look.

I think the Pontiac muscle car will blast past that truck once he clears the crest of the bridge.

This layout also had an interloper, Bob Phelps from Peco was running his Brass UP 844, as seen below, and this was the perfect engine for another new product of mine.

My new 3D printed UP excursion train water tender in HO.

This locomotive in HO was very impressive and the 3D printed tender looked fantastic running behind it.

This tender is the one I test printed in the FD material, you can read about it here and they are available in my shop here.

And to finish off here is a video of UP844 running with its two tenders.

In next week’s post I will cover four more of the wonderful layouts at the NMRA (BR) Convention 2014, as to which ones, you will have to wait and see.