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.