Looking for inspiration? Here’s a few photos of the amazing layouts at Crawley Model Railway Society’s 2016 exhibition held last weekend.
I counted approximately 19 layouts on display over 3 halls with my favourites shown below, including the N gauge Umbridge, the OO 4mm Salmon Pastures, the 7mm Arigna Town and the monster G gauge Broke Brock Mountain.
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Sadly, I didn’t get to catch up with Paul Denyer aka @gnome_garden who I’d tentatively agreed to meet up with and managed to miss Simply Southern who were also there (and from whom I wanted to pickup a couple of wagons from) but other than that it was a great day out with some impressive layouts on display.
(All pictures are on my Instagram page: @modelrailwayengineer. Join me there for more photos of model railways I see and visit in my travels.)
Did you go? What was your favourite layout?
Andy is a lifelong modeler, writer, and founder of modelrailwayengineer.com. He has been building model railways, dioramas, and miniatures for over 20 years. His passion for model making and railways began when he was a child, building his first layout at the age of seven.
Andy’s particular passion is making scenery and structures in 4mm scale, which he sells commercially. He is particularly interested in modelling the railways of South West England during the late Victorian/early Edwardian era, although he also enjoys making sci-fi and fantasy figures and dioramas. His website has won several awards, and he is a member of MERG (Model Railway Electronics Group) and the 009 Society.
When not making models, Andy lives in Surrey with his wife and teenage son. Other interests include history, science fiction, photography, and programming. Read more about Andy.
Umbridge was my favourite layout as there was always a train on the move this was possible becausey they really thought about the track layout. Each operator had their own fiddle yard along with two main lines. I am not normally a N gauge fan but seeing layouts like that could convert me.