Return to the Cowshed - The N Gauge Show, 2008
It’s September, so the annual N gauge exhibition has come round again. Last year’s was the official N-gauge Society one in Kettering, this year it’s the turn of the ‘unofficial’ one. This is held at the grandly-titled Warwickshire Exhibition Centre, actually a converted cowshed in the middle of nowhere somewhere outside Leamington Spa.
As usual, it was showcase of the best of N gauge modelling, an opportunity for manufacturers large and small to demonstrate their wares, and an opportunity to meet up with friends who descended on the place from far and wide. In that respect it’s a bit like some prog gigs; although the only overlap was Andi Dell, manning the DEMU stand, who I’d met earlier in the year when he was doing the lighting for Mostly Autumn at Gloucester.
Star layout for me was Graeme Hedges’ magnificent slice of urban south London, “Stoney Lane Depot”. I’d seen it in bare baseboard form, and seen photos in two magazines, but it’s different seeing it ‘in the flesh’ in three dimensions. This is precisely the sort of thing where N-gauge excels; superb architectural modelling where the urban landscape dominates the trains.
The big manufacturers had their latest ‘in development’ models. Bachmann’s painted 108s looked superb, and their class 42 “Warships” looked good too, even if there was something not quite right about the full yellow end ones. The 150 looked superb; I can’t wait to see a fully painted versions. Over on the yellow and purple Dapol stand we had their sprinter, the 156, along with some new “Megafret” intermodal flats, and their Mk3 DVT. The InterCity DVT suffers from some livery errors, which I trust will be corrected in the production version.
As usual at this sort of show I ended up spending far too much money; I didn’t buy any locomotives this time, but still managed to emerge with a significantly lighter wallet. And there were no impulse buys are all - Everything I bought was on my shopping list, the most significant purchase being the Dapol dummy Voyager “Dr Who”, where I managed to get my hands on one of the last ones - they’re now completely sold out from Dapol.
