Narrow Gauge North

Saturday morning, just ahead of sunrise, saw me leaving the house, collecting fellow modeller Simon from the next village and heading north for Leeds with a car laden with ‘Wheal Ponder’ for a day exhibiting at Narrow Gauge North.

If I attend NGN as a punter, I usually go by train (the perk of free travel and the option of a pint or two in Leeds on the way back) so driving was a novelty that meant I’d left more than ample time to get up there so we were all set up in bags of time and able to enjoy an unhurried breakfast before the doors opened.

Simon reminding himself how the layout works.

The layout suffered a couple of annoying foibles (due to my construction and one of the lessons learnt from actually completing a layout build) but otherwise ran well. It was great to hear plenty of positive comments about the layout and talk about it to new people in addition to several long standing friends from the 7mm Narrow Gauge modelling and Talyllyn worlds.

Sharing Simon with the Apedale Society stand meant that there were limited chances to look round. So not many photos of the other exhibits from me.

It would have been rude to have taken the layout to Leeds and not take a Hunslet or two with me. Though we did resist turning off the motorway and making a detour to the site of the works this time.

Beaver Creek caught my eye, though I’ve seen it several times before, it’s still a cracking example of what you can achieve in On30.

One advantage of a general narrow gauge show is seeing modelling from other narrow gauge scales that you don’t normally encounter. For me, this year it were the HOm Swiss models that caught my eye. 

Firstly was ‘Kreuzweg’ for its snow scene and simple plan of just watching the trains go by.

Second, ‘Neuburg 1913’ was behind us with some very fancy computer control that was beyond my technical knowhow! A stunning layout with great depth of scenery. It was only whilst admiring the layout alongside one of my Talyllyn mates that said mate told me that ‘Neuburg 2013’ also exists and about how the builder has incorporated road and rail infrastructure changes and other details to update the scene. This led to some googling of the modern version and I’m no less impressed now.

Peter Kazer can usually be found displaying a selection of his scratch built gems and this year was no exception. I very much admired Peter’s latest models of Festiniog Fairlies in 1/32 (both double and single) and the craftsmanship involved.

Back home, ‘Wheal Ponder’ is slowly making its way back up into the attic man cave it inhabits. I currently have no further invites having turned down another two invites as my circumstances doesn’t allow me to take it to two day shows.

It will get operated from time to time and I shall look at the foibles that reared their heads at Pudsey. But they won’t detract from some mindful bothering of wagons from time to time whilst I work on ‘Abermelyn’ Mk 3.

‘Wheal Ponder’ has achieved what I set out to do. I’ve completed (at least) a model railway layout. Learning several lessons on the way that I am already putting in to place with ‘Abermelyn’ which is proceeding with far greater clarity than it has before and I hope to be in a position to share my progress here soon.

There are things that I don’t like about ‘Wheal Ponder’ but the positives far outweigh the negatives and the layout has a short to medium term future as something to operate at home.

Whilst no decisions about its future have been made after that, time will tell when I’ve completed ‘Abermelyn’ to a similar (or better hopefully) standard and my attention returns to building another narrow gauge layout.

The icing on the cake personally on the journey that started in June 2022 at the 7mm NGA Convention in Burton and has culminated in the creation of ‘Wheal Ponder’ is seeing the layout in print.

7mm NGA members will have seen the first half of a pair of articles in the last issue of Narrow Lines. Earlier this week a copy of ‘Bachmann Times’ arrived, including an article about my pair of Bachmann NG7 Hunslets that I was asked to write after I sent a photo of my weathered examples to a mate who also works for Bachmann.

Then, awaiting for me on my return home from Pudsey was a copy of the April issue of Railway Modeller (in the shops next Thursday) including an article on ‘Wheal Ponder’ that I submitted last summer. Seeing the layout in print in the magazine that first fuelled my interest in railway modelling as a child is something I’m very proud of.