Kew

Well, I managed to escape for a couple of hours to the Kew Bridge Steam Museum Live Steam Model Railway Show on Sunday. Seemed a bit better than last year in terms of layouts & stands, although mostly pretty similar. Nice to See Brian Caton's 4mm / OO9 live steam layout again; fantastic to see live steam-hauled prototypical length main line trains and very impressive to see live steam working at this scale - especially the meths-fired OO9 saddle tanks.

Also nice to see Wrightscale's prototypes on display - the open cab Kerr-Stuart Tattoo looked great, as did the Bagnall wing tanks. Other than those I didn't see much that had me reaching for the credit card, though it's been a good year (having acquired a Baguley-Drewery & a Mortimer), so I should be quite content! Perhaps I should be saving for the rumoured Accucraft Countess, which according to Brandbright will be announced next month, though if memory serves, at over a grand...

The only other thing I realised is that it's impossible to get decent shots of indoor railway layouts, or moving quarry Hunslets in foul weather with my somewhat ancient digital camera! The traditional ride behind Cloister was a delight though, even in truly grim weather. The rest of the museum as ever forms a great backdrop to the event - well worth a visit by itself.