It's that time of the year again, with the Adelaide model rail exhibition on. The big news for South Australian modellers was the release of Orient Express's M vans, with liveries from early dark grey to AN green. The dark grey vans also come with buffers (as all new Webb stock had buffers), and these will match perfectly if buffers are added to the original OB opens, as care has been taken to make sure the buffer beams are all the same height.
A few new layouts this year, plus some old ones. SARMA had their first outing of Strathburn, based on Strathalbyn (which was also represented in N gauge).
Bridgewater was back, more complete that last year. The only problem with this layout, is that the top cover construction is too low and us taller people have to bend to see to the back scene. (Also, my CFS son says that the CFS Dennis RS237 pumper at the road crossing needs to be re-assigned to the Mt Barker brigade, as it went to Morphett Vale in 2010. In fact it was imported in 2005).
Some of their weathered AHGX grain hoppers, with some interesting artwork on their sides.
Eskbank, a NSW HO scale layout set around 1899.
The station yard of Lower Downe, a OO scale UK based layout.
N gauge England, at Kirbyvale. I hope I have the right one, as there were two UK based N gauge
layouts side by side.
And something different, Fort Apache; a US themed, old American 'wild west' N gauge layout. The only thing missing from the small township was the saloon!