Most of the train exhibits are typically of a British, European and occasionally, American flavour. Being an early rail modeller, I usually don't find anything for sale in the stalls that fits my era and theme. However, I enjoy browsing the exhibits. I tend to look for scenery ideas and techniques that I can use as scenery is not usually dependent on one's chosen modelling era.
One layout I particularly enjoyed was the New Zealand Railway Model Railway Guild's 1:64 NZR layout depicting typical scenes from Southland and Otago. There are not a lot of products available in this scale, though there is one business in New Zealand that does produce rolling stock kits. The locomotives are all limited run kits and are hard to come by. There were only a few buildings on layout, and all appeared scratch built or heavily kit-bashed.
A great feature of this layout was the sense of space the builders had created. A lot of the space was devoted to open pasture land and rural scenes. In the one urbanised area, the buildings were realistically spaced and because of this, there they were relatively few and far between. A distinct advantage when you have to scratch build everything! The scenery was nicely done and used a variety of products to create a pleasing scene. The
The realistic weathering on the steam locomotives and rolling stock was also another highlight. It really was enjoyable to rail fan the trains on this layout.
Here are some photos of that layout that I snapped on my phone:
Pacing an NZR A class
A passenger train headed by the NZR A class snakes its way through the country side
A typical rural scene form New Zealand. Flax and scrub litter the pasture land.
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