Zedex 2011 This years Zedex 2011 was, once again, hosted by the Oxford and District Model Railway Club at Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor village hall on October 9[SUP]th[/SUP]. Organised by Peter McConnell he managed to assemble a collection of some of the most inspirational layouts in the U.K in Z and Nm. Visitors were able to see European, British and American layouts, some that had been seen before and some appearing for the first time. Also present were some specialist trade stands and some modelling demonstrations by members of the Oxford club. Now not all the layouts that arrived were the ones described in the show guide, I was as guilty as anybody as I had intended to bring ‘Midsomer Mardy’ modified to take a Z-Bend interface at one end but I have picked up a couple of show invites for it in its present form so I brought the bare bones of ‘Shasta’ our new USA layout that also features a Z-Bend connection. The layouts, in no particular order, were. ‘Fryton’ We were expecting ‘Wolf River Creek’ but Graham Jones, a stalwart of the British Z scene and leader of ZclubGB, arrived with a new British outline layout based on LNER practice. The rolling stock included some of his white metal body conversions for Marklin locos to represent the LNERs A3 and A4 class pacifics as well as some diesel conversions. Graham has recently started trading as Northampton model railway supplies and has been appointed as the U.K importer for AZL. ‘Falsdorf’ Tony Waitzman brought his guitar case layout based on the European scene rather than his ‘West Coast Railroad’. Although Tony’s main interest is American modelling he still has a decent collection of European trains to run. I wonder what he did with the guitar? ‘Blumendorf’ John Baines had brought along a couple of his Z layouts in cases including a solar powered one. ‘RheingauZ’ David Guscott’s layout is based on the river Rhine where main lines run along both banks. Uniquely he has moving barges in the river based on a cunning magnetic drive. You will get a better idea off the youtube video which I’ll link later.
‘C F de Reve’ This French layout is show organiser Peter McConnells own, He was seen early on in the day doing some drastic modifications to the overhead catenary with my big side cutters but after that it ran quite well! ‘Kendorf’ Ken Jones brought his highly detailed layout based on a small German town which can become a night scene at the flick of a switch. ‘Osterburken’ Another change of layout, which caught me out on the youtube video caption as I titled it as ‘Winterthurn’, is Paul Kent’s 4 level German layout featuring large mountains at either end and constant action. The layout seemed popular with the kids as they tried to work out where the trains would appear out of next. ‘Bad Feriendorf’ is Ann Silby’s much travelled Rhineland layout set in the 1990s. this layout is very popular on the show circuit as evidenced by the numerous commerative plaques displayed.
‘Boskydell Il’ Ian Burbidge has also become impressed by the excellent running of modern USA Z trains. His layout uses MTL and AZL stock to good effect. ‘Mini Missoula’ Gareth Rees is an Oxford club member and was showing his micro switching layout based on Montana Rail Link. The track plan came from ztrains.com ‘Shasta’ Kev Smith. My new layout is based on the Southern Pacifics ‘Shasta Route’ from Northern California to Oregon and features the area through Dunsmuir to the infamous Cantara loop. The Shasta Springs end is a Z-bend interface and the display was set up to promote Z-bend with information on how it works as well as a TV showing a DVD I assembled on the Shasta Route showing through the day. Tony Waitzman’s AZL Challenger, one of only two in the country we believe, was a bit too big to go round Falsdorf and would have looked a bit silly so we gave it a good running-in turn on Shasta with a rake of coaches behind it. As late as Thursday night I was still modifying my original Alan Curtis 5 unit spine cars which ran perfectly all day now they are permanently coupled.
‘Nevermoor’ Brian Yallop is another inspirational modeller of the UK Z scene. His exquisitely detailed British outline layouts based on the London North Eastern railway (LNER ) feature scratch built steam loco bodies on Marklin chassis. He captures the look of provincial England very well with his scenery. The modelling demos included Ted Carter making his trees, Julie Adams making 2mm rolling stock and Brian Denton hand making Z track and points.
NM The N scale metre gauge contingent were all on the stage and were St Tugdual J Rodger Main is constructing an new layout based on the Cote Du Nord line in Brittany and is work in progress ‘Somewhere in France’ is Simon Newitt’s metre gauge line again based in France on the Atlantic Coast ‘El Cremallera’ Piers Milne is modelling something completely different in Nm. The Vall de Nuria rack railway in Catalunia in Spain which climbs 2000 meters up the Pyrenees mountains near the French border. Stock is all hand built needless to say! The specialist traders were- Bob and Jane from AllZanDone who specialise in rare Marklin items though their Ebay shop Ian from Mount Tabor models who is a Marklin importer. Geoff and Alison from Contikits who have a fine selection of quality new and second hand models And the gentlemen of the RCTS(Railway Correspondence and travel society) one of Britains oldest rail enthusiast clubs (my dad was a member back in 1953!) There was also a club bring and buy stall for members to dispose of unwanted items.
So all in all a good day was had by everybody. I had a problem with my main camcorder which went down with a dirty recording head (moral there is the head cleaning tape should be in the camera bag and not at home!) but fortunately had my back-up one with me, sadly I lost some footage including El Cramellara. Video can be found here http://youtu.be/TNxL-FCgVo8 It really is a friendly show and I would recommend anybody if they get the chance to attend next years show on October 14[SUP]th[/SUP] at the same venue. Make a weekend of it like I do by visiting the nearby Didcot railway centre home to the Great Western Societies fantastic collection of GWR Steam locos, The Cholsey and Wallingford preserved railway and the world famous Pendon railway museum which are all within striking distance of the show. See you there I hope! KEV
Great! Looks like an interesting meeting. Took someone detailed photos of the British locos, coaches and freight wagons? Sometimes it's seems to me, it is very secret what they are doing at the other site of the ditch.
I did not take any close ups of the British locomotives but that gives me an idea for a future thread. I have a lot of conversions that we run on Midsomer Mardy plus some pictures of Graham Jones stuff. Watch this space! KEV
Thanks for the pictures and video Kevin looks like a fun show.......... Now it's time to get back to building that Layout :thumbs_up:
Just as an add-on I mentioned the other rail attractions in the area and I have put a thread on the forum at http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?136528-Dignity-and-Impudence showing what I got up to the afternoon before KEV
Kev: Yesterday someone gave me a "CONTINENTAL MODELLER" from October 2010 [last year]. You had a really nice writeup and some nice photos of the layout. Is this the same one as you are presently showing? ...don
It was my Nickel Plate Road layout 'Cuyahoga' that was featured in CM. As well as that we have 'Midsomer Mardy' our British Z layout and our two silly layouts 'Mardy Model Railway Club' which is a model of an exhibition model railway layout using Action men and barbie dolls as operators and 'Mardy Model Shop' which is a model of, er, a model railway shop! 'Shasta' is going to be our new layout because I wanted to build something modern image I could run long intermodal and stack trains on. The layout storage shed is starting to get a bit full! I did sell 'Mardy Model Engineers' our 1/32nd model of a typical park live steam track that used Z gauge to represent 7 1/4" track which made a bit of room but not much so I suspect the Model Shop might be on the block next. KEV
