Well Sunday came and went and a great time was had by all concerned when we gathered at Didcot Civic hall for this years Zedex. As usual I travelled down the day before stopping at the Severn Valley railway and the Gloucester Warwickshire railway en route mainly to get an update on one of the 'new build' full sized steam engines under construction for a thread I am running over in the international railway section of trainboard. The loco that proved how possible it all is 60163 'Tornado' built by volunteers at Darlington was in form at Hampton Loade station Anyway, I digress. Setting up was a leisurly affair for once and the hall opened at 10.30 to the public. I had had a disaster before when I had dropped my camera at Winchcombe the afternoon before (concrete always wins!)and done some terminal damage to my short zoom lens so was having to photograph my fellow exhibitors layouts with a zoom that was a touch too long In no particular order, and with apologies to anybody I missed we had Tony Waitzman with his Guitar case layout Graham Jones, leader of Zclub GB, was showing Aldburgh. A British outline layout built by Brian Yallop featuring some new designs in 3D printing Roddy Mullin had built a new layout for his grandchildren which features continous for two trains A debutant at the show was Peter Clucas who had brought his 'woo woo woo Bergdorf' layout. Peters introduction to Z was his daughter getting a Marklin starter set a few years ago which eventually developed into this layout more soon Kev
Show organiser Peter McConnell and Andrew Burchett had recently seen their Sankei Kansen featured in Continental Modeller magazine and were showing the advances made in Japanese Z over the last few years Derrick Webb was showing Harz Hamblin a narrow gauge railway set in the Harz mountains Another exhibitor making his debut was Guy Davey who had travelled up from Teignmouth Devon with his newly constructed DB Bavaria layout Brian Denton has been making steady progress on his WSLR narrow gauge layout More shortly Kev
One layout that caught my eye was Blair Hobson's 'Vlcetinec' a Czech 760mm narrow gauge Ken Jones had his standard/narrow gauge layout 'Yn Y coed twinned with Unter den Baumen' I had brought 'Cuyahoga' my Nickel Plate road layout as 'Shasta' had been to the show for the last few years. Lots of people were intereted in the differnt techniques used for the stock etched, laser cut, resin cast, lost wax and 3d printed. seen on the roundhouse are 3d printed Alco FA1 and EMD FT I did get a LOT of Questions about when I am going to finish the Berkshire! This winter I promise! The layout with the split personality was 'Double Bluff' shown by Julia Craig McFeely and Tony Heathfield Kev
Piers Milne was showing Inselbahn Langeoog, based on the Friesen Islands off the North West coast of Germany Mark Fielder had two layouts one of which was An Clar representing the more rugged west of Ireland His other layout was the 'Pizza' which needs no explanation Brian Yallop had brought 'Nevermoor' with all hand built rolling stock featuring ex LNER locomotives Peaking out from behind the grain hopper was a Montana Rail Link GP 35 on Gareth Rees 'Mini Missoula' pike. Notorious for normally being exhibited on an ironing board Gareth surprised even himself by forgetting the board on Sunday morning! A table was soon pressed into service however
There will be a slight pause while I work out some of the other layouts! It's tricky trying to run a layout, photograph and video the others and talk to punters at the same time but to keep you going the video is at Back soon Kev
Z scale certainly has come a long way in a short time. But it is way to small for these old eyes (and hands)! Kudos to all who produced those wonderful and varied layouts.
Right, apologies in advance if these captions are wrong. I'll welcome any corrections from other people who were there I think this was Roussennac by Noel Dollimore I think this is Garagenplatz by David Burbridge Kev
This should be Spitzingzee by Dave Burbidge And if I recall right this is Richard and Hazel Woodbridge's green valley watch out for news about Zedex 2016 nearer the time Kev
Thanks for the pictures Kevin. I had a wonderful day out at Zedex 2015. This is the second Zedex that I have attended and I have already marked Sunday, 16 October 2016 in my calendar. All the exhibitors at Zedex are approachable and happy to chat about their layouts and give advice. There were over 25 different layouts on show, all with a Z connection. Like Kevin, I was fascinated by Blair Hobson's Czech 760 mm narrow gauge layout, a TT scale layout in Z gauge. Also, there was Sy Newitt's latest Nm layout, N scale in Z gauge. Sy said that this one was a keeper. Next to that was a Zm layout, Z scale in T gauge. Both of these layouts were representations of French metre gauge and for a while were running similar (to my eyes) railcars, of course in different sizes. Another one that I enjoyed was Peter McConnell and Andrew Burchett's Japanese layout running the Shinkansen (Bullet Train). I saw the article about this layout in the October Continental Modeller and I was interested to see it running and to see that it works so well with the Shinkansen. Also, Peter was very helpful with information about where he obtained the structures on the layout. This year, Kevin was showing the wonderful "Cuyahoga" layout and he said that there would be something new next year. Thanks also for all the useful advice, especially about cleaning Marklin locomotives. Apologies to those exhibitors that I have not mentioned, it is not a reflection on your layout. Many thanks to Oxford & District Model Railway Club for organising Zedex and roll on next year. Rob Pearce (aka ViperBugloss)
