Continental Modeller February 2026

We commend the European Railways Association for their initiative in organising a dedicated exhibition at Longbridge in Birmingham on Saturday 28th February, and wish them every success. The show may not require a hall at the National Exhibition Centre but does offer no fewer than twenty layouts, in a broad range of scales, gauges, and subjects. At the time of going to press these were: Note that St.Frazal d’Ardèche was built by Sy Newitt and Fürenalpbahn by Anthony Bilton; these layouts are being shown by their current owners. Several of the layouts have been featured in the magazine, and the list of exhibitors includes some familiar contributors with new projects. We encourage you to attend if you can. Full details in Exhibition Diary on page 148. The layouts are previewed…

My interest in Saxon narrow gauge railways began in 1997 following a visit to the lines around Dresden. At the time they were still state owned, operated by DB, and running a public service which on most lines commenced in the early hours for the commuters. Unfortunately, transport of freight had ceased a few years prior to my visit. Over the following years I have made regular visits and watched the many changes that have occurred following privatisation, with most of the services cut right back to operate with one shift. Luckily, the railways have survived but hang on a knife edge requiring a significant subsidy each year from the authorities. My first HOe layout depicted Bertsdorf, the junction on the Zittau line (see CM January 2018), and has been…

This new exhibition layout is once again the result of a ride on a train. My American HO layouts – Sierra Nevada (CM June and August 2006), Red Hook Bay (CM November 2014 and American special), and Mill Falls all came into being after a ride on the Durango & Silverton in Colorado. Norge (CM May and June 2020) similarly after a ride on the Flåmsbana in Norway. During the summer of 2025 my wife and I visited Lake Como in Italy, but the real purpose of the holiday was the desire to ride on the famed Rhätische Bahn Bernina Express. We travelled from Tirano in Italy to St.Moritz in Switzerland. It was a wonderful ride through beautiful scenery. I was intrigued by the way the train snaked around model…

With thanks to Tutto Treno Modellismo magazine. The availability of the FS Gr.640 and Gr.625 classes from Os.kar in HO sparked a strong desire to be able to represent passenger operations accurately with a steam loco. Since the layout I am building depicts a medium-sized terminus, it was necessary to equip it with a turntable as these locos, which, unlike types with bogie tenders such as the Gr.740, very rarely ran in reverse. In reality, a location similar to the layout would presumably have been equipped with a standard turntable with a bridge length of either 9.5m or 15m. The former case, encountered for example in Biella, requires turning the loco and tender separately, a very interesting manoeuvre but difficult to reproduce in model form. The second case, typical of…

As the Modelspoor exhibition in Leuven/Louvain (Belgium) approached, with its customary competition for micro layouts (see panel), the idea came to me to realise a project I had been devoting myself to for several years. During a walk with my wife along the Lesse River in the Ardennes we discovered this imposing building with its castle-like appearance. It was a private station on Line 166 (Dinant – Bertrix) built for King Leopold II and opened in 1898. Once they arrived at this destination, wealthy clients and royalty from all over Europe were transported by horse-drawn carriage directly to the Château d’Ardennes luxury hotel via a forest path. I wanted to depict this unusual circular building with its square tower and spiral ramp in its full splendour, in the late 1930s.…

My garden layout is based on Canadian railways with diesel locos and long trains. It has evolved over many years. It runs around the garden, along walls, between plants, running over bridges across ponds, and includes various loops and parallel sections of track. It enters the house through my workshop and then climbs via a helix to run around my office. The Rocky Mountain section of the inside line featured in CM December 2022 whilst the original garden section was shown in CM August 2012 and a new trestle bridge in October 2024. For many years the turnouts on the garden section have been operated by Peco PL10s. These have been outside in all weathers with only limited protection, and apart from a little surface rust they have been completely…