Forestville 2011

Someone once said that the Menzies era in Australia was not 15 years of Menzies but the same years over and over again – so it is with the Forestville Exhibition.

It must be difficult to organise an exhibition and to get layouts and their owners to attend but Forestville seems to have the same layouts over and over again creating a sense of dullness. Not Dungog again! It is a perfectly good layout and modelling standards are high but it is a perennial and nothing seems to have changed. The only way to freshen it up would be to do something radical like run a time table or run it with operators in front of it with humanity.

But the long trek from Concord to Forestville was not wasted. Some interesting works were found in the second hand stall along with a Athearn CF-7 that was $30 less than the one on the Model Rail Craftsman stall.

Here it is stretching out on the rolling road.

One layout that was worth a second look was Bavaria based on German practice and extremely simple, a loop through scenery with a siding at the station. Unlike most German models it lacks “humour” (no fire houses on fire), “naughty scenes” or flashing lights on emergency services vehicles.

Note how the model is displayed in its own world, the layout height, presentation of the back scene and the close lighting creates a bright and attractive model.

The use of standard detailing items such as Noch products is excellent in my view and not overdone as often is the case. The downside is the tail chasing nature of the train operations which tend to be a bit boring.

Nevertheless the model has an apparent simplicity and is full of light which makes it very attractive.

While at Forestville I witnessed a tail end smash brought on by operator error and the mighty power of DCC. The layout will be nameless to protect the guilty.

The sound of 4205 hitting the guards van was not on any sound card!