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Eurospoor 2011 (1) (2)

The yearly event Eurospoor was held in October 2011. The Dutch HRCA was invited again to show the O-gauge and the Hornby Dublo 3-rail layout. We renamed the layouts 'British Tinplate Toy Trains'. Although most of the items are of Hornby origin, more and more trains run on the layouts are from other manufacturers from the golden age of tinplate up until modern day representatives like Ace Trains and Darstead. This way 'British Tinplate Toy Trains' can be seen as a joint effort by the Dutch members of the HRCA as well as of the TCS.

Construction of a vintage layout is hard manual labour. Most of the O-gauge layout is constructed with items brought by Niek van Ees and Peter Zwakhals. The pictures above show what they had brought to the show, before the unpacking started. The Eurospoor organisation provided the tables. The picture shows Fred van der Lubbe on the left, adjusting the tables for the O-gauge layout, while in the back Rob van Teylingen is performing the same duties for the Hornby Dublo layout.

Eurospoor is a 3-day event, so we have covered the layouts for the night.

The finished O-gauge layout. We ended up with a square of 7 * 7 meters, with 4 separate tracks. For the first time we had an outside loop built up from Hornby steel track, round a double track loop made of replica tinplate. The centre of the layout was built from original Hornby tinplate track.

Duco Postmaa and Peter Zwakhals (seen on the back) are at the controls of the layout, while Paul van Hooft can be seen in the centre controlling the branch line.

A closer look at the station area with a combined loco- and goods depot.

At the other side we had a branch line, including a loop. There was also an extra station made up from a pair of Ace Trains canopies.

Niek van Ees at the controls of the branch line.

As usual we had restricted the O-gauge to the LNER.

Left: a breakdown train made up from some early period items.

Below: some details of the layout, including Dinky Toys, advertising boards and Dinky figures. Adding these items to an O-gauge layout always gives the special atmosphere relating to the golden years of tinplate.

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