Model railway exhibition in Rijswijk¶

I took Rianne to the "Nederlandse modelspoordagen 2008" in Rijswijk (NL). A model railway show. Not the biggest in the Netherlands. Attractive as it is well-organized, not too crowded, catering is good, catering doesn't equal highway robbery (as in: the prices are very decent), etc.

The first highlight for me was Loek Bronkhorst's N layout. It was always crowded in front of his layout: the only place in the entire show where you had to wait in line! Spectacular because it would change slowly from night to day and back again. And the lighting at night... Even the moving car had headlights: we're talking 1:160 scale here! The street lights looked very natural.

The second highlight: La gare de St. Artois . A small layout, can't have been more than 90 cm wide. A quiet narrow gauge station at the end of a small line. I liked the smallness and the good level of detail. When your 5 year old daughter points you towards a set of flowers "hey, daddy! sun flowers!", the builder of the layout has done something right.

Also good at St Artois: the way the landscape was modeled. The station tracks were surrounded by higher grounds on  three sides, just one corner was "at track level". It pulls you right into the layout that way.

Hans Kaas paints railway motives and he's recently published a book with his paintings . I liked them a lot. See the low-resolution image below. I'm actually debating buying one of his paintings. The price is less than I feared (some 225 Euro for most of them if I read the price list correctly). Still high for our budget, though they're worth it. I'll let it simmer in the back of my mind for a while.