Spalding Model Railway Exhibition 2025

Looking back through my blog I see this is the fourth Spalding Model Railway Exhibition since the pandemic. In some ways that period seems so long ago and in others just as though it were last year! I can recall thinking at that time there would never be any more such exhibitions but we move on and luckily we overcame and now the model railway diary of shows seems as busy as it used to be. Certainly the Spalding Show has always been a great exhibition and each year it seems to grow in quality with this year being one of the best I can recall even going back before the pandemic. 

So lets look at a few of the layouts that Mrs. Woody and me liked.

First off, Welby Lane RTC, am 00gauge layout, which is based on the British Rail test centre at Old Dalby. All the RTC (Research Technology Centre) stock was painted in a distinctive blue and red livery and there were some unusual conversions of standard rolling stock into RTC versions including the Laborotory 25 Decapod which no doubt had a far more interesting life than the Mk1 coach it was converted from!

Interesting as the rolling stock was, there was also some interesting scenic modelling such as the old station with its delapitaded building.

Amd here it is in closer detail - nice!

I was also taken by this scrpa yard scene.

Ambergate was interesting in that it was a large layout but the railway was only a passing loop station with a three siding goods yard. The space was mainly taken up by some fine scenic work.

This is the atation end.

And this is the other end showing just how little trackwork there is but this was a real example of a railway through the scenery model.

The allotments must have taken many hours of work to complete.

Mauch Chunk PA is an H0 scale layout based on an actual location in Pennsylvania, USA.

Superb modelling makes this almost look like the real place.

Staying in the Pennsylvania, but moving down to n gauge, there was this fantastic layout Mackenzieville Yard.

The layout was for sale but I resisted asking how much - I just don't need another layout at the momeent - really!

Moving onto Switzerland, this fully automted and computer controlled layout called Kaninchenbau allowed its owner amd operator to wander about the hall leaving the trains to run themselves! Now that is a clever layout build!

There were 30 layouts covering all the popular gauges and various parts of the World as well as traders and demonstrations so something for most visitors to find of interest..