Today I visited the OnTraxs! railway show, which is held at the Dutch Railway Museum in the city of Utrecht.
For anyone who is interested in trains and is visiting the area, this museum is well worth a visit at any time. It is very well laid out with many steam locomotives and quite a few diesel and electric locomotives too. Outside of the main buildings are many carriages and locomotives to see, and a very nice turntable too. As the museum is located in an old station, you can even get a train directly to the museum from Utrecht central station. There is also a miniature steam railway providing rides around the property. As it was freezing cold here today, with a strong wind and snow, I didn't spend much time outside of the buildings, but this link will provide quite a lot of detail about both the show and the museum. http://www.spoorwegmuseum.nl/n...agenda/on_traxs.html (You might need to select English by clicking the Union Jack as this page defaults to Dutch.)
Whilst at the show, I paid a visit to again to Marion Zeller, the lady who, with her husband, manufactures the rolling roads that I wrote about late last year after my visit to EuroSpoor. I purchased some extra rollers for my rolling road, and discussed a modification to their O gauge product to better suit 3-rail locomotives. They are going to make a prototype with these modifications and will send it to me in a few weeks time. Apparently other 3-rail modellers have asked for a similar alteration. I shall be sure to keep everyone posted regarding this, as I have found their rolling road to be an excellent product. ( www.marion-zeller.de )
I also came across a very interesting service bench manufactured by PROSES. Here is a photograph of it.
Lenz had a nice selection of new O products.
I don't think that this is the new Dutch high speed train.
This NYC HO layout won the prize whilst I was there. They have an excellent lighting effect that cycles through day and night. During the dusk 'til dawn period, there are many beautiful and highly detailed lighting effects in the buildings and vehicles. There is also a lot of moving road traffic.
O-narrow gauge diorama.
An interesting O scale layout based upon narrow gauge railways built by the British army in Belgium during the great war.
Another nice O narrow gauge layout, This time a U.S. mine railway.
Real and model railways intertwined.
An O scale narrow gauge Russian coal mine layout.
Beautiful scenery on this HO mountain tramway.
As you can see, quite a few people braved the elements to get here today.
More Lenz O gauge.
Some beautiful O scale buildings were for sale. I purchased an Atlas Western Pacific boxcar from this vendor.
Through the carriage windows.
A 12" to the foot Atlas locomotive!
And it comes with a very nice display stand too.
A 2-10-0 in War Department livery.
There is something here for almost everyone.
Across the tracks in the old station building there are some beautiful old 19th century locomotives and carriages.
The platform visible through the glass is where the train from Utrecht Central stops.
Easy access to the valve mechanism.
And the internal crankshaft and drive rods.
Many early Dutch locomotives were built in England.
Travel in style.
I hope that some of the above may be of interest to you. I had a great time.