Modelspoorbeurs Zutphen Spring 2015

This weekend a large regional swap-meeting was held in Zutphen. So we went to assess the offers, the sales and the displays. Our first impression was that it was less busy than in December, and there were a little fewer sales stands and more displays.

Loads of train stuff in all directions!

This British layout proves that model train layout do not depict an ideal world; a beautiful load of bricks has just fallen off the fork lift.

Look even, Dad's Army was represented on this beautifully build narrow gauge G scale British layout.

 Here a nice Dutch diorama of times gone by.

 Another Dutch diorama with a prewar local railroad theme.

 An absolute eye catcher. American trains in N scale run circles around a Scottish distillery.

 Also, plenty of old model railroad stuff was lying about; Mettoy, wind-up Märklin, etc.

Two sales stalls with old trains; to the left some recovered items unfit for operation, to the right beautiful toy trains!

As usual, I spend most of the time at the Merkur layout of "Blik en Speelgoed" and I let my son take some pictures, as I talked too much.

 Well, he certainly gave us a completely different perspective on the layout.

Which also clarified for me that he liked the silver Mikado steamer and the green large electric engine BR E52 the best.

Next to the Merkur layout, was a large Lionel - Williams - MTH - Plasticville sales stand. It had already been announced on Marktplaats, but seeing it was even more impressive. What a capital.

Later I understood this collection was a heritage that they tried to liquidate. But Lionel on swap meets over here is as uncommon as a polar bear on the Bahamas, so they mostly sold the accessories. Anyway, nice to see what one person can accumulate over time.

And at the stand of the SSN stood the hand-painted prototype of the NS 8800 (J94 for the British), the post-war austerity steam switcher. Although there are still two design flaws for Merkur to deal with, it really looks nice to see a Dutch steamer in three rail zero scale.