Mr Potter's Pannier

120527_railex12_IMG_3397, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

As we draw into the latter half of the summer, I cannot believe that it's around 10 weeks have passed since the excellent RAILEX in Aylesbury, the event at the end of May that marks the end of spring and the beginning of summer, well in the olden days anyway!

My Super D enjoying the freedom of Albion Yard at
RAILEX '12. The view here reminds me a little of of views
 seen at the long gone Aylesbury Town Goods.

Brewhouse Quay was the layout I took along this year, my no-hassle brewery layout which features mainly small locos due to the restricted curvature of the wharf embedded rails, points and tight loading gauge. There I was surrounded by some great modellers and layouts, with the only other OO gauge layout at the show being Paul Marshall Potter's Albion Yard, which as a layout goes is the complete contrast to Brewhouse Quay, Albion Yard being designed for proper goods trains, albeit in a backwater environment.

Being a buddy of Paul's the obligatory loco exchange just had to happen, me swapping him a big loco that's far too big for Brewhouse Quay in exchange for one of his delightful superdetailed ex-GWR Pannier Tanks. As seen in the photo at the top of this page, it's likely you'll notice that it's got God's Wonderful Railway on the side, so it can hardly be 'ex' as the parriott made famous by John Cleese in the 1969 Monty Python dead sketch can it? Paul did his research well, for 7788 lasted in its former owner's livery well into the 1960's and had a bit of a cult following on spotterland for quite a while. Indeed, if Facebook had been around in the 1960's it would almost certainly have had its very own 'like' page.

And now for the real reason of this post, Paul is the subject of a Q&A with Steve Flint of the Railway Modeller where you can read more about Paul's thoughts on railway modelling and Albion Yard in the September issue. This blog post is also my way of saying thankyou for mentioning me in such a kind manner in his blog. Gosh I'm soft today! Cheers!

• See Albion Yard for real at Model Rail Live this September.