I'm pretty happy with smugmug as a photo website. If you want a really really really good introduction, watch the 45 minute video by Robert Scoble .

Recently, they also added video sharing. And in a much better quality than youtube and friends. Here's an example video .

I got off the train in Utrecht tonight and saw a train with seats that were covered with protective plastic. It took me 20 seconds to wake up, but this was a new type of train.

It is the new series 2400, based on existing German trains. Intended for the commuter traffic and the stop services. Looks very solid and neat. I managed to capture it on video while leaving Utrecht: it runs smoothly.

I'm looking forward to traveling in it!

Video summary of saturday's model railway exhibition in Rijswijk. (see my textual summary ).

Just a normal hand-held photo camera plus half an hour of apple's iMovie.

Tags: trains, modeltrains

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.

Last saturday I went to a model railway exhibition in the Dutch narrow gauge railway museum. I've read about that yearly exhibition for a few years now but always was unable to attend. Finally, I was able to.

It is a nice, small exhibition with just a few layout, 10 or so. Not terribly crowded, so you can get a leasurely look at the layouts. And most importantly: most of them are of very good quality. I've taken photos, but I've also mixed those up with some video footage of the layouts and of a ride with the narrow gauge train and placed it at google video.

Completely unrelated, but I just had to mention it: someone rebuild the first real fighter jet: the german ME262 (also on google video).