There were several Legos User Group layouts at the National Train Show this year. I saw banners or cards for BrickLab, ArkLUG, Twin Cities Lego Train Club (no layout, just a display), Texas Brick Railroad, and The Pewaukee Road,

The British TV broadcaster, Channel 5, will be showing a new series of six, hour-long, shows called the Great Model Railway Challenge. Fifteen teams of six members each, will complete in five heats to build a complete model railway in 24 hours (spread over 3 days). The winner of each heat will go on to compete in the final.

Each layout measures 10 feet by 5 feet, and each heat will have a given 'theme' that the layouts have to adhere to. The layouts will be judged for model making skills, operation, animations, theatricality and humour.

I don't know if Z-Bend is the newest modular standard, but it's in the running. It's also right up there for smallest. Each module has a double track main on opposite sides. There were at least two Z-Bend organizations here at the show (and one of the employees at my favorite train store in Portland, OR was there helping them):

This is a well established modular layout, and I seem to remember seeing them (as well as several of the other clubs) at other NTS's. There can't be that many people who are crazy/dedicated enough to haul their pride and joys several hundred miles in order to hook them up one day, run them three more, and at the end of the third day tear it all down in a semi-mad scramble. You've got to respect the ones that not only come, but do it multiple times. Based on their location, It's likely I personally last saw them in Cleveland in 2014.