Hi,

Have returned home and unpacked from the R.S.M.E's Reading Show over the weekend, so can give you all a report on it!

A slight bad Omen came on Friday Afternoon, having got ready and stood at the bus stop for the 17:00 bus in to Wycombe to collect the Van, but come 17:15 it still hadn't come, so with fear of not being on time to collect it, we had to drive into town to fetch the van.

But we managed to do it and got up to the clubrooms of the HW&DMRS where Hythe has been set up since Monday to do some testing. We had already taken the layout down on Thursday evening, so all we had to do was load the van, we arrived at 17:45 and had finished loading by 18:30. The Jounery has good about from going to the wrong school, but this didn't matter much as the real venue has only down the road, so had arrived by 19:30.

We were shown to our 'hall', which was actually a classroom. Setting up was smooth, but was imperupted by the organisers offering to make us a cuppa, which is the first time I've actually had that happen, usually it's just "Tea's down there in the canteen, go and get it your self". Soon after, Hythe was standing and being tested, everything worked perfectly, so the time from starting to unload the van and when we had said "that's it" was just an hour, the quickest we've done it!

Saturday Morning we arrived to find everything still worked, so settled down to a cuppa and bacon butty (which were free, another rarity!). For Saturday we had a few helpers, Mark Riddoch (GWmark on the forum) and his son Daniel and another Club member, Ken Jones. Despite having fears that everything would fail when the doors opened, like Abingdon, the whole layout worked almost faultlessly all day. We had one small problem that has been manifesting itself in Platform 3, with the help of Mike the Stationmaster ( ) we found that one of the rails on the baseboard was out of alignment just enough to throw the flanges off the rails, a few tweaks with a pair of pilars fixed that! For the rest of day Hythe worked perfectly, only a few operator faults caused trains to stop. Overall a very successfull day!

Having enjoyed another Bacon Butty on Sunday Morning, I was approached by the Maidenhead and Marlow Show Exhibition manager, inviting me to the show in January next year, that was duly execpted. This time I was joined my Graham Muz of this parish and another club member, Ron North. We started running at 10:00 and from there on in, Hythe worked perfectly all day until closing time. We also ran much more smoothly and prototypically than on Saturday because we were getting the hanging of interspersing freight trains into the passenger timetable. Around 15:00, a nice young women from the local newspaper wandered in, came up to the layout and asked "could I have someone to stand in front of the layout?" , my operating crew all pointed to me with sniggers and cry's of ' tell him to turn around to get his best side!' So if you get a newspaper in Reading tomorrow, and see my mug in it, I do apologise!

All day, both days, we had lots of kids come up to the layout and ask for things to be run and alot of very favourable from people, including a lady who was brought up in Hythe! We did have one person who I overheard saying about the Layout "There's so many eras on here that it's ridiculous!" He'd obviously hadn't read the layout description in the show guide nor the on the fron the layout!

Anyway, enough of me waffling, he's some photos (sorry about the poor quality of the photos, new camera, and had it on wrog setting!

Hythe Set up on the Sunday Morning:

Getting ready to start running on Sunday:

Nearing the end, with Graham Muz on the end operating the yard:

Ok, perhaps a little more waffling! Hythe got a present Sunday Morning, a Hornby Class 423 4-VEP in Network Southeast, saw it on a traders stand on Saturday and after the invite in the morning I decided to get it and ran it all day. I say only after the invite because the future of Hythe (which I will talk about later) has dictated stock purchases. Anyway, more photos of the Vep:

A Southern Class 423 4-VEP, in the old Network Southeast Livery, departs from Platform 3 at Hythe Parkway with a service to London Victoria

Southern's Heritage 4-CEP, standing in for a failed electrostar, stands behind Southern Class 423 4-VEP that has just arrived with a service from Victoria, it is surprisingly clean considering it's one of the last slam door EMU's around:

Despite it being in the 2000's, Hythe Parkway see's an all NSE line up, from Left to Right: the SESR's preserved Class 108, A Southern Class 423 4-VEP that will soon be withdrawn, and A First Great Western Class 166, waiting to be refurbished and repainted into the latest livery:

A Network Rail Helicopter catches a Southern 4-VEP entering Hop cutting after departing Hythe Parkway:

In the Last entry, I was saying about Reading possibly being hythe's last show and then the decision of getting rid of it, but with the invite to Maidenhead, that status has been changed and it will not be scrapped!

Comments Welcome!

Simon