It has long been a tradition that my Dad and I always visit the Derby show on the Saturday. We have done so right back to the days of the Assembly Rooms, and the late opening until around 7pm. We always used to do the Darwin Suite first to get the foreign stuff "out of the way" (it is not our thing!). Then we would do the balcony, great hall and finish off in the foyer at the top of the stairs before a spot of lunch and a pint (when I was old enough) before going around our favourite exhibits again.

These days the Assembly Rooms venue and the late opening have been condemned to history. But the Derby show remains a must visit date on our calendar.

Today we were there not long after opening allowing me to drop off some leaflets for the Weston show. We then spent an enjoyable few hours at the event. It was nice to catch up with some fellow RMWeb users - seeing Don operating the "Layout in a T.V" and hearing an update on his Bridgnorth model. It was good to see Pete Harvey again and to not ignore him this time as I almost did at Mansfield. Nice to see a steam interloper on his mainly Diesel layout.

The show was as enjoyable as ever and there were some excellent layouts. One of the highlights for me was the Taff Valley Railway model "Ynysybwl". The detail in the back gardens of the buildings were superb. It was interesting to see the fiddle yard on view, and it seemed to be partial scenic too. Without doubt this was my favourite layout in the show.

The LNER layout "Fryupdale" brought back a few memories of holidays in North Yorkshire, taking inspiration from such locations as Sleights and Glaisdale. I loved the bridged section over the river, which really did remind me of a section of the NYMR.

There did seem to be a lot of more modern D&E layouts this year including Meadow Lane TMD, Crimson Road, Oil Drum Lane and New Bryford. Despite favouring steam era models, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing these. New Bryford being the pick of them aided by the sound fitted models.

Amongst the many trade stands I managed to pick up a Gaugemaster photo backscene for my, as yet unstarted, Skaleby West extension. There were a few other things to tempt me, but somehow I managed to keep my hands in my pocket.

Still an excellent show and congrats to all concerned. I look forward to the next one...well actually the wife has told me she wants me to take our 17 month old daughter out for a couple of hours tomorrow whilst she does the cleaning. I wonder where I can take her..................