What another great weekend!

I arrived before anyone else on Saturday morning, having not got lost or heading for Scotland but was soon joined by Mike Bellamy and Selwyn North who carried the layout in for me!. My new helper Keith arrived just in time to miss all the heavy work and we proceded to set up Summat in a more leasurly fashion than normal. I took a lot of care setting up the legs to ensure that the shelves fitted properly to avoid any more accidents with falling, breaking teacups etc. The legs are now numbered so I will get it right first time this weekend at Sheffield.

here's a pic of the layout all ready for the off! (and Keith hiding from the camera!)

The layout ran brilliantly all weekend, the only hiccups in operation were entirely the fault of the operators (me mostly!). The work put in last week to glue down the cork at one of the baseboard joints worked great, the two tracks lined up perfectly and much smoother running ensued. It has of course lead me to believe that the other two tracks need similar treatment that will happen before next Saturday's trip to the Sheffield (Davey Sporting Club) event.

The new 9F was joined by the 2-8-2 that sat on the loading dock siding most of the show simmering away

I had a lot of good feedback on the 2-8-2 that has spurred me on to get it finished asap

Things started to get a bit strange on Sunday though. First a certain blue tank engine appeared and took over Harry's shunting duties whenever a child approached the layout then a blue class 25 (with sound) winked out of hyperspace in to 1958 and did one turn on the wagons

Keith has suggested that at a future show he might bring a set of blue period diesels for a day 2 change of time period. This would mean spending a lot of money with Parkside though for some hopper wagons and I guess a diesel shunter ....

All credibility was lost much to the amusement of the Aberdeen Kirkhill boys when a regional railways DMU (Keith gave in to Trainlines discount in the end!) appeared and parked up next to a ficticious steam loco!

A big thanks to all the Mickleover crew who looked after us all weekend and made us more than welcome. Shame there was not more dust blowing around the hall as it would have helped with the realism of the layout, oh well