Philip1812

Just received my copy of MRJ 299, with some nice photos of Slattocks Junction, (c) Karl Crowther, which will be appearing at a large public exhibition for the first time. Advance tickets available from our website: http://www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition

Time for an update on THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2023! Another three excellent but contrasting layouts which will be present: Wolfe Lowe. An O gauge pre-grouping layout set in Staffordshire. Photos (c) Andy York Euxton Junction. A post-privatisation OO layout showing the busy junction just south of Preston on the WCML. Photo (c) Tony Wright The Warren. A delightfully observed OO cameo layout inspired by the Looe branch line. Photo (c) Steve Saxby For more details about these and all the other layouts, traders and attractions at the show, visit http://www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition

It should have been automatically forwarded to the member with responsibility for traders. I will check tomorrow when I see him. To be on the safe side, send me a PM on here with your query and contact details. Phil

The exhibition website for THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2023! went live last week, to coincide with the start of on-line tickets sales. The exhibition will again be at our new, larger, central Manchester venue, which is a short walk from Oxford Road rail station. There will be 24 layouts present, including some very unusual ones. All the details are on the website - www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition but here is a little taster of two of them, just to whet your appetite: Dovedale (O gauge) A post privatisation quarry terminal set in Derbyshire. YORK (2FS) Peter Kirmond's superb rendition of the inside of York station in the 1930s.

Day 2 and just two hours left. Heating problem solved (until the get-out). Catering better but not good enough. Card machines blocked out for about two hours but now back on line. Decent crowd but probably not enough to cover costs - but WE ARE BACK AFTER TWO YEARS AWAY!!! Philip1812

Well, the end of the first day, which went much more smoothly than the get in yesterday. Good attendance and lots of positive comments about the layouts and the mix of trade. The big problem was the inadequate catering. The outside caterer had been told about our advance ticket sales (up by 37% on 2019) and our projected attendance over the weekend, but didn't really believe us - hence inadequate staffing levels and horrendous queues. The only other significant complaint from the visitors about the shuttle bus. If we run it again next year, we will make improvements, but we may decide that it is not a cost-effective solution, and let visitors make their own way from Piccadilly, which, after all, is not the nearest station to the Sugden Centre - that's Oxford Road. For reasons I don't fully understand, there was a significant temperature difference between the two halls. It may be that it was caused by the wind direction. The colder hall had a loading door facing north, so when opened the breeze in was a bit chilly today! The get in, yesterday, was not good. We need to modify the registration procedure and try to improve the exhibitor parking arrangements. All in all, for a first exhibition at a new venue I thought it was good but with poor catering. There were some weaknesses, which we will address for next year. We did not have time to arrange the Scale & Gauge display, or to set up properly the family and children areas in the dining area and the lobby, but all of the layouts were good and the Society judges had a very hard task to select the winner of the "Best Visiting Layout" prize which went to Bron Hebog. Philip 1812 Exhibition Coordinator, Manchester Model Railway Society

We must be doing something right. As of noon today, our online advance ticket sales were up by 28% on 2019 -very encouraging! If you want to join them, you've got until 9pm on Thursday, otherwise it's queue to pay at the door. And here's another of the big layouts that will be there: Hills of the North - the Spirit of Shap. 35 ft of scenic excellence up a 1 in 75 gradient, complete with banker engines and 51ft of dry stone walling!

Thank you Baz. Like you, we offer free child tickets with each paying adult, and, like you, we hope that this will lead to more junior members. Every "free" child comes with an adult of the right age to be really useful as a member or helper if the child joins. The other point is, of course, that by targeting families with children, we get adults attending for a family day out who might have little interest in coming otherwise. We market the show in the local media as "The perfect pre-Christmas treat for all the family"

There has been very little said in this thread about one crucially important aspect of staging an exhibition (or, indeed, any event): - advertising. This links to a second, very important, question which not all exhibition organisers consider: who are your target audience? I manage the Manchester MRS exhibition. Like many clubs up and down the country, we were forced to cancel two exhibitions, but we had the added problem that we had been obliged to move venue. The 2020 show would have been our opportunity to tell our visitors that the 2021 show would be on the other side of the university campus, about 500m away, but both shows were cancelled. This year our problem has been not just to tell everyone that we were back after an enforced absence, but also WHERE we now were. We took the brave, some would say foolhardy, decision not to increase our ticket prices, or the trader stand rents from their 2019 level and to use this as a positive inducement in our advertising. Fortunately, over the last 5 exhibitions we have (a) collected a large mailing list, and (b) analysed carefully the demographics of WHO was attending. We also had a clear idea of our target audience: (1) the keen and experienced fine scale modeller, (2) those with an average interest in railway modelling and rail transport generally, and (3) families with children. It remains to be seen whether we will cover our costs this year - back in January I told the MMRS committee that I could not guarantee breaking even, but the omens are looking promising at present. The biggest expense for this year's exhibition has not been the venue hire, nor the accommodation costs for the 34 hotel rooms I've booked for two nights. The biggest single cost has been advertising. But advertising targeted at the sections of the public we want to attract. Will it work? Ask me in a fortnight! What I can tell you is that between 2015 and 2019 we saw an increase in % attendance of the under 16s and the 35-45 age groups, at the moment approximately 1/3 of the advance tickets which have been sold are to people already on our mailing list, and that advance ticket sales are up by about 24% on their 2019 level - what effect that will have on walk-up sales is anyone's guess!

And now there's just one week left to get advance tickets. Here's another two layouts: Canalside Ironworks 6mm/ft scale, 9mm track gauge, and Boston Lodge Junction 16mm/ft, 32mm track gauge, and making its first ever exhibition appearance!

It's just two weeks - almost to the hour - until advance ticket sales end for THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2022! Two weeks, in other words, to get tickets which are cheaper than those bought on the day, admit you 3/4 hour before visitors who buy at the door, and minimise the time spent queueing to get in! Visit http://www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition for full details of all the layouts, traders and other attractions. Our new, bigger venue is a short walk from Oxford Road train station, and very well served by buses and trams. If you decide to drive into central Manchester, there are two multi-storey car parks nearby. Some of the layouts on display are shown above, here's another one - completed during lockdown so you won't have seen unless you went to the Uckfield show last month. Drws y Nant in 2FS built by Nigel Ashton. Take a close look at that offset scissor crossing!

Three weeks today and we will have welcomed the 24 layouts from all over the country who will be appearing at THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2022! Doors will open at 10:30 on Saturday 10th December for walk-up ticket sales (£10 adult), but at 09:45 for those who have bought the cheaper advanced tickets online, just £8.50 with no booking fee. We have kept our prices the same as in 2019, and, as always, accompanied children are admitted FREE. Here is another layout with a snowy setting to get you in the mood for a Christmas treat, The Great White River Navigation Extraction and Steam Packet Company an On30 layout set on the Pacific NW coast of America.

Less than a month now until THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2022! Here's a peak at a very appropriate layout that will be on show - all the way from Exeter. Further details at www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition

A couple more of the layouts attending THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2022! Ryburn in P4, a Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway model set just before WW1. Originally it was one of two layouts making their debut with us, but they accepted a late booking from Wakefield, so this is only its second outing. Bron Hebog is the magnificent OO9 layout of the present day Welsh Highland Railway and is coming all the way from Ayrshire to be with us. December 10th & 11th in our new, spacious venue: The Sugden Centre, M1 7HB

Advance bookings for THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2022! opened last week and already there has been a steady stream of orders through our online booking agent . Visit www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition for full details of the exhibition and how to get tickets. Why book in advance? Because you can enter from 09:45 each day, with minimal queueing, rather than wait in a queue until 10:30 for the ticket desk to open and begin selling walk-up tickets. What does it cost? £8.50 for an adult, with children FREE. That's the same price that we charged in 2019! What is there to see? 25 excellent layouts in a wide range of scales, gauges and periods. Like this one for instance: South Pelaw, 11.6m of EM excellence.

I am pleased to announce that the website for: THE Christmas Model Railway Show - Manchester 2022! went live earlier this evening. Visit www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition for full details of all the 25 layouts, traders and other attractions. The headlines: - Ticket prices kept at 2019 levels - Spacious new venue in central Manchester - Advance tickets on sale from Sept 8th - Dec 8th.

I would be very interested indeed to make contact with anyone who has built/is building a layout of an Indian main line prototype, who is resident in the UK and who feels that their layout would be ready to appear at a major exhibition towards the end of 2023. Phil

With very great regret, the decision has been taken to cancel this year’s exhibition. This decision was not taken lightly and all possible avenues were explored (including postponing the exhibition by four months) to offer a safe environment for our visitors, exhibitors, traders and members, whilst still ensuring that the considerable expense of staging the show was covered. As the only model railway society to stage an exhibition in the centre of a major UK city, we are very dependent on public transport, with over 70% of our visitors arriving by train, tram and bus. At present, public confidence in using these modes of transport is greatly reduced. This fact, combined with the continuing uncertainty about how covid infection rates will change during the autumn, means that the Society cannot guarantee that their visitor income will be enough to cover the large cost of staging the exhibition. However, despite this disappointment, plans are already in place for our next four exhibitions, leading to our centenary exhibition in 2025. The 83rd public exhibition of the Manchester Model Railway Society will now take place over the weekend of December 10th/11th 2022 at our new, spacious venue in central Manchester – the Sugden Centre, M1 7HL. Provisional planning is well under way, and we expect to welcome approximately 30 layouts and a wider range of traders than was possible at our previous venue. As always, the layouts will be in a wide variety of scales and will feature prototypes from several countries and a wide range of time periods. Most of the layouts will have been featured in the modelling press. To receive further information about THE Christmas Model Railway Show – Manchester 2022! please visit the Society's website and subscribe to join the approx 2000 people already on our mailing list.

I really feel that the point Paul C makes is crucial: "large events will be viable again going into next year, especially with the experience of other large indoor events that will still run this autumn and winter to draw on." I will be particularly interested in the statistics for theatre attendances, since I think that these share many of the problems facing exhibition organisers. Theatres can't offer staggered timed entrance tickets - the performance starts at a stated time, yet they have to manage the flow of visitors into one confined space where they are packed less than 1 metre apart (granted, they're all facing in the same direction); at the interval they have to manage the flow of some, but not all, of the audience as they extricate themselves from their seat in the auditorium to visit the toilets and the bar (not necessarily in that order; finally they have to organise the quick exit of all the audience at the end of the performance so that the theatre can be prepared for the next perfomrnce. Now that full capacity audiences are allowed in theatres, it will be very interesting to see what the public's perception of the safety of a theatre trip is. If the West End theatres only attract small audiences, the promoters will loose money and the shows will close. If they attract good audiences, the shows will run for longer. Either way this will provide valuable information about the public's perception of the safety of attending large indoor events. Most of the posts on this and similar threads have, understandably, given anecdotal stories and personal opinions. What I need is evidence. I know (from the detailed market research I do each year) that just over 70% of the visitors to my exhibition travel by public transport, I also know (from Government statistics) that, at present, passenger numbers on both trains and buses are about 55% of their Feb 2020 levels. What I don't know is how the public's behaviour will change over the next few months, but it is this information which is crucial to deciding on the financial viability of staging an exhibition. The upfront expenses of staging a show are large, the return on investment is modest, even in a good year.

When the Claughtons were rebuilt as Patriots, the names Private W. Woods V.C. and Private E. Sykes V.C. were retained, but L/Cpl J.A. Christie V.C. was not, on the grounds that he was no longer an employee of the LMS, whereas the others were. The photo (from the Bob Essery collection) shows Driver Woods at the controls of Patriot class 5536 bearing his name.

Thank you. That's new information to me and very useful.

I'm sure that you are right about the link to reserved occupation status, which had occurred to me as well. I started the thread because I was concerned that I might have missed a named loco, but this now seems unlikely. I have found out that : "From 1948 until the mid-1950s, the responsibility for recommending names for locomotives on British Railways rested with a Locomotive Naming Committee of three senior railway officers, E. S. Cox, George Dow with Derek Barrie as chairman. The Committee set itself several rules and over the years developed many practices. . . . . . . Another rule was not to use names of people who were still alive at the time, and some on the Committee had a strong dislike of names or associations with the military (largely because they were fed-up with the recently ended war). " (Wikipedia, BR Standard Class 7) I have not yet had chance to trawl the archives at Kew for the minutes of the BR Locomotive Naming Committee to check whether this information is correct.

After the First World War, the LNWR honoured three of its employees who had volunteered for the army and who had all won Victoria Crosses, by naming three Claughton class locos after them: 1097 Private W. Woods V.C., 1407 L/Cpl J.A. Christie V.C., and 2035 Private E Sykes V.C. The LNWR and some other companies also dedicated one loco in honour of all of its employees who had been killed in action. As part of the research for an article I am writing, I am trying to find whether anything similar occurred after the end of WWII. At the moment I only have information on Driver Benjamin Gimbert GC and Fireman James Nightall GC who were awarded their medals for their bravery in averting a major explosion whilst driving an ammunition train which caught fire near Soham station in Cambridgeshire. Both these railwaymen had locos named in their honour, but not until 1981 when two class 47s were dedicated; currently their names are carried by two class 67s. More recently GWR has started to name some of its intercity trains in memory of WWII heroes, but as far as I can tell none of them are railwaymen. I am aware of the dedication on Stanier 8F 48733 (preserved on the Severn Valley Railway) as a memorial to all the members of the Corps of Royal Engineers (Transportation) who lost their lives in service, but this dedication was not made until 1986. Those Bullied Battle of Britain class locos which were named after individuals, were all named after high ranking officers. It may be that because nationalisation occurred so soon after the end of the war, no dedications of steam locomotives to railway employees were made, or equally it may be that I've missed something obvious. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

I think that Phatbob and MartinWales need to check their facts with a reliable source before posting - perhaps they got us mixed up with the Manchester Museum of Transport exhibition which would have been held in mid May and was cancelled. The decision on the format (if any) of the Manchester MRS show this year will be taken in a scheduled committee meeting on July 16. Of course it is true that the prospects for staging our exhibition are bleak, bur remember that this is Manchester - we do things differently here. If anyone wishes to be kept informed about our exhibitions, simply sign up to our mailing list. You can do this by going to the MMRS website, or emailing exhibition@mmrs.co.uk ,or dropping me a PM, or even just replying to this thread. Anything to show that we are complying with GDPR. Philip1812 aka Exhibition Coordinator, Manchester Model Railway Society.