Long Line

End of a long and hard day sees the show laid out. The stewards pulled the stops out once again to see us ready earlier than ever for exhibits. Which have come in from far and wide unhindered so far and we hope this continues. Conditions in Poynton are clear dry and cold but the roads are all open and gritted. A couple of alterations to make and report on sat but otherwise we'll be full and opening at ten am as predicted. Cheers to all who arrived and those yet to come. Mark

Set up day is upon us once again. We've been out early this morning and put up the local YELLOW traffic signs, to guide you from the centre of the village to the show. Roads are clear as is the sky and its fresh and bright day here in Poynton. A safe journey to everyone over the next three days and lets see if we can make this our best show yet. Cheers Mark

It is a lot of work Andy...your right! Personally i think we do it because we enjoy it! and more over are capable of doing so, and so for as long as we can should: for the betterment of the hobby and society as a whole. How else will our hobby survive? As to why TMS exists alongside some wider considerations, may be found on our website via the below link: http://www.themodelshow.co.uk/?page_id=136 My only wish would be that society and more specifically the state, assisted us better in promoting the genre. Not necessarily by giving us money: better by charging us less for venues we've already paid to build through taxation; or by permitting considered advertising in public spaces. If you walk around our village for example you will commonly find the public notice boards we've paid to have erected filled with the councils over officious toilet paper, not adverts for forthcoming events and you wont have enough fingers to count how many shows loose their traffic signage this year! So we do our best...its never good enough...just what we can manage to do! Some of the TMS team are off down the village in the cold tonight to give the local audience message one last push at the Christmas Festival. cheers Mark

As we start this; the build up week to our show, we have a very busy few days infront of us! We remind our exhibitors and traders that all attendance information is accessed via our website in the usual manner. To our many visitors: travel advice and locations maps are on our website. As ever our websites updates section is the place to see any last minute news and instructions. We wish you all a safe journey and an enjoyable show. The freinds of the models show. ps- There's a bit of fun to be found this morning via our facebook page from last year, unfortunately the film crops off the bottom 1/6th of the room, but is none the less amusing...

Apologies ..my mistake that...must get ears cleaned out lol...still scratch built wagons! Impressive stuff!!

We are staging a modelling demo and publicity stand at Manchester this weekend, so if your visiting say hello and pick up our free programme in advance of next weekends activities. well also be giving away simple glider kits for the littlest modelers. cheers Mark

Our 2017 show guide is now available to read or download in advance of your visit. Simply go to the 2017 show page of our website: themodelshow.co.uk alternately you can collect one on your way into the show. cheers Mark

Just made a few alterations and some additions to the line up in our opening post..as late entries confirm. Even at this late stage we still are waiting on details or commitments from some others (not listed yet) and ill put these up once they've done so All coming together now...not quite time to panic yet LOL cheers Mark

Nationwide handbill-two sided A6 Apologies, as layout numbers printed on the flyers are wrong but these are printed over a year in advance...so i lost count booking layouts lol!

2017 local area poster...

The Model Show 9th & 10th December 2017 Layouts: Eaton Park Railway - GN15 Bodger Creek & Northern - ON30 Bristol Goods Shed - GWR Broadgauge - 7mm scale Oldham King St Parcels – BR Blue diesel – O Gauge Psydlll-Criag-Ddu – Taff Vale- O Gauge St Cross – GWR – O Gauge Shed St – O Gauge Easingwold West – EM Gauge Kingsfield – BR 1950’s – OO Gauge Thomas – OO Bonnington Goods – OO CSX Rensville – USA – Ho Bodmin – GWR 1930’s – N Gauge Callaton – 2FS Framsden – 2FS Gomersall Town – 2FS RNAS Glencruitten – 2FS Tinytown - Z NB. St Cross and RNAS Glencruitten are on 1st outings. Bodger creek and Kingsfield are on 1st visits to the NW. TMS will be Bodmin’s last show! Demonstrators, clubs and Societies: Scalefour Society Association of Larger Scale Railway Modellers N Gauge Society-SK Area Group OO9 Society (TBC?) Brian Davies – 4mm wagon loads Graham Beckwith – 7mm figure painting Jim Barry – 3mm/TT Locomotive construction Michael Osborne –scratch built broadgauge 7mm wagons Andy Clayton – Locos and stock for Glasgow Queen St in EM 2mm Scale Association Architectural Models – Ken Ball Plastic kit building – Roger Davies Rupert Brown - Designing models across the scales National Association of Road Transport Modellers Airfix Special Interest Group - IPMS Merseyside Group – IPMS High Peak Flying Club Mailed Fist War-gaming Group MDK Gamers - Wargaming design and play TMS – Stewards Zone Large scale model boats (sailing or wet stand) these operate in the pool twice daily. Richard Dalimore - Figure painting and 148th scale road vehicles ( Sunday only) Agnoria Models - Bismark project in 100th scale Andy Massey - Mahmod steam engines Stephen Fletcher - 1/76th scale model fairground Derek Osgood - Large scale RC trucks John Mallinson - Gunpla models NB. This year the 2mm Association stand is a mini expo with many demonstrators, main stand and 4 working layouts. The 2017 TMS is a last attendance for Ken Ball, who retires from demonstrating soon. Richard Dalimore, Rupert Brown and Michael Osborne are all new to TMS this year. Traders: ABC Model Railways SMTF Todmorden Model Supplies GFB Designs Axminster Tools Bespoke Signs Stephenson carriages and Millholme Models Grosmont Bookshop Culceth Model Railways Easi-products David Lanchester- Military history books Friends of The Model Show – 2nd hand sales stand Poynton Marie Curie fundraising group - Sweets and Popcorn sales stall Location: Poynton Leisure Centre Yew Tree Lane Poynton Cheshire SK12 1PU Sat- 10am-5pm Sun-10am-4.30pm Adults £6.00 Uniform ID UK forces and Service personnel £5.00 £3.50 after 3.30pm sat only U/16’s free (max 2 per adult) Full disables access, hot and cold refreshments, home baked cake stall, ample free parking. See website for updates, travel and full details at: themodelshow.co.uk

Latest video from Keith Ware of LL at NEC Warley this year... Mark

Warley Nec 2014 LL's 1st outing over 100ft and with the bends added for stability and closer realism to the prototype. Pic by Keith Ware looking from the Down end, towards Heathfield/Exeter The layout runs the length of the barrier in view. cheers Mark

An interesting question...and a mixed array of counter comments.. i think that you have to remove the other variables and just concentrate on size if your debating what constitutes a large layout i.e. how big is it? taking my own Long Line as an example of the confusions of mixing factors.. its 107ft long, is transported by 1 Land Rover, needs 7 full time operators to run properly, yet can be maintained and test ran in a 7ft x 1 ft space by myself, it encompasses nearly 3 miles of railway without any compression in signalling etc, yet has restricted train lengths to suit the cassettes. operator numbers, exhibition or home, popularity, cost effective transport, scale prototype or fiction etc are all wholly different issues to size. cheers Mark

1st outing of THE LONG LINE over 100ft long After a 2 year forced absence from the exhibition circuit whilst major surgery was undertaken.. we will be exhibiting the now much larger and bendy!..model for the first time on 23rd and 24th November 2014 at the Warley Model railway exhibition at the NEC Birmingham. Our stand Number is E24 Cheers Mark.

Links to videos about or featuring The Long Line, in varying states of development The first four videos were all done at LL's first outing at steam in 2009, this was at a very early stage of the construction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZnxA7d7R4c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8WKR8rbw_8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_JZCrVVdG8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC8wwa-9AuE This lad approached us asking if we could give his new train a test, I don't think he envisaged one as long as this though? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYW2YMCn2k Taken at Wigan in 2010, LL features at 4mins 4 sec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXG06rosK98&feature=player_embedded Taken at Ally Pally in 2012, LL features at 6mins 33sec BRM's Ally Pally movie, LL features at 12mins 46sec Many thanks go to those who have posted LL films on you-tube.

Dart Viaduct, or baseboard (O1) as its known as on LL. To the left is the UP direction to Castle Hill Station and eventually Heathfield junction and beyond through the Teign Valley to Exeter. This bridge is the first of three which dominate this end of the project. The pic' below shows the mixed auto Goods, which is representative of a service which occasionally worked between Tiverton and Tiverton junction (on another railway) and is my personal favorite. Posed for a photo running wrong line around a failed fitted goods. The second shows Keith Ware's 1986-94 stock crossing the same spot, taken at Steam Museum Swindon in 2011, below the viaduct can be seen another occasional visitor to The Long Line...'the who house'.

As much as I had built to an exhibit-able standard back in 2010 and when the layout was still a straight line.. The operators viewpoint of the 75ft at Steam Museum of the Great Western Railway Swindon. Keith Ware in foreground and Robin fox what we thought then was a long way off, have control here. The thin straight nature of the model at this stage suited this location behind Caerphilly Castle, but concerns were appearing from all involved about the risk of being knocked over, like a row of dominoes. Cheers Mark

Just found your 'any question answered' thread which brought a wry smile to myself... many years back a certain resin cast trader had upon his stand a sign denoting 'ask any question' to which a non modelling friend of mine approached and said quite sincerely... how do submarines work, you fill em up with water and they sink so how do they come back up?.... the traders look was priceless.. acceptably not a 2 mill' issue I know mark