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I've counted the cones.

 

There's 99 of them......................

 

 

 

More hat and coat getting and gone.........................

 

Cheers,

Mick

Actually, I think you're getting that mixed up with red balloons......
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Dare I ask about motorcycle parking?

I've already got my train ticket, but the prospect of either long walks or lengthy waits for the bus leaves me undecided about the best means of getting there.

Finding a spot to hide a bike should be fairly easy I think.

 

The mud is very slippery though

 

Katy

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There might've been Voyagers at Hinksey Yard. I didn't see any while I was watching but IIRC their blurb mentioned them and they would be appropriate for the location I think.

Yes we're running a Voyager set amongst other c.2010 stock.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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Having seen assaults (yes, plural- one being at a school where a parent who was there to pick up little Tarquin and Ursula from Saturday morning Pilates and not wanting to abide by the one way system that was in use) take place over parking with people who think being given a yellow vest somehow qualifies them in traffic management, and professionally employed Security/car park marshallers see more of the show and drink more tea than me when I'm exhibiting, I've come to the conclusion that the best solution for parking is to have a venue that requires the minimum of involvement.

 

Or maybe the car parking issue is just a ploy to disguise the fact that no trader there had a 3.72mm splick valve with turbo override for a 7.5mm/foot 0-3-0 Menck diesel monorail from the Trumpton, Chigley & Camberwick Green Joint Railway.

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Or maybe the car parking issue is just a ploy to disguise the fact that no trader there had a 3.72mm splick valve with turbo override for a 7.5mm/foot 0-3-0 Menck diesel monorail from the Trumpton, Chigley & Camberwick Green Joint Railway.

 

Sorted! They had one on the club second hand stall. Not in perfect condition, but it'll look OK once fitted and weathered.

Thanks for the heads up Terry!

 

Cheers,

Mick

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For goodness sake, this is a hobby!

 

Stop yer whinging, if it don't suit yer get off yer @rses and help out instead of criticising.

 

For all of you trying to park on the grass, think how you may get off the grass and spare a thought for those standing in the rain trying to stop you from getting stuck in the first place.

 

Oh, sorry I forgot, these days it has to be someone else's fault.

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Some interesting comments on here ref Stafford show, so I might as well add my winge!!

 

I might as well start in the car park, seems to be a major talking point for many.

Stewards were on hand to point us to an area where there were spaces upon our 10.45 arrival, found a place to park despite my 4x4 not getting stuck in the Mud!

But and there is no excuse, I got wet walking the 200 yards from the car to the entrance. Why was there no steward on hand with an umbrella for me!

Come on, its the Uk in winter, which is only slightly wetter than summer. We know the car parking is on grass mainly so expect to have to make the best of what we got.

What we got is a great show for £9.

Lots of room to move around between layouts and trade, plenty of facilities, in fact with what I presume was extra space from late cancellations ( I could have exhibited my layout!!) there were some nice extra rest / meet spots located through the three halls.

Even the packed meeting point of the food area only required a 5 minute wait for a few seats together t become available for our half time get together. 

 

Traders mixed and varied though I for one was fortunate enough not to find anyone selling an O gauge EWS class 37 or 60, saved a few pounds there so will have to continue with these micro 00 ones for now!!

Very helpful digitrains chap took most of my spend today in dcc sound chips, though I nearly passed out at paying £10 for a speaker! Good mix of trade for most things with plenty of bargains around.

 

Usual good standard of layouts, the first layout we came across as you enter hall 1, a very well modelled SR layout ( guide with names in the car) was one of my favs from the show. Super modelling and enough going on to keep me watching for around 10 minutes. Some nice modelling on some of the 00 modern image layouts and I enjoyed taking more time around the 0 gauge layouts today, with one (failing) eye on future modelling perhaps? Sorry but I never saw the attraction in N gauge when my eyes were in good order, as they are getting weaker I cant see anything of the smaller stuff these days lol

 

I will be honest and say I found quite a few a bit lacking in movement. I'm not talking a train every 10 seconds ( every 40 to 60s is fine for most) but I stood at quite a few today where once taking the odd phone snap for future inspiration was complete, there was little to keep me interested due to lack of trains. In some cases for several minutes or more. Waffling amongst operators seemed common cause or in some cases, an obvious lack of knowledge in how to operate the layout ?? Always baffles me when layout operators are not familiar with a layout at a major show?.

It seemed to me some layouts are not very well designed with the intension of keeping the watching public, with something to watch?

 

As a sound fan for the last 10 years or more I was surprised at the seemingly lack of progress in operating sound at exhibitions. I heard poorly fitted speakers giving distorted sounds as well as the usual inappropriate command of the sound keys (from presumably guest operators) on more than one layout, yes I am talking about the F2 & F3 horn mad operators lol.

Saw a lot of locos coming to a swift halt, but failed to hear breaks at the same time!!

One thing I did notice which was nice, most sound layout owners have now understood volume on every loco does not need to be on max. Perhaps the result of a handy phone sound meter app, or I am going deaf as well as blind!!.

Not sure if the rising temp in the halls was causing problems, but also saw more hand of god than is expected at such a good show and of cause on a sound layout, particularly diesel, this means the multi start up drone time and time again which slightly spoilt crimson road at times today for me.

I don't deny I have suffered this myself at shows, but it has taught me less is more and only one or three locos "on" at any one time works best with sound. Enjoyed the steam sounds on the (I think) Warley club 00 tail chaser as well some of the smaller diesel layouts.

 

Despite the winge, its still no 1 uk show for me and it was an enjoyable 4 plus hours today, in fact its the only one keep the diary clear for.  

 

So thanks to the operators that were doing their best today, thanks to the organisers and yes even thanks to the stewards, despite the lack of umbrellas !!

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Yesterday was our first ever visit to this show and we really enjoyed it.  Yes parking was a little tricky, but hey no more so than the 55 mile journey there and back in heavy rain.  A great variety of layouts, lots of traders, and lots of space to move around despite it being very busy in the morning.

 

What was really nice to see was the number of ladies and young operators of both sexes operating layouts.   Bodes well for the future of the hobby me thinks.

 

Our thanks to team Stafford and all who took part for a really great day out, we will be back!  :good:

Hope you all have as equally a good show today.

 

Ian

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Well, I've managed to avoid being stranded in my house by floods, so I'm about to set off for the show. If the river level continues to rise while I'm there, I may not be able to get home again, though!

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Enjoyed my visit yesterday. Good varied mix of layouts and managed to get most of what was on my shopping list from the traders present. I was there from about 11:30 through to 3pm; could have stayed longer but needed to be elsewhere.

 

We probably arrived at the peak time and found Hall 1 a bit overcrowded, particularly as the first aisle had Freshwater, Grantham and Much Murkle all of which I wanted to take a look at. Not really a problem as I came back to those on my way out. Hadn't seen Vopak before, some impressive modelling, nicely presented. Always nice to see Wansbeck Road and Cheddar.

 

I do think the cow sheds of the showground are looking a bit tired and with regards to parking I wonder if they really have capacity to have two large shows on over the same weekend, when some of the car park becomes unusable? However, I'm aware there isn't another similar sized venue in the area. That said, these are just observations, none of this spoiled my enjoyment of the show.

 

Overall a great show, well worth a visit. Well done to the SRC team for organising.

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Had a thoroughly enjoyable day yesterday, I opted for the bus option so not too much mud to contend with :-)

 

Went with 3 specific things in mind to pick up but didn't find any of them, however, random purchase of the day was a playcraft North British 0-4-0 diesel shunter for bit of a project so I'm happy with that :-)

 

Must add an apology, if any of the layout operators caught me yawning while I was watching their layouts, no offence was intended, or slur against the operating meant!! I'd been up since 2 on Friday afternoon, worked a night shift, n travelled straight from work in Gloucester to Stafford so I was pretty shattered by the time I got there!

 

Great show and looking forward to the next one, definitely going to have more sleep beforehand though :-)

 

As an off topic aside, another highlight of the day, dragged my mate to the station at 20:15 last night to see a 'lectric blue 86 on a railtour, stood on platform 4 as advised that's where it would pass, camera at the ready, only to watch it blast through platform 1, so got about 2 seconds of blurry video as I tried to get a good shot of it from the wrong side of the station :-) the gave up an went to the pub instead :-)

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great show as usual, too tight to get a show guide but my fave layout was the n gauge wcml, london underground, suburban layout

 

ended up coming away with a paul chetter zimo chip for my 37/0 which i hope to fit very soon, mini bass speaker for the fuel tanks for that one

 

got there early so got parked on the tarmac nice and easily, felt sorry for the bloke single handedly arranging the parking though!

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Went yesterday in the rain - knew what to expect in the car park - the only problems were getting out as others were coming in - well done done for opening the second gate.

 

I'm with big jim on favourite layout - Kings Park - not a 2mm modeler but watching 86s with working panto-graphs was excellent. Great progress on Grantham since I saw it at Nottingham.

 

All in all many thanks for an excellent exhibition as usual.

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I hope you remembered (to remind Pete) to take the power supply...........

He did remember it today thank god

Great weekend running Peters Street plenty of familiar faces hopefully Baggies TMD will be invited for next year

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A word of praise for Old Elms Road.

A high percentage of big club layouts tend to be quite patchy because they are built by people with varying degrees of skill and differing interests.  Because they are club layouts a lot of them also try to be all things to all people but end up being not a lot to anyone.

Old Elms Road, on the other hand, was very consistent in quality and hung together very well in every respect.

 

Another word of praise for the Virgin girls at Rugby station.

My connection meant a wait of over three-quarters of an hour and having never got off there before I'd never realised what a miserable, bleak, cold, windswept station it is.  Yet the Virgin girls were pleasant, helpful and conscientious to all, despite the fact that they were having to work in an icy wind tunnel and only one of the five trains that stopped while I was there was a Virgin so most of the people and trains they were dealing were those of a rival company.

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Hi

Plenty of good layouts today. 82G is good although I have seen it before (not a criticism!). The large O gauge layout behind it I liked at well

The show ground does suffer a bit as a venue for many shows. Car parking facilities could probably be improved with the use of that plastic matting which allows the grass to grow through (not sure what it is called), but that is very much the responsibility of the show ground owners and nothing that any show organiser could do (it would greatly help with some other shows which have a substantial number of external stalls). Suspect there might be currently some worry about investing much in the site given how close HS2 is due to go to it (seemingly close enough that some of the extended parking areas towards Stafford and on the other side of the road will be lost / shrink). Phone / card machine reception is a nightmare!

 

All the best

 

Katy

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Old Elms Road, yes I enjoyed that one too. Just about the right amount of 'action', a good mix of SR and WR and moving vehicles. Good stock, much of it looked kit built or modified RTR, smashing.

 

The only minor part that jarred for me in an otherwise believable scenic treatment was the right hand corner - lower track in a tunnel and the branch curving over the top with plate girders part way along??? 

 

That said, i probably spent longer watching this layout than any other at the show. Well done chaps.

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