Warley National Model Railway Exhibition 2018 - 24th and 25th November

[Gilbert]

I was there helping with a layout and driving the associated vehicle and I thought it was worth just highlighting the very competent and friendly service from all the NEC staff both inside  and out of the Hall. Clearly the Warley club members - and many others who I  assume just help with the exhibition - also go out of their way to ensure exhibitors are made welcome, looked after and then thanked as we left..

There have been a few comments about the parking staff - I found them helpful and pleasant throughout the weekend . ...unlike some of the folk they had to deal with...

Edited November 26, 2018 by Gilbert

[Compound2632]

To my mind, one of the most impressive layouts, though very simple, was the bridge over the Meuse - Montherme. I didn't see anything running on that... Even the barge had made no progress upstream over the space of an hour!

 

I can't help feeling the critics of Lime Street are approaching it with a strong preconception of what a model railway should be. Do you expect to see moving trains in a Jack Nelson diorama? If you were told you were going to see a highly detailed scale model depicting part of a major city, you wouldn't be disappointed. From what has been written on here, those free from such preconceptions and at the right age to see it at eye-level weren't complaining! Sit back - or kneel down - and enjoy the modelling!

[Gilbert]

To my mind, one of the most impressive layouts, though very simple, was the bridge over the Meuse - Montherme. I didn't see anything running on that... Even the barge had made no progress upstream over the space of an hour!

 

I can't help feeling the critics of Lime Street are approaching it with a strong preconception of what a model railway should be. Do you expect to see moving trains in a Jack Nelson diorama? If you were told you were going to see a highly detailed scale model depicting part of a major city, you wouldn't be disappointed. From what has been written on here, those free from such preconceptions and at the right age to see it at eye-level weren't complaining! Sit back - or kneel down - and enjoy the modelling!

My point was not about the operation - I simply was too far away with two operators sat in front of me to see what ever happened..

[melmerby]

 

 

I can't help feeling the critics of Lime Street are approaching it with a strong preconception of what a model railway should be. Do you expect to see moving trains in a Jack Nelson diorama? If you were told you were going to see a highly detailed scale model depicting part of a major city, you wouldn't be disappointed. From what has been written on here, those free from such preconceptions and at the right age to see it at eye-level weren't complaining! Sit back - or kneel down - and enjoy the modelling!

Who's Jack Nelson?

 

If not running trains very often means that many don't see any action, why run any at all?

Just say it's set on Christmas Day and no trains are running!

 

I assume the raison d'être of Lime Street is a faithful recreation of a Main Line Station and it's timetable, which no doubt the operators enjoy doing.

However for enjoyment purposes of the general punter couldn't a "special" timetable for shows operate with more frequency? It doesn't even need to be a whole day it could just be a fixed period and repeated several times.

 

BTW If it is a faithful recreation why did I see on all three visits a rake of Gresley teaks? Were they that frequent visitors in the 50s?

 

Keith

Edited November 26, 2018 by melmerby

[43179]

This one?

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/112891-lymebrook-yard/

Photos make it look bigger than it really is.

Thanks for that!

Jon

[Ron Ron Ron]

A useful addition to Lime St., would be new crowd barriers suitably designed for correct height / optimum viewing.

 

 

 

It'd make an interesting sight, watching the faithful kneeling in reverence before this amazing model edifice.

 

 

 

.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Ron Ron Ron

[Leander]

Who's Jack Nelson?

 

If not running trains very often means that many don't see any action, why run any at all?

Just say it's set on Christmas Day and no trains are running!

 

I assume the raison d'être of Lime Street is a faithful recreation of a Main Line Station and it's timetable, which no doubt the operators enjoy doing.

However for enjoyment purposes of the general punter couldn't a "special" timetable for shows operate with more frequency? It doesn't even need to be a whole day it could just be a fixed period and repeated several times.

 

BTW If it is a faithful recreation why did I see on all three visits a rake of Gresley teaks? Were they that frequent visitors in the 50s?

 

Keith

Who's Jack Nelson?

 

If not running trains very often means that many don't see any action, why run any at all?

Just say it's set on Christmas Day and no trains are running!

 

I assume the raison d'être of Lime Street is a faithful recreation of a Main Line Station and it's timetable, which no doubt the operators enjoy doing.

However for enjoyment purposes of the general punter couldn't a "special" timetable for shows operate with more frequency? It doesn't even need to be a whole day it could just be a fixed period and repeated several times.

 

BTW If it is a faithful recreation why did I see on all three visits a rake of Gresley teaks? Were they that frequent visitors in the 50s?

 

Keith

Jack Nelson was a modeller of dioramas featuring most effective and realistic perspective modelling. Railway Modeller published several articles by him and his work is featured in a Peco Publications title 'LNWR Portrayed', published over 40 years and long out of print, it may be possible to acquire a second hand copy. Several of his models went to the railway museum at Bettwys-y-Coed and may well still be displayed there.

[Les1952]

Back home last night just before the end of Strictly and too knackered to unload Hawthorn Dene or even look at a computer.

 

 

Something everyone on this thread so far has failed to spot- one of the N Gauge Society's livery prototype Hunslet shunters running round and round the colliery for almost all of the two days.  The only breaks it got were when it stalled under the conveyor belt and wasn't spotted.  Actually it is a dummy, hence the matchbox.  There was a second one sitting outside the shed attracting the attention of a fitter who didn't know where to place his lump hammer first..

 

On moving trains.  We had something running all the time from beginning to end- and the last train ran just as the announcement was made that the show was closed!  We aim for there to never be nothing in sight for more than 20 seconds. 

 

Despite running right up to the bitter end we were loaded up and on our way home by 45 minutes after the show closed (which is only 15 minutes more than our usual standard). 

 

The layout performed extremely well.  Only one loco came home upside down in the stock box, and the longest time between derailments or stutters was a little over two hours, which is excellent by the standards of any layout.  We did get more ragged as we got tired, however, and mistakes happened a little more often when talking to punters.  However that didn't stop us talking and if I said "Welcome to County Durham" once over the weekend I probably said it 500 times.  It got a reply about one in three times.

 

Very many thanks to Paul and the Warley team for inviting us.  Back again next year, but this time only wearing my judge's hat I hope.

 

Les

 

[Crantock]

Well I visited on Sunday.  

 

It was a good exhibition but there were no stunning knockout new exhibits for me.  Indeed I notice the first X pages on here are all about trade and to some extent I felt the balance had shifted too far to trade.  Perhaps enhanced by my first going to D area.  The count of exhibits was perhaps increased by the MOMIG contingent but I did feel one of the 3 or so test tracks could have been replaced by a quality O gauge roundy roundy.

 

As someone who is OO the shock is that to me the top layouts were Wickwar, Berger Hall and  Halte Tombroekstraat (yes its bold as i have cut and pasted) Yes two of those are MOMIG. It was the lighting that made the difference.

 

Lime St was top of the 4mm.  The sight of something big like a Royal Scot looking small is achieved so much more in the caverns of New St than on a Shap model.  

 

Trade was mixed.  Lots of box shifters but the junk pushers had clearly been steered to up their act.  Some key traders missing which the organisers need to watch.  

[Compound2632]

A useful addition to Lime St., would be new crowd barriers suitably designed for correct height / optimum viewing.

 

 

 

It'd make an interesting sight, watching the faithful kneeling in reverence before this amazing model edifice.

 

 

 

.

 

You jest - I've been known to kneel at the barriers to get an eyelevel view of a layout - at Scaleforum, not Warley, though!

[Clive Mortimore]

So Clive are you suggesting a movement threshold over which a 'scale model thing' qualifies as a model railway.

Personally I thanks that's a stupid idea but I'd be interested as to how the scheme would work.

Richard

 

No I am not if you read what I wrote I did not state what you are suggesting I was expressing an opinion. A layout with little movement soon becomes a diorama.

[Gilbert]

Jack Nelson was a modeller of dioramas featuring most effective and realistic perspective modelling. Railway Modeller published several articles by him and his work is featured in a Peco Publications title 'LNWR Portrayed', published over 40 years and long out of print, it may be possible to acquire a second hand copy. Several of his models went to the railway museum at Bettwys-y-Coed and may well still be displayed there.

and he was one of the first exponents of the vertical dimension of model railways - his dioramas were museum quality

[Steamport Southport]

 

 

BTW If it is a faithful recreation why did I see on all three visits a rake of Gresley teaks? Were they that frequent visitors in the 50s?

 

Keith

 

Isn't it set in the late 1940s?

 

The only thing wrong is there probably isn't enough LNER carriages. They are also missing the GWR and SR trains. 

 

 

 

Jason

[Clive Mortimore]

A couple of pics from a layout in the naughty corner, Dave Tailby's Friday Bridge.

 

Thanks Dave for inviting me to operate it.

 

 

[Willie Whizz]

and he was one of the first exponents of the vertical dimension of model railways - his dioramas were museum quality

 

I never saw one "in the flesh", but from the colour photos published all those years ago there seemed, for the day especially, an exceptional level of detail and a real eye for the artistic placement of structures around the railway, and a wonderful sense of vibrant colours seen as muted by distance  ... but you were never in any real doubt that they were dioramas, not full working layouts.

[Southernman46]

A model railway show is rather like a multiplex theatre/cinema but with crafting as the play’s cast not actors and putting on everything at once.

If nothing's moving then I simply either take in the scenery for a bit and /or move on to the next layout and if I am sufficiently interested then I will go back to it later ......................................

[Andymsa]

One layout that's not been mentioned is the whimsical small layout, I think it was called scratchybottem. Although not my thing, I loved this little layout.

[RichardS]

Richard

 

No I am not if you read what I wrote I did not state what you are suggesting I was expressing an opinion. A layout with little movement soon becomes a diorama.

 

Hi Clive, I'm afraid I still don't understand. In the first post you say: 

 

Therefore layouts w(h)ere there is little movement can become very well modelled dioramas not model railways.

 

And you re-aver this in the later post.

 

Categorisation infers that if there is extreme movement it is a model railway and if there is no movement then it is a diorama, but you are talking about 'little movement' inferring there is some but that this soon moves into the diorama spectrum - when? how? why? There must be a threshold where the exhibit is one or the other in your opinion - or in fact.

 

But this doesn't matter because irrespective of anybody's opinion the layouts on show belong to their owners and/or the operators/demonstrators and shown in the way they want them to be. Customer's either like it or lump it. To expect the owners/operators of specific layouts to change things to meet the whims of the observers - the views of which are as disparate as 'leave and remain' - is unrealistic and unfair. The layouts have been invited by the organisers because of the way they are not because of the way customers would like them to be/think they ought to be. If the customers don't like them and tell the organisers then the latter have a decision to make about next time. 

 

An opinion expressed is not just an opinion - it is lobbying for things to become as we would like or to change hearts and minds; why else express it? What other value does it serve?  (Rhetorical questions)

[Dave Goddard]

I was lightly walloped by a multi-colour, padded tail attached to someone from Comicon. Definitely a first!

 

I was sharing the train with a trio of girls on their way to Comic-Con, I almost took a diversion before heading to Hall 5 to go and see what their show was all about as some of the costumes I saw looked absolutely fantastic. 

 

Combine that with all the bike nuts in branded shirts and race gear going to Motorcycle Live and the horde of Aston Villa supporters also on my morning train, and it certainly was an interesting day with a great mixture of humanity.

[MikeB]

And a few more:-

 

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58BE49C3-1615-4194-B45A-90B16F996F09.jpeg

 

BDBF8DED-E8C0-4F30-84F1-11A314B1D5ED.jpeg

 

88157172-55CE-4C6F-BB91-D29F7298B4E0.jpeg

 

8D2425F1-3D8C-495F-B8B4-AB71382A9A78.jpeg

 

F7181249-6A29-4F5F-9222-DC3EF0DBCE5A.jpeg

 

61C11774-3EDC-474C-BAD9-1A09E70B2187.jpeg

 

0D086487-8663-41F5-8EF9-DDA7AF943C8D.jpeg

 

4D288F6B-71ED-4184-890C-323CA2FAF5FC.jpeg

 

17A9A0AA-FF50-414A-85B6-7E1A1370DC09.jpeg

 

All taken on the Sunday - nice day trip from Worthing.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

Thanks for all the photos.  The German scrapyard layout at the end of the pictures was one of the standout layouts for me - unusual, incredible detail and the most convincing display of decay I've seen modelled.

 

Mike B

[RJS1977]

I never saw one "in the flesh", but from the colour photos published all those years ago there seemed, for the day especially, an exceptional level of detail and a real eye for the artistic placement of structures around the railway, and a wonderful sense of vibrant colours seen as muted by distance  ... but you were never in any real doubt that they were dioramas, not full working layouts.

 

And in many cases would have been impossible to operate as the track gauge wasn't constant, to achieve the perspective effect.

 

One diorama even included a goods train where each wagon was to a different scale!

[Phil Bullock]

Thanks for all the photos.  The German scrapyard layout at the end of the pictures was one of the standout layouts for me - unusual, incredible detail and the most convincing display of decay I've seen modelled.

 

Mike B

 

You were not alone in that conclusion Mike - bumped in to Rob Mabbutt on one of my very brief excursions from the weekend job - he insisted I came and looked at it with him as so special - I had to agree

 

Phil

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi Clive, I'm afraid I still don't understand. In the first post you say: 

 

Therefore layouts w(h)ere there is little movement can become very well modelled dioramas not model railways.

 

And you re-aver this in the later post.

 

Categorisation infers that if there is extreme movement it is a model railway and if there is no movement then it is a diorama, but you are talking about 'little movement' inferring there is some but that this soon moves into the diorama spectrum - when? how? why? There must be a threshold where the exhibit is one or the other in your opinion - or in fact.

 

But this doesn't matter because irrespective of anybody's opinion the layouts on show belong to their owners and/or the operators/demonstrators and shown in the way they want them to be. Customer's either like it or lump it. To expect the owners/operators of specific layouts to change things to meet the whims of the observers - the views of which are as disparate as 'leave and remain' - is unrealistic and unfair. The layouts have been invited by the organisers because of the way they are not because of the way customers would like them to be/think they ought to be. If the customers don't like them and tell the organisers then the latter have a decision to make about next time. 

 

An opinion expressed is not just an opinion - it is lobbying for things to become as we would like or to change hearts and minds; why else express it? What other value does it serve?  (Rhetorical questions)

There is no need to categorise anything, I am not trying to change peoples minds, I was expressing how I feel.

 

If you don't want my opinions then don't read my post.

 

Off to take out the motors in the locos I built as they don't need to move.

[melmerby]

To my mind, one of the most impressive layouts, though very simple, was the bridge over the Meuse - Montherme. I didn't see anything running on that... Even the barge had made no progress upstream over the space of an hour!

 

 

I saw a major pile up.

One train stalled on the bridge (nobody with the layout seemed to notice) then a bit later a following train piled into the back of it. After a short delay the second train promptly pushed everything into the tunnel!

 

 

Keith

Edited November 26, 2018 by melmerby

[Ron Ron Ron]

I always take a peek at the various electrical and electronic goods stands at this show.

 

I rather liked the look of the Smart Screen, from Train-Tech, who regularly exhibit at Warley.

These can be fitted within a station, or in a train and can be programmed as you wish.

The scrolling destination display looks the part and I can well imagine a good few contemporary era layouts (D&E) employing them.

 

I didn't think much of the optional Smart Screen housings though.

Far too crude looking.

Most people could fabricate a better solution.

 

http://www.train-tech.com/index.php/smart-screen