Warley NEC exhibition 23rd & 24th November 2019

[Crewlisle]

On 25/11/2019 at 07:34, Tony Teague said:

 

I agree - for me, too much N, HO and O and not enough OO, which after all is the most popular gauge, and no single 'iconic' OO layout.

I went both days - Saturday just far too busy for my liking, but Sunday very pleasant and despite my reservation, still a worthwhile and enjoyable show to visit - well done to all involved.

 

Tony,

 

Only just finished reading comments on the show due to problems with my laptop.

 

Once more I visited Warley on the Sunday after a 4 hour coach trip from Plymouth.  I enjoyed all the layouts & managed to buy/order the few things I wanted.  I have attended every show since it started both as a visitor & exhibitor & cannot fault the organisers for putting on a wonderful show every year.

Many of the comments here state that they missed some layouts/traders because there are so many.  There is a simple solution to this, buy a guide in advance & on the floor plan high light the layouts/traders you 'must' see then when you have seen those, just wander round & view the rest.  My interest is BR themed layouts in N, OO or O gauge but I at least look at Continental/American layouts if I have time.

As for the comment of  'There not being enough OO gauge layouts'.  There will be at least one next year as I will be there with my DCC OO gauge layout 'Crewlisle' for the sixth & final time as the baseboards seem to get heavier each exhibition I attend!  I endeavour to run a minimum of two & sometimes as many as four trains simultaneously & also allow children (with the operator's finger on the 'stop' button!) to control a train/loco & operate the turntable.

 

I wouldn't call it an 'iconic' layout but it entertains & for those of you who have not seen 'Crewlisle', just look on Google.  As the name suggests It is based on the WCML (although there are a few 'strangers'), 2.6M x 2.3M with three interconnected levels.  The time scale is from typical BR LMR WCML steam locos in the mid fifties to finishing with the APT in the early 1980s.  There have also been articles in Model Rail & Hornby Magazine about the layout itself & the catenary.

 

Peter

[melmerby]

So someone complained that  there was "too much N, HO and O and not enough OO"

No doubt an N gauge modeller will say "not enough N gauge"

An O gauge modeller will say "not enough O" and so on.

 

IMHO Leave it as it is. I enjoy seeing all these wondorous layouts in a myriad of scales & gauges.

 

As to Peter's comment above about pre-planning:

I do it every year and go for two days but still find I miss some things I wanted to see because I run out of time!

Saturday is for shopping and If completed quickly (often not!) some time for layout viewing.

Sunday mainly viewing and also maybe a little browsing of trade stands for any desirable finds.

This year's "browsing" netted a GWR Metro Tank kit at a good price which was from a trader which wasn't on my list and I just happen to stop at as I passed.!

 

2 days enough? Nah, I would go on a third if there was one.

 

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by melmerby

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, Crewlisle said:

for those of you who have not seen 'Crewlisle',

Is there anyone who hasn't seen it, after so long on the circuit...??!!  

 

(not a criticism - BR Blue Sparkies were my trainspotting bread'n'butter, back in the day )

[298]

On 10/12/2019 at 19:19, Crewlisle said:

As for the comment of  'There not being enough OO gauge layouts'.  There will be at least one next year as I will be there with my DCC OO gauge layout 'Crewlisle' for the sixth & final time as the baseboards seem to get heavier each exhibition I attend!

 

Helium bags under the boards will fix that...

 

On 10/12/2019 at 20:41, F-UnitMad said:

Is there anyone who hasn't seen it, after so long on the circuit...??!!  

 

(not a criticism - BR Blue Sparkies were my trainspotting bread'n'butter, back in the day )

 

Which one of Warley's unofficial "Something for everyone" categories does Crewlisle fit into...?

 

OO/Modern Image/Vintage exhibition layouts...?

[TEAMYAKIMA]

BEIJIAO - CHINESE RAILWAYS IN 2004 - an update after feedback in this thread after the 2019 Warley show.

 

Firstly, apologies for posting about my layout on this thread about the 2019 Warley show. My justification for hi-jacking this thread is that Warley 2019 was my layout's most recent public exhibition and I took the unusual step of seeking via RMweb critiques/comments from those visitors who didn't think much of the layout, those who maybe gave it 10 seconds and moved off. Now, you're probably wondering why I would pro-actively ask comments on why people didn't rate my layout highly?

 

Well, I am aware that mine is a very niche layout (China in 2004) and if I am going to attract more exhibition invites I need to make the layout as 'viewer friendly' as I can. I cannot rely just on enthusiasts of Chinese railways to get me invites, I need to reach out and attract a wider audience.

 

Several RMwebbers did take the trouble to PM me and thank you all for that. I worked pretty much EVERY day (including Xmas day and on one occasion for 15 hours starting at 5.30am) from getting home after Warley up to March 16th (lockdown) in order to make the layout more viewer friendly for it's next show - Aly Paly March 21/22 - and we all know what happened to that!

 

I had made so many changes/improvements to the layout that Aly Paly was basically going to be a re-launch - a sort of BEIJIAO mk2.

 

TBH I am not in the first flush of youth (neither are some of my team) and so the layout will have a relatively short life of the exhibition circuit and I was hoping for more exhibition invites following Aly Paly and its next show (Railex, Aylesbury) to take us in 2022/23/24.

 

So, finally to get to the point of this posting - AT LAST! - I have now carried out a huge amount of work to make my layout more viewer friendly, without, I hope, losing its authenticity and historic accuracy, but I have lost 18 months worth of invites and some of those shows seem to have closed down - at least for the short/medium term. Morever, my hoped for 'buzz' at AP with the re-launch of the layout and the resultant exhibition enquiries never happened and so I am blatantly seeking exhibition invites for 2022/2023/2024 and would welcome PM's from EM's who might be interested in having us.

 

Here is a video taken just before closing time on the Sunday at Warley. Please remember that this was taken before all the upgrades I've spoken of and it does not in any way show the layout at its best as it is now - in particular, as it takes about 2 hours to pack away all the stock, I regret that we had packed away many of the longest most impressive trains when this video was shot and so you see the same trains far too often for my liking. Anyway it will give you a flavour of what the layout was like 18 months ago.

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to tread this.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by TEAMYAKIMA

[Not Jeremy]

On 12/12/2019 at 08:43, 298 said:

 

Which one of Warley's unofficial "Something for everyone" categories does Crewlisle fit into...?

 

OO/Modern Image/Vintage exhibition layouts...?

 

I know this is an old pre Covid thread, but since it has been brought back in to the limelight, I  think Crewlisle fits under the "category" of being:

 

Entertaining, clever, imaginative, satisfyingly complicated, approachable modelling,  based on great prototype inspiration, compact, quite large, OO scale, satisfying simple, full of action, colourful, showmanship, "CJ Freezer-ish".

 

In short an absolute belter of a layout, even if it has been around a while - a bit like the Titfield Thunderbolt!!

 

I look forward to seeing it again - hopefully.

 

Best Wishes to all layout builders small, large, complicated, simple, Chinese - all of them!

 

Simon

[Colin_McLeod]

9 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

BEIJIAO - CHINESE RAILWAYS IN 2004

 

IMHO this is an excellent layout of an unusual prototype.

 

Have you any pictures of the improved layout? If the improvements are designed to make the layout even more attractive, then please put them up here and let us and exhibition managers see them.

[pirouets]

Sorry, not an exhibition manager but I have always stopped to watch Beijiao when I have seen it because as Colin said, its an interesting prototype and 2004 still had steam hauling coal trains. I wonder if your challenge is because its not a UK layout so you have to up your game a bit to sell it to exhibition managers.

 

So to any exhibition managers out there, if you have space, think this is a good layout to have as its not from the usual 4 of  UK, French, German or US layouts which tend to make up the most common.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

3 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Have you any pictures of the improved layout? If the improvements are designed to make the layout even more attractive, then please put them up here and let us and exhibition managers see them.

 

I now have seven special 'features' - or gimmicks if you prefer!

 

If I say so myself they are subtle - perhaps too subtle! Unless we point them out, nobody sees them. If we do point them out, families in particular love them.

 

There is a new lorry park at the front of the layout, it was previously just scrubland  - the feedback after Warley was that all the detail and cameos were at the back of the layout and the front was quite bare. I accepted the comment and have developed this lorry park of which this is an early photo when it was being planned.

 

 

Remember that the backstory of the layout is that my friends and I visited China to photograph the last of world steam.

 

So one of the buildings at the lorry park is a converted 20ft container, but nobody realises that there is a western photographer sitting behind it leaning against the wall of the container reading the latest copy of Railway Magazine and keeping out of sight in case a policeman wants to know what he's doing there. Here is a later photo- again with the scene under development.......

 

 

Then the steam whistle of an approaching steam hauled train is heard and the photographer jumps to his feet and moves to the end of the container to get a better photo...

 

 

As soon as the train has passed he disappears behind the container again and continues reading his magazine.

 

 

Ok, that's my story! The gimmick is triggered by the approaching train - the operator doesn't have to do anything - it's totally automatic.

 

The problem is getting the viewers to notice it! The best way to have people notice it is to have a spare operator out the front talking to visitor, but I am working on a Plan B for when we don't have a spare operator.

 

There are now a total of seven such cameos - all of western photographers who suddenly appear when a steam train approaches and disappear when it's passed.

Edited December 17, 2020 by TEAMYAKIMA

[TEAMYAKIMA]

Perhaps the biggest negative feedback issue was the dark grey backscene. I saw it as 'the void', the end of the world, the abyss, but the viewers just saw it as BORING!!

 

Here it is at Warely

 

 

We wanted to move to the other extreme - a dramatic backdrop with the emphasis on the industrial pollution that blights parts of China especially in the early morning. So I searched online for some dramatic photos of a real Chinese industrial scene and found this ...

 

 

 

My team member, Gordon, who is not really a modeller, but did travel with me to China on several occasions asked to take responsibility for this aspect of the revamp and so the experimented. Here is his first attempt, but whilst it's only a first attempt I think you will agree that it's more dramatic than my original concept and the drab building really now stand out....

 

 

In this photo you can see that the horizonal lines are not always perfectly horizontal - can you see the pencil line correction? Also note another new typical Chinese cameo of the period - the new cycle park on the platform.

 

 

Now you will have noticed that our sky colour is different from the one of the real China, but we used this as the reference...

 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by TEAMYAKIMA

[Chris M]

On 12/12/2019 at 08:43, 298 said:

 

Which one of Warley's unofficial "Something for everyone" categories does Crewlisle fit into...?

 

As I recall there was nothing unofficial about this policy. During Paul Jones' 30 odd year stint as exhibition manager he quite openly planned to embrace all aspects of the hobby wherever he could; that was official policy with the full backing of the club. That is along a policy of having some of the very best layouts from the UK and a small number of fine layouts from Europe. So far as I can see Crewlisle very much fits into the category of being an entertaining layout and is a good choice for Warley. With around 90 layouts on show Warley is able to invite a broad spectrum of layouts which makes it much easier to include "something for everyone".

 

Crewlisle is pretty much guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser, especially among those who are just interested in the hobby rather than serious modellers. Having said that I like to think of myself as a fairly serious modeller but I always like to see layouts with plenty of movement.

 

This brings me on to Beijiao. I saw it at Warley and thought it was very good. The modelling and operation were to a high standard. I would certainly rate it as well worth seeing. The big problem with it is that very few people (including me) can relate to it. As you go round exhibitions in the UK they are mainly UK based layouts with a very small proportion of foreign layouts. I think this represents what people want to see at exhibitions in the UK. There is a strong argument that visitors to shows should have a wider outlook and want to see/learn more about foreign railways but  it has to be said that the foreign railways are usually the ones drawing the smallest crowds at exhibitions. There are of course exceptions to this. Personally my main love is UK layouts but I also love US and Swiss layouts but not so much other European countries. I think this is because I can relate to railways in these countries. Beijiao is a worthy layout and I am sure it will get invites to more exhibitions but I suspect it will never be as popular at exhibitions as it perhaps deserves to be based on the quality of the modelling. I hope it does get invited to plenty more exhibitions and  that the builder's work gets the chance to be appreciated by many more visitors to exhibitions over the coming years.

 

A lack of invites for any layout should not be a cause for concern at the moment. Most of the exhibitions called off this year loosely plan to have the layouts invited for this year at next year's show. This of course won't happen in its entirety but I expect it will be the case for many. At this point in time nobody can be sure when exhibitions will be able to come back on stream. Also exhibition managers may well be a little cautious about inviting a large number of layouts until we have seen how well the crowds come back when they do re-start. We can be hopeful that things will be back to normal at some point next year but nobody can say exactly when. I also expect there will be pent up demand so there will be good crowds when exhibitions do re-start but nobody can be sure of this.  On the down side many of the clubs or other organisations that organise exhibitions will be low on funds as they missed their major fund raiser for 2020 so they may well have to be more cautious than usual when planning 2021 and 2022 shows; they won't have as much funds in the kitty to start with as they have been used to. All of this means that exhibition managers are not going to be sending out many new invitations to layouts at the moment. I was hoping to take my new layout to a couple of exhibitions in 2021 but now I really don't expect this to happen. Maybe 2022, but of course there has been a lot of modelling going on over this most perculiar year so there should be a lot of brilliant brand new layouts all chomping at the bit to be invited to exhibitions in 2022. It could well be that being invited to exhibitions becomes more difficult than it has been for 2022, especially if the cost of getting your layout to the exhibition is high or overnight accommodation for a large group is required. If I was managing an exhibition, and I have to say I am not in any way involved in managing any exhibitions, I would be looking in the main for good new layouts that were fairly local in order to keep costs down.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Chris M
spelling

[TEAMYAKIMA]

1 hour ago, Chris M said:

This brings me on to Beijiao. I saw it at Warley and thought it was very good. The modelling and operation were to a high standard. I would certainly rate it as well worth seeing. The big problem with it is that very few people (including me) can relate to it. 

 

Firstly Chris, thank you for your comments. Secondly, you are absolutely right about a viewer's ability to relate. In that sense, I would imagine that everyone visiting a show can relate to the USA, many have visited it, everyone has watched Hollywood films - but China?

 

That is why I am putting a lot of emphasis on engaging with the more general public viewer and so another feature I had made for Aly Paly was a display board to sit at the front of the layout - designed to engage at a very basic level.

 

 

One regular comment was that the front of the layout was a bit dull and a suggestion was made to have a Faller roadway installed along the road which runs the whole length of the layout. Well, in fact we have always had one, but we never used it at shows because it wasn't 100% reliable.

 

The issue has always been that to properly test the roadway to make sure that it's 100% reliable (ie so that the expensive vehicles don't end up on the floor in pieces) we need to set the whole layout up somewhere and just concentrate on running that and monitoring its performance - and we have never had that luxury!

 

However, with my new, bigger shed we did manage to concentrate more on the Faller system and make its operation more complex.  On the anti-clockwise route I've installed a point so that vehicles now have a choice as they approach the r/h end of the scenic section. They can carry straight on along the road or get sent over the level crossing. Clockwise vehicles entering the scene from the right head off down the long road, but vehicles coming back in via the level crossing turn sharp right and head off down the winding side road.

 

 

The 25G passenger train always had full interior detail - but as usual I preferred the subtle approach and so there was no interior lighting because I think that most serious enthusiasts associate coach lighting with toy trains. RESULT - no-one ever saw all the interior detail I had spent hours and hours putting in place. However, I then discovered a way to add some quite subtle coach lighting and from now on the 25G train will run quite slowly across the scenic section (it is approaching a station) so that viewers can see the detail, note the waitress taking down the order in her notebook!

 

 

Anyway, that's probably enough about my layout and it's development. In fact all of this is in my dedicated RMweb thread - just put the word BEIJIAO in the search engine.

 

Hoping to see you all at an exhibition sometime in the future!

 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by TEAMYAKIMA

[SHMD]

I must admit I have not seen this layout yet - but I will.

That Pilentum video, taken towards the end of the Warley show, is a really good advert for BeiJiao. (I just love his sound track.)

 

I have always felt that an exhibition layout is a bit like a soap on TV - so much more needs to happen, in a short time, than in real life to keep peoples attention.

So in this respect, accuracy verses entertainment has to be compromised finessed for the target audience.

 

People do gravitate towards what they know and remember but lookout for interesting stuff besides.

I have followed this build because I lived and worked in China for around 5 years.

 

Pictures at the front are a good idea and you have some very dramatic shots of steam working hard. Blow these up, and display prominently, and it will attract peoples attention for quite some distance away. Remember, you are competing with other layouts on the exhibition floor.

 

Regarding the shop front signage explanations.

Your #7 "Tools" is more specifically for "Welding" but whether this is for welding work or welding supplies I don't know.

#8 "Building Materials" is actually "Bulk Wheat and Oil". So, sacks of wheat and catering drums of cooking oil for restaurants, hotels and canteens. That's what the shop sign says. It does not necessarily reflect what was actually happening at the time though as businesses, in China, can pop up and disappear very quickly as people chase the RenMinBi !

 

 

Kev.

 

[F-UnitMad]

That 'dramatic backscene' is much better!!

[TEAMYAKIMA]

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

That 'dramatic backscene' is much better!!

 

Thanks