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MANCHESTER EXHIBITION THIS WEEKEND - 75 YEARS YOUNG


Andy C

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'Twas a cracking show! Very pleasing to see so many layouts fitted with working signals. I even saw some in 2mm scale! Lattice posts and all!!!

Superb.

Well done to all involved.

For me Dewsbury was top layout followed by Heyside and Leeton.

JF

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A fine selection of layouts. With the 'past and present' theme it was Interesting how well the more 'mature' layouts stood up to comparison of with the more recent layouts. Is it that standards haven't actually moved on that much in the last ten or so years, or were the older layouts on show really so much ahead of their time when originally built?

 

Paul

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Well done guys, a magnificent exhibition, all top quality layouts.

 

Just slightly disappointed to find that once again the Icelandic National Railway system was not represented amongst the layouts!

:pleasantry:

 

Kevin

 

Theres always one.

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But seriously a massive thanks to all the exhibitors, traders and demonstrators who attended over the weekend, it was an absolutely stunning show. The judges (includiding myself) of the Visitors Cup found it very hard to pick a winner from every layout, literally there was a fag paper between them all.

 

However the results: The Visitors Cup:

 

1 Blakeney

2 WEK

3 loch Tat

 

The public vote:

 

1 Dewsbury Midland

2 equal - WEK and Loch Tat

 

and the infamous saggy barrier award given to the layout with the biggest crowds each year - Werner Knopf's WEK

 

Its got to be said the lads from WEK had a brilliant time (as did every other exhibitor), we literally had to kick them out of the hall at strip down this evening.

 

Thank you as well to the rest of the exhibition team and most importantly all the "friends of the society" who help so much to put this show on.

 

As for those who missed the show - well sorry but you missed what would appear to be the best show of the year.

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Got nearly 15 min of video to day and think some of the best shots were of Dewsburty Midland and believe it or not not a train in sight on it. When looking at this layout have a look under the viaducts and generally below rail level, think this is what makes M/C mrs layouts stand out.

 

Good talking to you today Andy will catch up with New Hey prob at Stockport but looking to get to Rochdale.

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An excellent show as always with both sufficient quantity and very high level of quality - not a duff one in sight. Highlights for me: Blakeney, Dewsbury, Bank Hall Sidings (lovely and grimy), Halifax Kings Cross and Solway Sands/Blockyard. Got to play on the last of these layouts while they were short-handed so many thanks to that team.

 

Jonathan

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Had a great weekend, despite the intense heat of saturday and the rain during packing up on sunday evening! Was a brilliant show, and probably the best one of the year - best way to celebrate a big anniversary!

 

Would like to come back again in the near future with something that has a few more local links, overhead DC electrics rather than 4th rail...

 

Chris.

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I'm sad that I can't come to see it in person, but there is the minor matter of a medium-sized continent and a "pond" in the way :(. Still, there's always next year....

 

BTW - Congratulations on preserving Buckingham; when I found out yesterday, by reading this forum, it was the most wonderful piece of news I had seen in a long, long time.

 

Could you identify the engine-shed part of Buckingham that this picture, taken at the last exhibition, was from, please?

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Neither the Buckingham Branch Lines - Part Two nor the Buckingham Great Central book seem to have a shed positioned like this - was some rework in progress, perhaps? Or should I try and find a BBL - Part One copy?

 

As a humble suggestion, publishing the LB exhibition timetable (perhaps in an RM article or on DVD) would be a great thing - I always found the detailed operational aspects of Buckingham (differently painted solebars on each side for truck destinations, the Denny fiddle-yard, the full timetable as an appendix in BGC, Automatic Crispin, etc) to be among most interesting things that PD shared, as they are not commonly described when people wax poetic about their layouts because everything is treated as static pictures rather than a living animal. In fact, Buckingham as described always struck me, almost uniquely, as primarily a social instrument built in beautiful, painstaking, railway-as-art, but designed for promoting plenty of genial collaboration around operating the timetable (even if with an Automatic Crispin) and to do that the details are essential. Perhaps Peter's "other" vocation had something to do with that design focus, but it always made it the layout without equal for me.

 

Good luck with the show and the weather!

 

Adam - serving out his purgatory in HO-t California :sungum:

 

Hello Adam and many thanks for the kind words!

 

Firstly, the loco shed diorama was built by Peter as a stand alone static demo piece and does not form part of any of the Buckingham layouts. He used to give talks at model railway clubs etc. and took it along so that people could see the sort of things he was talking about. The shed building looks quite similar to one of the early Buckingham shed buildings and as he didn't waste much, it may have been recycled!

 

We have had guest locos, including a SR diesel shunter and a WD 2-10-0 (which made it nicely round the approx 2' 6" radius curve!). I am not sure if Peter would have approved but if it gives people (including me!) a bit of a buzz to see their locos on the layout who am I to deny them the opportunity?

 

You are right about the layout. It caused many lifetime friendships to be made. Peter had a range of people as operating crew, from neighbours, who may not do any modelling at all, to some highly skilled model makers. None really have an interest in the GCR and none model in EM but Peter and Buckingham brought them all together. I hope some of that spirit continues now that Buckingham is in a new home and there are already signs that it will.

 

An article about moving Buckingham has been written and should appear in the December issue of Railway Modeller and I hope to submit more articles in the future, to keep people up to date with developments.

 

I see that some photos have appeared on here already and I know that more were taken and may appear. I have to say that the show was extremely hard work. Enough to make me have second thoughts about the viability of Leighton Buzzard as an exhibtion layout.

 

Lugging it all the way from the car to the upstairs when your mate is very under the weather wasn't a good start, in soaring temperatures. Quite a few faults appeared between checking and loading the layout into the car then setting up, including 4 faults on one bit of wiring, which took hours to find. Then the heat caused many problems with switches, broken wiring joints, the fiddle yard warping so much it didn't fit (it had to be attacked with a file before it would even remotely go back in place), rails coming adrift due to solder joints breaking etc. The humidity levels caused the track to become filthy every few minutes.

 

Hopefully, most of the problems were kept "off scene" or worked around, so that the paying punters didn't realise that too much was wrong!

 

It didn't help the mood being close by the DCC sound layout with the obligatory class 20 on full volume, or being right under the air conditioning units that gave out approximately 5 blasts of cold air today (none yesterday), lasting 10 seconds each, which reminded us of what it could have been like if it was working properly.

 

Then, to cap it all, when breakdown time came it was raining, quite unexpectedly (yep! even for Manchester), so we didn't have plastic sheets handy and had to carry all the card/paper/watercolour work on the layout out through the rain! We covered it as well as we could and I hope no damage has been done.

 

So I am sorry to say that it didn't turn out to be of our better ones! It would have been even worse but for Nick Freezer, who ably added to our depleted operating team for several hours on Saturday.

 

So, much thinking to be done but my feeling at the moment is to fulfill existing commitments then call it a day.

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A fine selection of layouts. With the 'past and present' theme it was Interesting how well the more 'mature' layouts stood up to comparison of with the more recent layouts. Is it that standards haven't actually moved on that much in the last ten or so years, or were the older layouts on show really so much ahead of their time when originally built?

 

I think it's probably closer to the latter. As with the "classics" in almost anything, be it music, modelling,architecture, painting, etc, the reason why they are classics is because they are good enough to stand the test of time. The mediocre always exists, but it doesn't last - and so it gets forgotten about. But, in every generation, there will also be a handful that stand out among their contemporaries,and those are the ones that later generations look back to.

 

Mark

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So I am sorry to say that it didn't turn out to be of our better ones! It would have been even worse but for Nick Freezer, who ably added to our depleted operating team for several hours on Saturday.

 

So, much thinking to be done but my feeling at the moment is to fulfill existing commitments then call it a day.

 

Well, all I can say is that I'm really glad you made the effort and I appreciate the work you put into it over the weekend. I had no idea it was quite as difficult as you describe, but that only goes to show how well you did it because the problems really didn't spoil things from a punter's perspective.

 

It is, obviously, an operator-intensive layout, which is how it was designed to be - Peter didn't build with exhibitions in mind, he built for his own enjoyment and that of his group of friends - and, combined with the age of the layout and the inevitable likelihood of recurrent minor faults, means that it's always going to be hard work to exhibit. But it would be a real shame if, having got this far, it was to be lost to the exhibition circuit again.

 

If I could make a suggestion, it would be that you make it available on the circuit as a semi-working layout. That is, make it clear that the main reason for it being exhibited is as a demonstration of Peter's skill and a rare example of classic railway modelling, and that you'll undertake to operate it for at least two or three sessions during the course of an exhibition day but that you can't - and won't - promise that it will be running all the time (or even, if the worst comes to the worst, any of the time). That avoids unrealistic expectations on the part of exhibition managers and their customers, and leaves it up to them whether or not that's something they want at their shows. And if you need more assistant operators, RMweb is as good a place as any to recruit them - I for one would be more than happy (in fact, I'd consider it a privilege) to help out at any exhibition that's in my area, and I'm sure the same applies to many here.

 

Mark

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So, much thinking to be done but my feeling at the moment is to fulfill existing commitments then call it a day.

 

If that does turn out to be the case, then I can only say that it would be a great shame. I enjoyed seeing LB at Bracknell earlier this year (as a non-EMer I wouldn't have gone to the show otherwise!)., and it would be a shame if others were denied the opportunity to view Peter's work (or for those that have, to see it again).

 

Of course, the issue of avoiding damage to the layout has to be borne in mind but as far as I can tell from the issues you referred to, most seem to be due to one of three factors:

 

- The unseasonably warm weather. I think the chances of having temperatures like those we've had recently at another show (at least in the 'season') are pretty slim.

 

- An unsuitable location within the venue (I'm sure it would be understood if in discussing any future shows you indicated that owing to its weight, it could only be exhibited in a downstairs room).

 

- As far as I'm aware this is only LB's third show in recent times and I don't know what exhibiting experience you've had before that. It takes time to get familiar with a layout and its foibles - I suspect if the same wiring issues came up again, you'd be able to identify them a lot quicker! Likewise it takes a few outings to establish a 'routine' for set-up. dismantling and ancillary items to take like plastic sheeting.

 

Obviously ultimately the final decision is yours but I for one would be sorry to see it retired so soon.

 

Richard

 

PS Having just seen Mark's post I can also echo his sentiments that should LB ever venture south again, I would be more than happy to lend a hand!

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Bit of a shame Andy and RM Web cannot be with us this year - but hopefully next year!! Mind you he's got plenty of work to do before 1 October himself.... :sungum:

 

In the meantime a brief respite before marking out starts at 9am tomorrow!

 

I only went because you were there! Charlie

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Probably the best exhibition that I have ever been to (even if I am biased!), simply chock full of fantastic layouts that it was a great privilege to see after having read about (some of) them over the years.

I took a fair few photos, I'll sort them out and post some (if they're any good!).

Cheers,

John E.

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HI All

 

A good weekend was had by all on Law Junction, and is now back how after an uneventful drive up the road, apart from getting puled by the local police for over taking them doing 40 in a 40!!! :scratchhead:

 

Highlight of the weekend was this pic and Andy requested it be published.

 

Regards Arran

post-530-0-58550500-1317624215_thumb.jpg

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I think I'd echo that last sentiment - in a way I was disappointed to be exhibiting as I didn't get anywhere near enough of a look round. I can't think of any show I've been to where the standard of layouts was consistently so high. I didn't get to photograph anywhere near as many layouts as I'd have liked, but concentrated on two favourites, Leighton Buzzard and Knutsford East Junction.

 

I was pleased enough to see Leighton Buzzard, but thrilled when Tony offered me the chance to operate it. Reading the thread above I can see he might well have had enough by then. That aside, I've had the misfortune to try to drive trains on modern layouts which didn't work anywhere near as well as this. Left alone to run it (!!!) I then had one of the worst moments of my life when I operated Peter Denny's home made block instrument and it fell off in my hand. No damage done, thankfully. Thanks to Tony's charming fiddle yard team who explained the operating sequence to someone else in voices loud enough that I could hear them and follow what to do.

 

So, for those who don't know, this is a layout parts of which are over 60 years old. Not many of us can reach these standards of realism and atmosphere today. Enjoy.

 

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lb_4_zps50d29b91.jpg

 

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lb_7_zpsfab6e199.jpg

 

As you can see I did manage to reattach this:

 

block_bell_zps6243d238.jpg

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great show

 

noticed quite a few layouts had pillboxes on them, nothing in that just noticed :)

 

The pillbox on Widnes was photographed for a specialist "pillbox" site, the guy said it was very well done :sungum:

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HI All

 

A good weekend was had by all on Law Junction, and is now back how after an uneventful drive up the road, apart from getting puled by the local police for over taking them doing 40 in a 40!!! :scratchhead:

 

Highlight of the weekend was this pic and Andy requested it be published.

 

Regards Arran

 

 

Arran asked me about this and I said, why not it does prove that it doesnt always rain in Manchester. The downside is that these two lasses were lying on the grass outside the loading / unloading bay for the show and it did disrupt setting up by both layouts and traders there for some considerable time.

 

(Especially so in the case of one C Petty esq.)

 

edit for bracketed post

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HI All

 

A good weekend was had by all on Law Junction, and is now back how after an uneventful drive up the road, apart from getting puled by the local police for over taking them doing 40 in a 40!!! :scratchhead:

 

Highlight of the weekend was this pic and Andy requested it be published.

 

Regards Arran

 

Thank god the new car park stewards are better looking than the old bunch! Charlie

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