WFRM on tour - The Trials, Tribulations, Hardwork & Rewards

[merlin46]

The Trials

 

As some of you will be aware out there, that exhibiting a layout has lots of facets to it, but basically it comes down to some hard graft backed up with lots of preparation & planning before the show, normally carried out by a few willing volunteers. The planning & preparation is an important part of the process to ensure smooth running once at the show, but this part of the process normally goes unnoticed by most of the visiting punters.

 

We at WFRM use to set the deadline for preparation prior to attending show to at least a week before, but tend to go for 2 weeks nowadays as the core team is smaller due to members work & university commitments. This then enables us to overcome any gremlins or issues that may arise out of the blue.

 

The Tribulations

 

Unfortunately "sods law" sometimes just drops in to remind you that you are NOT totally in control. This past year we attended Ally Pally with about 10 miles of the 220 mile journey left to go, the hire van decided to play up with a lose of power. Beast666 was following behind us & soon after the lose of power my co-pilots mobile rang to inform us that there was a lot of ###### & corruption bellowing out of the back of van, with a lot of it covering Beast's Car. The ironic moment during all of this was that we were just entering London's low emission zone

 

Fortunately we made it to the London Gateway services & even with more good fortune we parked right in front of an AA van. The patrol man was already attending to another failed vehicle, but was soon onto ours & after lots of mutterings a repair was attempted to the fuel injection system which had rattled loose a union connection on the fuel supply pipework; so fortunately it was not a return to base situation.What a diamond geyser he was.

 

Whilst waiting we watched many units travel up & down the Midland Mainlane, plus Beast's car looked nice & shiny all covered in diesel

 

 

The Hardwork

 

As we were now at least an hour down & travelling in the rush hour this impacted on the time available for unloading & setting up. As they say many hands make light work & with the rest of the team along the WFRM Southern contingent arriving the task of setting out the layout was accomplished by the target time of 21:00hrs. This then left the rest of weekend for us to enjoy playing with our train set until closing time on the Sunday. Then comes the chore of packing up & heading home to North Wales, the Wirral & Merseyside. The home of WFRM layouts was reached at around 22:00hrs with some members not reaching home till gone Midnight.

 

To make things easier on ourselves we have improved the way we transport our layouts around as most of equipment is stored in wheeled containers & we only use a van with a tail lift. This makes things a whole lot easier to move it around & none of us are getting any younger

 

The Rewards

 

These do come in many ways. For me the biggest reward is the team working that gels so well for the weekend expos, the enjoyment of operating in front of an audience, the kind responses from the visits, meeting old friends & sometimes occasionally winning a trophy. Anyone of these makes the hard work & effort worth it.

 

At the 2009 Nottingham Expo Widnes Vine Yard won two awards. one for the bracket signal & another for a rake of Hurst Models MBAs. This is certainly the icing on the cake for the WFRM team & makes all the hardwork worth while!!