YORK for York Show 2023 and beyond

[DuncanFogg]

What you need now is a copy of this month's Railway Modeller on the bookstand at W.H. Smith...

 

Duncan

[Caley Jim]

52 minutes ago, DuncanFogg said:

What you need now is a copy of this month's Railway Modeller on the bookstand at W.H. Smith...

I shall check that out when we are down there this weekend for a short break!

 

Jim

[Steven B]

17 hours ago, DuncanFogg said:

What you need now is a copy of this month's Railway Modeller on the bookstand at W.H. Smith...

 

Duncan

 

Nice idea but time would need to be bent a little (or liveries changed) - Railway Modeller was first published in 1949, a year after nationalisation.

 

Steven B.

[Nigelcliffe]

4 hours ago, Steven B said:

 

Nice idea but time would need to be bent a little (or liveries changed) - Railway Modeller was first published in 1949, a year after nationalisation.

 

Steven B.

 

Just pop a figure with slightly odd clothing choices, and a blue police box in the corner of the platform, and it will be fine.....

 

- Nigel

 

[kirmies]

The very observant will have spotted that the September 1937 issue of The Model Railway News is available at W.H.Smiths on YORK so no time travel devices needed:

The model is now nearing completion and is installed on the layout. Not quite sure would have been on the back wall of the kiosk so that has been left blank for now (and the clock is still at the repairers!):

[Ian Smeeton]

Back wall?

 

Probably cigarettes, tobacco, pipes etc and all sorts of other banned substances!

 

Regards

 

Ian

[kirmies]

14 hours ago, Ian Smeeton said:

Back wall?

 

Probably cigarettes, tobacco, pipes etc and all sorts of other banned substances!

 

Regards

 

Ian

Thanks Ian,

I was thinking the same, something like this:

I can feel a Photoshop session coming on!

[bécasse]

There is a 1932 photo of the W H Smith bookstall located on Manchester Victoria station on this website. I doubt whether their bookstall at York would have looked significantly different later in the decade. Googling "w h smith bookstalls" and selecting images will bring up a few other shots that could provide useful inspiration.

 

When we were researching Bembridge (IoW) for our pioneering P4 layout (over 50 years ago now!), we discovered that WHS held a huge archive of photos of their bookstalls, sadly the small outlet at Bembridge wasn't amongst them but with a detailed ground plan, an oblique angle photograph and the information on other outlets gleaned from the archive our rendition of it (which included a pair of book-laden trestle tables) must have been very close.

[kirmies]

Two weeks today and YORK will be at York! Final testing is under way and, by way of a taster, here are the latest two trains passing through:

The Silver Jubilee is John Aldrick's work (apart from the loco) and the eleven coach trough train is mostly mine with a couple of John's coaches thrown in for good measure. 

Hope to see you in a couple of weeks!

Edited March 25, 2023 by kirmies
correcting spelling mistakes

[Barry Ten]

You've knocked this one out of the park, Peter. Very much looking forward to seeing it in the completed state.

[kirmies]

Just got back from the great success that was York Show 2023. Thank you SO much for all the kind remarks about the layout both in person and online. It meant a GREAT deal.

The Lord Mayor of York liked it so much he came back for a second look!

The layout was so popular that, for large parts of the weekend, there was quite a crowd around it:

Apologies of this meant you weren't able to get as good a view as you have liked. YORK will be at STEAM in Swindon on 9th & 10th September and Leeds Model Railway Exhibition on 28th & 29th October and at 3 or 4 shows a year around the country after that.

We had nine trains on the layout for most of the 3 days of the show and, considering this was the first show almost all of the stock had attended, everything ran really well with remarkable few problems. This was a massive relief for me as it was the first time I've ever exhibited a 2mm finescale layout: I've been having nightmares for weeks about everything failing by Monday.

As the number of trains increases, the return curves get quite interesting to watch:

 

There's room for around 18 trains so, once I have that many, there'll be trains going in all directions!!

Now that YORK for York Show 2023 has been achieved, I'll keep posting stuff about the layout here every so often but will mostly be getting the website fully running and up to date: www.this-is-york.com.

Once again thanks for all your encouragement that has helped get me this far and for all the kind words about the layout.

[kirmies]

YORK will be making only its second ever public appearance next weekend at the Steam Museum, Swindon Railway Festival. Details can be found here: https://www.steam-museum.org.uk/event/swindon-railway-festival/. Hope to see you there!

 

There has been some progress on the layout since the York Show at Easter though mostly what's happened since then is me catching up with all the things I didn't do in the earlier part of the year when I was spending pretty much every waking hour getting YORK ready for York.

 

The main visible improvements are the awnings on the open air sections of the platforms (viewable through the ends of the overall roof:

And W.H.Smiths, which was well stocked at the York Show at Easter but rather lacked customers and staff now has both:

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by kirmies
Correcting errors

[Tricky-CRS]

Look forward to seeing it next weekend at Swindon.

[tapdieuk]

Having seen it at static at Larkrail (last year?) It was impressive then. But yesterday at Swindon show with the trains rolling through the station WOW.

It just works as a moving picture to a past time. 

It also shows cases that 2mm Finescale is not just about flange widths, back to backs, scale looking wheels and track. But using the scale to its full advantage to build a scene, and convey an atmosphere, to which the trains play a part.

 

 

[queensquare]

4 hours ago, tapdieuk said:

Having seen it at static at Larkrail (last year?) It was impressive then. But yesterday at Swindon show with the trains rolling through the station WOW.

It just works as a moving picture to a past time. 

It also shows cases that 2mm Finescale is not just about flange widths, back to backs, scale looking wheels and track. But using the scale to its full advantage to build a scene, and convey an atmosphere, to which the trains play a part.

 

 

Absolutely agree with everything Will said. This weekends Swindon show was the first time I’ve seen it complete and it is nothing short of stunning. What was even more amazing was that it continued to work really well despite the incredible heat in the big hall - mind you, the operators were wilting a bit! 😊

 

Jerry

[drduncan]

Great to see it on Saturday at Steam. Absolutely fantastic as a concept and the execution appeared faultless. Even no1 son was impressed (although he was disappointed not to see 4472 Flying Scotsman while he was being held up to see in but he can’t have everything…)

Duncan

 

[kirmies]

Thanks, all, for the kind words and for all the positive comments from everyone else over the weekend.

 

I was extremely pleased with the way it was looking and working even in the extreme heat - for those who weren't there, despite the staff's best efforts, it was well over 30 degrees in the hall on BOTH days even though it was somewhat cooler than that outside on Sunday so we were definitely wilting a bit by the end.

 

There were good numbers at the show although the crowds round the front of the layout were not quite as deep as at York Show at Easter:

The next chance to see YORK close up and personal is at the MANCHESTER show in early December - see you there!