N Gauge Society Show - York Railway Museum - 13/14th May 2023

[TomJ]

Thanks. I’m on the P&R bus in. See you all soon

[lilchris]

I tried to get in yesterday but gave up after queueing for about 20 mins, I need the loo so no way I was queuing for a hour. I talked to a family in front of me they tried to get in at 10am, queued 2 hours and gave up came back later in the afternoon. Apparantly the registration process was taking longer than anticipated and they were also limiting the number of entrant#, basically 1 out 1 in. They need a better venue next time it’s was very poor, glad I only paid £1.30 for the park and ride. Disappointed to say the least. Chris.

[Ighten]

Arrived just after 10 and was in within 20 mins or so.. the problem to me seemed to be more to do with how slow it was to process members details for free admission.

 

Anyway despite the odd over cramped rooms due to the work going on thoroughly enjoyed it and I only went as a 4mm man who went with a 2mm friend.

 

Favourites well plenty of good layouts though I do find some n gauge modellers try to cram so much in even when they technically have so much space.

 

But I was very taken with the detail of Olympia Kensington. It captures the London atmosphere very well.(and that comes from someone brought up in London but is now a rural recluse who won't build anything bigger than a small  goods shed).. Which came first though, this layout or call the midwife 🙂

 

 

Not too sure about the price of the HO flying Scotsman though.. can do without smoke and traction tires. But the detail does look superb.

 

 

Bit of a random? But why has the 47 prince William in the main hall got this morse code  name plate and odd black band at the top Remember being pulled by this and Henry on a Northern belle trip to Bath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[John M Upton]

12 minutes ago, Ighten said:

Bit of a random? But why has the 47 prince William in the main hall got this morse code  name plate and odd black band at the top Remember being pulled by this and Henry on a Northern belle trip to Bath.

 

 

 

It's the Royal version of the old Rail Express System (res) livery which was Post Office red with that dark grey upper stripe and the silly "morse code" logo thing, they also had the contract at the time for the Royal Train locos so came up with this regalised version with a cast plate for the silly logo.

 

Thankfully then along came EWS who binned the RES identity along with the daft logo.

[Les1952]

Nice to see so many there, though from the layout we could see the queue moving ever so slowly past the window on Saturday, and the tail of the queue for the first hour on Sunday (then it disappeared).

 

One unexpected issue was that the lift in the museum entrance used to get wheelchairs, prams, buggies, ambulant disabled etc to the main floor of the museum had failed.  This resulted in museum staff bringing a steady stream of wheelchairs, buggies etc through the main part of the show (not always carefully and politely) and back again when they wanted to leave, due to the other lift being at the far end of the floor.  When I got home I discovered a sizeable bruise on my right ankle from a buggy attack....

 

I don't know if the Museum imposed a capacity cut to allow this to happen.

 

Les

 

[TomE]

Back home and reflecting on the show, and overall I enjoyed the event despite some of the issues. I’m sure the NGS will learn from this and use the experience gained for future events. 
 

The choice of the NRM as a venue was not fundamentally flawed, holding a model railway event at a venue like that is a solid choice, but the space available and layout probably wasn’t adequate in truth. It might have worked better if some of the layouts had been dotted around the main hall in a similar style to the Swindon show held at STEAM, if that were possible. 
 

I don’t know what sort of numbers were expected, but the positive take away is that British N Gauge appears to be in rude Health if the length of the queue on Saturday is anything to go by! 
 

So well done to the volunteers who organised and ran the event on the day, especially in the face of some of the challenges faced. Hopefully this doesn’t put the NGS off organising future events as they’re a great way to promote the scale. 
 

Tom. 

[gedlee]

Hi,

 

For those who couldn't get to the show, and for those who did, I have put together a comprehensive video of The Long Hirston Modules in action.

 

Cheers,

Ged.