How often is a exhibition layout not 'ready to go' at 'doors open' at exhibitions?

[SR71]

I only really do loose lay vintage layouts when I'm doing a show and this June we had a new one. It was (until this Saturday) the hottest day of the year and the tables were sagging, bowing, and changing height throughout the day as the temperature fluctuated. Not so much as you'd notice normally but we'd run out of packing pieces by mid day and then by mid afternoon we were having to take them out again.

 

Even though we'd tested the night before and again in the morning some things just can't be accounted for.

 

O for a tinplate tamper!

Edited September 11, 2023 by SR71

[Jol Wilkinson]

52 minutes ago, Chris M said:

To a large degree it is all about having rules and working to them. Here are mine:-

1. Some weeks before the event know who is going to be in charge; especially important for club layouts. 

2. Know who is coming and what stock they are bringing before the event. This is important to provide sensible set of stock for the layout. I'm very strict on this and my operators would never dare bring along any stock without prior approval.

3. All locos must be properly tested and wheels cleaned before the exhibition.  Merely testing that a loco goes round and round on an oval of track is not good enough. How is the slow running? How does it go over points? If a loco doesn't get an A then it doesn't go to the exhibition.

4. If an item of stock gives any trouble at an exhibition then immediately remove it. DO NOT FIDDLE WITH IT WHILE THE EXHIBITION IS OPEN. Sometimes a loco can be fixed and tested after closure on Saturday ready for Sunday but the best place for a troublesome item is in its box ready for the journey home.

5. Always give yourself an hour or more spare time when setting up - you might well need it if a fault has mysteriously appeared during transit. Or even worse a building has been clunked during transit.

6. Always make sure you have a complete tool set. For me this include a couple of spare controllers ( I actually had to use a spare on Sunday), various types of glue, a few (often nearly empty) bags of various types of Woodland Scenics greenery. This can disguise any number of issues that have suddenly arisen.

7. Give the layout a careful visual check as well as a track test. Sometimes things go wrong with the scenery and you just don't notice.

9. The person in charge of the layout must check that the layout is correctly assembled and that all power leads are made as safe as possible - i.e. no trip hazzards.

10. Make sure all the operators know what the layout is about so they have a chance of talking sensibly to any visitors.

11. Make sure everyone running the layout has the phone number of the person in charge of the layout. You can guarantee that if something is going to go wrong it will be when one operator is there by them self.

 

All simple and obvious stuff, but I think important.

 

For me a good exhibition is when everything runs well and I get an invite or two to take the layout to other shows. I also love chatting with the visitors while my operators do all the work! If you take your layout to a few exhibitions and don't get invited elsewhere then maybe you need to take a long hard look at your layout and how you run it at exhibitions.

 

 

Excellent. To which I would add that "exhibition" layouts should be designed, built and operated as such.

 

Designed to be safely transported, readily assembled and erected and properly  viewed.

 

Built with robust but light baseboards and support system, a lighting system, redundancy for wiring connections (e.g. multiple droppers) and avoiding an excess of "detail" e.g. cramming every square inch with irrelevant or inaccurate items.

 

Operated to provide entertainment to match the exhibition public's probable interest. Generally that means keep something moving while still maintaining a degree of realistic accuracy. So reliable locos, stock and couplings are important.

 

 

[Chris M]

14 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

 

Excellent. To which I would add that "exhibition" layouts should be designed, built and operated as such.

 

Designed to be safely transported, readily assembled and erected and properly  viewed.

 

 

 

I agree and have often said that a layout designed for exhibition is very different to a layout designed for use at home. However my current layout I believe gives me the best of both worlds. The track plan is very simple but very scenic. There are duplicate controls in front of and behind the layout. The front controls are hidden by the curtain at exhibitions but are the ones I use at home. The front controls give me the prime view of the layout. At home I have a couple of mirrors on the wall so I can see what’s happening in the storage sidings. This works well for me but might not suit others. Also, at exhibitions we just run to whatever the opera at or wants with the instruction that nothing goes round more than once at a time, unless by special request. At home I run to a sequence which adds another dimension. We tried running to a sequence at an exhibition but found it was much harder work and the train frequency was lower.

[PaulRhB]

34 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

Excellent. To which I would add that "exhibition" layouts should be designed, built and operated as such.

 

Designed to be safely transported, readily assembled and erected and properly  viewed.

 

Built with robust but light baseboards and support system, a lighting system, redundancy for wiring connections (e.g. multiple droppers) and avoiding an excess of "detail" e.g. cramming every square inch with irrelevant or inaccurate items.

I aim for all these and generally achieve it with recent layouts, it doesn’t worry me Harz hadn’t been together for four years as I over build and have essential spares. 
 

but . . . There are things outside our control 😉

 

One show we turned up to the sports hall was so humid due to the conditions that the track was tarnishing as fast as I could clean it. It was like painting the Forth Bridge, start again as soon as you finish!

You literally got wet if you leaned against the breeze block walls. In the end the only solution was to open all the doors and man them, on a chilly February day, to allow most of the humidity to blow out. I’ve also had a show where the layouts were chilled below zero in the van overnight and we had to wait for it all to warm up before we dared power up in case condensation blew something. The power supply and signalling processor were built into the layout so we couldn’t remove them like we did with the controller and stock. Digital accessories would create a similar risk. 
 

[RedgateModels]

Back in the early days of Summat Colliery I set it up on the Friday evening at a local show only to find that my DCC controller - a Bachmann Dynamis would not connect. The handset flat refused to see the base station no matter what I tried. There was something in the room that was swamping the IR. Luckily my operator for the weekend brought his Powercab in on the Saturday morning. I bought one myself the following week and sold the Dynamis.

 

Thankfully it was a local show and I'd decided to set up Friday evening to have a bit more of a lie-in on Saturday morning. If I'd turned up on Saturday morning to set up I would have been stuffed.

 

I'm back there next month with my O gauge layout Fourgig East - still with the Powercab 😉

Edited September 11, 2023 by RedgateModels

[PaulRhB]

3 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

 

 

I'm back there next month with my O gauge layout Fourgig East - still with the Powercab 😉

I carry a backup DCC system just in case

! Ok it would limit the amount we could run as it would struggle to replace the booster and base so I’d only run two locos and isolate the rest to keep the sound off. We’d also probably have to not use the route settings changing ladders of points as we’d be right on the limit but it would hopefully cope. 
One definite advantage of a operating team is access to more kit :) 

[fulton]

55 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

 

Excellent. To which I would add that "exhibition" layouts should be designed, built and operated as such.

 

 

Good point, but when I was staging exhibitions and when I exhibit, I view the show as a showcase, or shop window on the hobby, I build what I like and present it, generally to good comments, I will not compromise the prototype (except have more trains running) or add gimmicks to make my layouts more entertaining, I think it is good to have a mixture of layouts, show layouts that you could build at home, and layouts just for exhibitions. As to the OPs question most layouts are up and running by opening time, damage does happen in transit, so be prepared with tools and touch up kits, I once mixed up my power supply to the points and DCC, points did not work and lots of flashing lights on the DCC, fortunately no damage done, when leads swopped over, but now leads are very clearly labelled and I carry a spare DCC base unit just in case.

[Geep7]

I have a few exhibiting mishaps, that now in the past, I can look back on with mild humour.

 

Exhibiting my first HO American layout at my local all American Exhibition (that sadly is no longer held), and we ended up tripping the electrics for the entire hall, due to a faulty US-UK adapter for the NCE PowerCab we were using. No spare to hand, but fortunately, the group holding the show had some rather clever electricians, who managed to patch it for the day.

 

Then exhibiting my second HO American layout at the Seaboard Southern show, we pack up the car, commenting that it went in much easier this time, drove all the way to Horsham, put the layout up, only to realise we had left the entire lighting gantry at home. Quick patch up with some duct tape (that stuff is wonderful), and we were grateful for the hall having such great lighting, otherwise exhibiting would have been a struggle. Not at the same show, but throughout exhibiting Bad Aston, we also had a couple of SEEP point motors fail. Fortunately one was one a siding at the back of the layout that we could just switch out for the rest of the exhibition weekend, but one failed, leading to the car float. Fortunately, using screw connector blocks, it was easy enough to swap out the point motor, but not having any spares to had, I had to borrow the point motor from the point from the siding mentioned above. I now have a couple of SEEPS soldered up, just in case of any failures.

 

Then West Sands, well Blackhurst as it was known then, and it's first (and only) exhibition. I can honestly say, and recommend, DON'T commit to exhibiting a 16 feet long layout that is just bare baseboards and track, 6 months before an exhibition, and try and use a hitherto untested magnetic uncoupling method. Plenty of things went wrong that weekend, apart from the aforementioned uncoupling (or not as the case was). I didn't give myself enough time to test the layout to ensure it all worked properly, which meant I went to the show with a point (only the main point to the station) with a dry solder joint on the frog feed. Loco's that hadn't been properly configured correctly on DCC, and you could almost still smell the wet glue on some of the scenics.

 

A lot of things can be mitigated by better planning, check lists, etc, but sometimes, as already mentioned, the unexpected can happen.

 

Oh, and another recommendation, don't leave your rolling stock and locos, especially when DCC fitted, in the car overnight when the temperature is going to drop down below 10°C. They don't seem to like it.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Geep7

[ian@stenochs]

On the way to the Manchester show with ‘Auchlin’ our hire van broke down just as we entered Killington lake services.  Broken timing belt, quite a common occurrence with transits, so our breakdown man told us. It was a Friday morning, show opened late afternoon.  Eventually a relay truck arrived and we were loaded on only to be taken to Bolton, there to wait on another relay coming from Manchester, something to do with areas!

 

The upshot was that we eventually arrived on a low loader outside the venue, Coop hall, about the same time as the show opened to the public.  The layout and all our bits were taken into the hall and deposited behind the barriers just as the crowd flooded in.  Erecting the layout in a cramped space between to other exhibits while the public watched was interesting. However we gave the viewers an insight into what goes into an exhibition layout. Thankfully there were no other gremlins and trains started running within an hour.

 

The post show beers were very welcome that night!

[john new]

4 hours ago, Chris M said:

To a large degree it is all about having rules and working to them. Here are mine:-

1. Some weeks before the event know who is going to be in charge; especially important for club layouts. 

2. Know who is coming and what stock they are bringing before the event. This is important to provide sensible set of stock for the layout. I'm very strict on this and my operators would never dare bring along any stock without prior approval.

3. All locos must be properly tested and wheels cleaned before the exhibition.  Merely testing that a loco goes round and round on an oval of track is not good enough. How is the slow running? How does it go over points? If a loco doesn't get an A then it doesn't go to the exhibition.

4. If an item of stock gives any trouble at an exhibition then immediately remove it. DO NOT FIDDLE WITH IT WHILE THE EXHIBITION IS OPEN. Sometimes a loco can be fixed and tested after closure on Saturday ready for Sunday but the best place for a troublesome item is in its box ready for the journey home.

5. Always give yourself an hour or more spare time when setting up - you might well need it if a fault has mysteriously appeared during transit. Or even worse a building has been clunked during transit.

6. Always make sure you have a complete tool set. For me this include a couple of spare controllers ( I actually had to use a spare on Sunday), various types of glue, a few (often nearly empty) bags of various types of Woodland Scenics greenery. This can disguise any number of issues that have suddenly arisen.

7. Give the layout a careful visual check as well as a track test. Sometimes things go wrong with the scenery and you just don't notice.

9. The person in charge of the layout must check that the layout is correctly assembled and that all power leads are made as safe as possible - i.e. no trip hazards.

10. Make sure all the operators know what the layout is about so they have a chance of talking sensibly to any visitors.

11. Make sure everyone running the layout has the phone number of the person in charge of the layout. You can guarantee that if something is going to go wrong it will be when one operator is there by them self.

 

All simple and obvious stuff, but I think important.

 

For me a good exhibition is when everything runs well and I get an invite or two to take the layout to other shows. I also love chatting with the visitors while my operators do all the work! If you take your layout to a few exhibitions and don't get invited elsewhere then maybe you need to take a long hard look at your layout and how you run it at exhibitions.

 

 

One, to me obvious, thing missing from the above list is remembering to load the box of beer mats and various thicknesses of ply/hardboard/MDF off cuts. The vital, but unsung, hero of the set up day! The number of shows I have been to where I have seen people with  layouts scrabbling around for items to pack beneath the legs or spending ages adjusting screw up/down feet. Even apparently level exhibition hall floors can be a bit out, sprung school gymnasium floors as an example bowing slightly due to the weight of layouts in the central area. Possibly a bit off topic for layout issues not ready at show opening but levelling is one of the time consuming things during set-up.

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by john new
Clarity

[fulton]

21 minutes ago, john new said:

 

Even apparently level exhibition hall floors can be a bit out, sprung school gymnasium floors as an example bowing slightly due to the weight of layouts in the central area.

 

Add modern timber framed hotels, first floor function rooms, NMRA Crewe, you could feel the spring as some people walked pass, no packing at one end against a wall, 15mm the other end near the room centre.

[brossard]

31 minutes ago, john new said:

 

One, to me obvious, thing missing from the above list is remembering to load the box of beer mats and various thicknesses of ply/hardboard/MDF off cuts. The vital, but unsung, hero of the set up day! The number of shows I have been to where I have seen people with  layouts scrabbling around for items to pack beneath the legs or spending ages adjusting screw up/down feet. Even apparently level exhibition hall floors can be a bit out, sprung school gymnasium floors as an example bowing slightly due to the weight of layouts in the central area. Possibly a bit off topic for layout issues not ready at show opening but levelling is one of the time consuming things during set-up.

 

 

We have bags full of various thicknesses of ply and MDF.  One of the team is obsessive about level and will use a laser level to ensure everything is flat.  The shims are mostly for my basement floor which has a definite slope towards the sump.

 

John

[Michael Hodgson]

7 minutes ago, brossard said:

 

We have bags full of various thicknesses of ply and MDF.  One of the team is obsessive about level and will use a laser level to ensure everything is flat.  The shims are mostly for my basement floor which has a definite slope towards the sump.

 

John

It wouldn't be much good as a sump without a slope

[PaulRhB]

1 hour ago, john new said:

One, to me obvious, thing missing from the above list is remembering to load the box of beer mats and various thicknesses of ply/hardboard/MDF off cuts

I used to but sometimes you forget so now I use screw in feet M6 threads and drill T-nuts into the bottom of the legs. +/- 1 inch adjustment and you can’t forget them 😉

 

[newbryford]

12 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

I used to but sometimes you forget so now I use screw in feet M6 threads and drill T-nuts into the bottom of the legs. +/- 1 inch adjustment and you can’t forget them 😉

 

 

No good if the floor sloped that much that from front to back on a 8' wide layout was the equivalent of a housebrick difference...................

Nelson Civic centre, immediately in front of the stage

[john new]

1 minute ago, newbryford said:

 

No good if the floor sloped that much that from front to back on a 8' wide layout was the equivalent of a housebrick difference...................

Nelson Civic centre, immediately in front of the stage

And on any raked stage. Best solution is take both options. 

[brossard]

8 minutes ago, john new said:

And on any raked stage. Best solution is take both options. 

 

My legs all have adjustable feet but it is easier to stick a shim under.

 

John

[newbryford]

13 minutes ago, john new said:

And on any raked stage. Best solution is take both options. 

 

Or a case of once bitten, twice shy. 

Request a spot in the hall with a more even floor.....

[6990WitherslackHall]

 

 

6 hours ago, Chris M said:

To a large degree it is all about having rules and working to them. Here are mine:-

1. Some weeks before the event know who is going to be in charge; especially important for club layouts. 

2. Know who is coming and what stock they are bringing before the event. This is important to provide sensible set of stock for the layout. I'm very strict on this and my operators would never dare bring along any stock without prior approval.

3. All locos must be properly tested and wheels cleaned before the exhibition.  Merely testing that a loco goes round and round on an oval of track is not good enough. How is the slow running? How does it go over points? If a loco doesn't get an A then it doesn't go to the exhibition.

4. If an item of stock gives any trouble at an exhibition then immediately remove it. DO NOT FIDDLE WITH IT WHILE THE EXHIBITION IS OPEN. Sometimes a loco can be fixed and tested after closure on Saturday ready for Sunday but the best place for a troublesome item is in its box ready for the journey home.

5. Always give yourself an hour or more spare time when setting up - you might well need it if a fault has mysteriously appeared during transit. Or even worse a building has been clunked during transit.

6. Always make sure you have a complete tool set. For me this include a couple of spare controllers ( I actually had to use a spare on Sunday), various types of glue, a few (often nearly empty) bags of various types of Woodland Scenics greenery. This can disguise any number of issues that have suddenly arisen.

7. Give the layout a careful visual check as well as a track test. Sometimes things go wrong with the scenery and you just don't notice.

9. The person in charge of the layout must check that the layout is correctly assembled and that all power leads are made as safe as possible - i.e. no trip hazzards.

10. Make sure all the operators know what the layout is about so they have a chance of talking sensibly to any visitors.

11. Make sure everyone running the layout has the phone number of the person in charge of the layout. You can guarantee that if something is going to go wrong it will be when one operator is there by them self.

 

All simple and obvious stuff, but I think important.

 

For me a good exhibition is when everything runs well and I get an invite or two to take the layout to other shows. I also love chatting with the visitors while my operators do all the work! If you take your layout to a few exhibitions and don't get invited elsewhere then maybe you need to take a long hard look at your layout and how you run it at exhibitions.

 

As someone who had a layout that wasn't ready for literally half of an exhibition, I strongly recommend you do this. 

[Pete the Elaner]

I remember at what I believe was the first RMWeb members day in Mickelover, I was there helping a friend showing his layout.

I had just partially re-wired it, but we needed his old control panel to operate the points.

When we set up, he could not find the panel so believed he had left it at home. He considered this as something slightly different to a show, so while annoyed & embarrassed by it, he did not feel as bad as if it was a show with paying visitors.

Even though I spent the first 2-3 hours of that day out of sight & underneath the boards, I was still enjoying chatting to fellow members.

When we packed up, we discovered that the original panel was there after all. We don't know how it was missed earlier.

 

I needed to do that work at some time or other so it was nice to get it out of the way!

[6990WitherslackHall]

Since I've been reading everyone's experiences when showing layouts, I think it's time I told mine. 

 

I took Oxendale for its first ever exhibition: Bridlington Model Railway Show in Emmanuel Church on 02/09/23, however it didn't go to plan. A lot of things happened during the day so I'm just going to summarize it:

 

Oxendale wasn't working properly and even though we did A LOT of track cleaning before and after we got to the venue, the locos would stall at certain points on the track. 

 

On the lower level, the powerfeed is located at the station headshunt (the red circle) and had been working fine until the day of the show. The blue is what parts of the track the loco ran on, everything else was dead. My Grandad had to do an emergency soldering job and had to put another powerfeed on (green circle). Even with this now added, it still wouldn't work properly. The higher level did work but not properly: 51218 kept going slow despite the controller being set to full power. 
 

 

It was now 08:30 and my Grandad said he'd have to leave me to sort it out as he had his layout to set up so he left me and I thought about what I could do. 

 

Before I knew it, it was 10:00am (the time the show started) and people started coming in. I was now a bit tense as my layout still wasn't working and I hadn't even put any people or cars on as I was too concentrated in getting the layout operational. I thought the point blades needed cleaning so I used a bit of emery paper (it's like very fine sandpaper) to clean it. Tested a loco and... nothing. Still stalled in the same place. Having just about given up, I decided to leave it for now and just put some locos and rolling stock on display and talk to people. I chose to put D5061 and 80136 (with its new NYMR MPD headboard) on display on the lower level and 69023 (now completely dead) and 51218 on the higher level. 

 

It wasn't until 11:30ish that I got the high level line fully working. I managed to do it with the track rubber, slightly bending the point blades, the emery paper plus running a retractable blade down the sides of the rails to get rid of stray ballast. Also of note, I didn't have any lunch as the planned burger van didn't show up so I had nothing to eat except for a packet of crisps and a can of Fanta. 

 

 

12:30pm: Disaster strikes.

 

I was running Ivatt 4MT tank 41224 on the high level running line when the one thing you do not want to happen at a show happened: The loco went into the buffers in the fiddleyard too quickly and fell straight on the hard wooden floor with a loud bang. 

 

The damage? The windows glazing came out, both bogies came apart and a corner of the bufferbeam sheared off completely. One of the club members rushed over to see what had happened and check that everything was okay. I asked him to keep an eye on the layout while I rang my dad up and look for the missing pieces. (I was stressed so I called him up and asked him to come to the show so I could talk to him in person). 

 

The extent of the damage:

 

 

 

After I called my dad up, I immediately help the other club member looking for the missing bits. It took us nearly 30 minutes to them all with help from several members of the public.

 

It wasn't until 02:00pm that I managed to, eventually, get the layout fully working, and decorated with people and vehicles. My Dad arrived about half 2pm. I explained to him what was going on and how stressed I was. He stayed with me for about 15 minutes.

 

 

On the plus side, I had lots of interest in the layout, with most of it going to the police box with the flashing light which was on the entire time. Plus 80136 received a lot of interest. 

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by 6990WitherslackHall

[Danemouth]

You certainly had an interesting time 😟 The accident with the loco is something we all dread and i will admit to having a near escape on a couple of occasions.

 

Still it was a valuable learning experience - don't let it put you off exhibiting.

 

Dave

 

 

[MarcD]

I have had a couple of close calls. But moving to micro layouts they have become less of an issue.  My biggest issue now is getting to the show with enough time to clean down and stick the stock on and a test run.

[lofty.ian]

Lots of good advice in the posts so far. I think you can classify problems into three groups - ones that should have been sorted before the show (testing), ones that happen during the show but which one can anticipate (spare locos) and ones which one didn’t think about.

I took my layout to a Leeds exhibition, as against helping a friends layout.

I tested before going, i had check lists, spares and tool kits. 
part way through the first morning all the points started playing up. We thought it was the CDU, but I had a spare. A quick change, which the wiring allowed for, and things seemed ok.  An hour or so later and the problem recurred. I bought another CDU from a trade stand and I decided it was going to be a very expensive show. We ended running a simple sequence to keep things running with minimal point operation. 
back at home, everything worked perfectly including the CDUs I had replaced. It turned out that the push buttons operating the points were sometimes sticking and draining the CDU. They didn’t like the warm exhibition hall.

should I have anticipated that? Should I  have diagnosed the problem quicker? 
Running a simple sequence without points made it a ‘pointless’ layout but we had more time to chat with visitors 

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Since I've been reading everyone's experiences when showing layouts, I think it's time I told mine. 

 

I took Oxendale for its first ever exhibition: Bridlington Model Railway Show in Emmanuel Church on 02/09/23, however it didn't go to plan. A lot of things happened during the day so I'm just going to summarize it:

 

Oxendale wasn't working properly and even though we did A LOT of track cleaning before and after we got to the venue, the locos would stall at certain points on the track. 

 

On the lower level, the powerfeed is located at the station headshunt (the red circle) and had been working fine until the day of the show. The blue is what parts of the track the loco ran on, everything else was dead. My Grandad had to do an emergency soldering job and had to put another powerfeed on (green circle). Even with this now added, it still wouldn't work properly. The higher level did work but not properly: 51218 kept going slow despite the controller being set to full power. 
 

 

It was now 08:30 and my Grandad said he'd have to leave me to sort it out as he had his layout to set up so he left me and I thought about what I could do. 

 

Before I knew it, it was 10:00am (the time the show started) and people started coming in. I was now a bit tense as my layout still wasn't working and I hadn't even put any people or cars on as I was too concentrated in getting the layout operational. I thought the point blades needed cleaning so I used a bit of emery paper (it's like very fine sandpaper) to clean it. Tested a loco and... nothing. Still stalled in the same place. Having just about given up, I decided to leave it for now and just put some locos and rolling stock on display and talk to people. I chose to put D5061 and 80136 (with its new NYMR MPD headboard) on display on the lower level and 69023 (now completely dead) and 51218 on the higher level. 

 

It wasn't until 11:30ish that I got the high level line fully working. I managed to do it with the track rubber, slightly bending the point blades, the emery paper plus running a retractable blade down the sides of the rails to get rid of stray ballast. Also of note, I didn't have any lunch as the planned burger van didn't show up so I had nothing to eat except for a packet of crisps and a can of Fanta. 

 

 

12:30pm: Disaster strikes.

 

I was running Ivatt 4MT tank 41224 on the high level running line when the one thing you do not want to happen at a show happened: The loco went into the buffers in the fiddleyard too quickly and fell straight on the hard wooden floor with a loud bang. 

 

The damage? The windows glazing came out, both bogies came apart and a corner of the bufferbeam sheared off completely. One of the club members rushed over to see what had happened and check that everything was okay. I asked him to keep an eye on the layout while I rang my dad up and look for the missing pieces. (I was stressed so I called him up and asked him to come to the show so I could talk to him in person). 

 

The extent of the damage:

 

 

 

After I called my dad up, I immediately help the other club member looking for the missing bits. It took us nearly 30 minutes to them all with help from several members of the public.

 

It wasn't until 02:00pm that I managed to, eventually, get the layout fully working, and decorated with people and vehicles. My Dad arrived about half 2pm. I explained to him what was going on and how stressed I was. He stayed with me for about 15 minutes.

 

 

On the plus side, I had lots of interest in the layout, with most of it going to the police box with the flashing light which was on the entire time. Plus 80136 received a lot of interest. 

 

It sounds as though you did the best you could given the original circumstances with the layout not working properly. The loco falling off is really unfortunate but I feel like it’s also exactly the sort of thing that happens when you’re already stressed about other stuff. Hope you manage to salvage something of the Ivatt.

 

1 hour ago, Danemouth said:

You certainly had an interesting time 😟 The accident with the loco is something we all dread and i will admit to having a near escape on a couple of occasions.

 

Still it was a valuable learning experience - don't let it put you off exhibiting.

 

Dave

 

 

I’ve accidentally dropped a loco on the floor once, I think purely through careless handling and not due to an operational mistake per se. Amazingly the loco survived (it is nowadays rather worn out and doesn’t run as regularly as before but this is because it’s old, not due to damage sustained). I also have a layout (not exhibited regularly any more though) where a train going too fast might have problems if it derailed on a high level curve in the fiddleyard. Another micro layout I have is an automatic shuttle so the end of the track is protected by a diode, but I have to be careful when using one of my other micro layouts (with otherwise similar ‘stick’ fiddleyard) to remember that it doesn’t have this.
 

I’ve also displayed a layout on a small high-level table (table provided by myself, not the venue) where it became apparent on the day that the table wasn’t level, requiring me to rearrange everything so that the wagons at least rolled away towards the end of the scenic sidings, and not back towards the loco or, worse, to the point and then fiddleyard where they would derail.