The first big Model Railway Exhibition I ever went to...

[andyman7]

In my case it was EUFMO '80 at the Westminster Central Halls. I've found this Railway Modeller advert for it - wow, I'd forgotten that back then it was on for whole week during the Summer holidays! I remember buying my first 'brand new' (as opposed to secondhand) loco there - a Hornby R156 Diesel Shunter on offer for £6.50 from the Beatties stand 

[MarkSG]

My first was the 1978 show at the same venue. I persuaded my dad to take me! In later years, when I was a bit older, I was allowed to travel down to London on the train on my own.

 

[Damo666]

1 hour ago, andyman7 said:

In my case it was EUFMO '80 at the Westminster Central Halls. I've found this Railway Modeller advert for it - wow, I'd forgotten that back then it was on for whole week during the Summer holidays! I remember buying my first 'brand new' (as opposed to secondhand) loco there - a Hornby R156 Diesel Shunter on offer for £6.50 from the Beatties stand 

I remember coming from Ireland to London for a holiday in my late teens with a friend and going to this!

 

Thanks for the memories.

[Mark Forrest]

I was fortunate to attend a number of big shows in my early teens (late 80s/early 90s) - in many cases it cost me little more than a £1 Rail Railers voucher, happy days.

IMREX, Glasgow and Chatham Dockyard spring to mind as large and memorable shows of that era.

[08221]

Going to EUFMO and the MRC shows at Central Hall were highlights of my youth. A ride to London on a class 310, tube across central London then a day watching model railways - happy memories and have shaped my life in so many ways. 

[CKPR]

The Easter shows at York in 1976 & 19 77- boiling hot, cramped (remember those pillars in the Assembly Rooms ?) and chock full of classic 1970s layouts. From memory, I can recall  'Rewley Road',  'Winton', 'Yatton Junction', Bill Hudson's 'Tideswell' and Ian Futers latest 4mm NBR layout.

[Pacific231G]

When I was very young, probably in the late 50s very early 60s, I went to the MRC show in Central Hall two or three times with my father. In those days he could just drive into Westminster and park on a nearby side-street!

The only layout I can actually remember was Wilbert Awdrey's Ffarquhar  (Mk1) which he was operating. Though I'd had a couple of his books I'd never been a great fan of the Railway Series and, even as a child,  thought locomotives with faces silly. However, there was none of that on Ffarquhar and I remember it being an interesting layout.

 

I don't recall going to any other exhibtions in those years but they were far fewer then.  If there was one in Oxford we didn't go to it (though we did have Howes in Broad Street then) 

Edited March 20 by Pacific231G

[D-A-T]

The first Exhibition I went to was Doncaster MRC’s exhibition at Danum Grammar School. Late 70s it would be. I think the exhibition would have been January(ish) as I spent my Christmas and Birthday money on the Linka plaster moulding system there.

The first big time exhibition, like @CKPR, was York, again late 70s at the Assembly Rooms and the DeGrey Tea Rooms. The pillars stuck in my mind as well! I saw my first Ian Futer’s layout there, a roundy-roundy which has stuck with me ever since plus later Lochside which was a big influence on me. Now my memory fails me as it was either Yatton or Winton (possibly neither!) which had a sign up saying an Express Streamliner would be going through at 3pm and I thereafter kept nagging my parents as to what time it was so we wouldn’t miss it 🤣

[St Enodoc]

Central Hall, Easter 1966. I've still got the handbook somewhere.

[sandwich station]

I think the first show I went to was at the Royal Marine Barracks in Deal and run by The Deal and District Model Railway Club, early 1980's

[TheQ]

1977 possibly 1978 Bristol Show, held in a hall at the docks. Exhibiting with RAF Locking MRC's first layout. A big layout which won an award for its trackwork, not my work. Other than general scenery work my main contribution was on a large roundhouse.

[fulton]

4 hours ago, sandwich station said:

I think the first show I went to was at the Royal Marine Barracks in Deal and run by The Deal and District Model Railway Club, early 1980's

Have fond memories of those shows, in particular the Rubarb Crumble in the army mess!

[fulton]

Central Hall Westminster, helping on the Chatham Clubs Heathfield layout, I was a junior member then.

[cornelius]

Big, or big?

 

My local growing up was Wolverhampton which always seemed to be a pretty decent size in the 80s and was on for 3 days on a bank holiday weekend. One year we went twice as there was an excellent Swiss layout which really captured my imagination, it was modelled down to even the same cars being parked at the station as had been there during the builder's photo survey.

 

A chap could still smoke a pipe indoors at that time and that sense memory stays with me.

 

Later I spent a couple of holidays staying with my grandad near London and he took me in to the Central Hall show, I was blown away! I saw Pete Wilson's Chwarel Cwm Bach there (008 rather than 009) so it must have been the very late 80s or early 90s.

[James Makin]

My first big show - Warley 1999! 

 

Amongst the layouts, the centrepiece was Pete Waterman's BR Blue Class 37 - 37029 - the everlasting memory being just how ridiculously large a locomotive is when viewed from ground level, blew my 13yr old mind at the time!

[Legend]

Must have been Model Rail Scotland in the MacLellan Galleries maybe 1970 . I say this because I bought the Tri-ang Hornby book of trains and I think it came out in 1969 .  Mesmerising to a wee boy . I remember a large O gauge layout with a wire down centre of track which was the pick up .I remember wondering why that was necessary as my model railway picked up from 2 rails ! Followed on with my Mum taking me to the show in 1973. Nigel MacMillans Campbeltown and Macrihanish layout which was an ingenious narrow gauge layout with two sides depicting different scenes , the harbour and the other side a mine . Then there was the Renfrewshire Model Clubs Elderslie . A huge layout modelling the double junction at Elderslie - special because it was only a 30 min walk from where I lived . From 1974  I was allowed to go myself.   Model Rail Scotland as well as being an excellent show, still evokes all these memories even though it’s been in the Scottish Exhibition Centre since 1990 ?  My poor Mum , feigned interest but must have been bored , but she spent the time because she knew I loved trains . 

[St Enodoc]

24 minutes ago, Legend said:

Then there was the Renfrewshire Model Clubs Elderslie . A huge layout modelling the double junction at Elderslie - special because it was only a 30 min walk from where I lived .

Did you ever see the layout in its full form? It included the termini at Greenock Prince's Pier and Glasgow St Enoch (usually referred to as St Eunuch, because only one of the two train sheds was modelled). Disclosure - I was a member of Renfrewshire MRC for a very brief period in the late 70s.

Edited March 21 by St Enodoc

[Legend]

15 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Did you ever see the layout in its full form? It included the termini at Greenock Prince's Pier and Glasgow St Enoch (usually referred to as St Eunuch, because only one of the two train sheds was modelled). Disclosure - I was a member of Renfrewshire MRC for a very brief period in the late 70s.

Unfortunately never saw it all joined together . I think the best I achieved was seeing Prince’s Pier and St Enoch joined together , must have been early eighties , again the MacLellan Galleries . I think I can date it early - mid eighties because they were running lots of the then new Lima Class 117s to simulate local dmu services . 
 

These were great layouts , full of inspiration . It was the stuff dreams were made of !  Back home , full of ideas to rebuild my 4 by 8 ! 

[CKPR]

8 hours ago, D-A-T said:

The first Exhibition I went to was Doncaster MRC’s exhibition at Danum Grammar School. Late 70s it would be. I think the exhibition would have been January(ish) as I spent my Christmas and Birthday money on the Linka plaster moulding system there.

 Now my memory fails me as it was either Yatton or Winton (possibly neither!) which had a sign up saying an Express Streamliner would be going through at 3pm and I thereafter kept nagging my parents as to what time it was so we wouldn’t miss it 🤣

Definitely Winton ! It was the subject of an article in RM November 1976 and it describes the climax of the Silver Jubilee running non-stop through the station.

[DaveF]

Central Halls Westminster around 1954/5 with Mum & Dad, I'd have been 5 or 6 years old.  A J69 Dad had built was on display in a showcase of his local club's models.   By the standards of the day it was quite a nice model.

 

I can just remember it - or to be more eaxct what seemed like a very long train journey from Nottingham and seeing layouts which were beyond my wildest dreams - at the time I had a train set plus two sidings on a board in my bedroom.  Sometimes I was allowed to run Dad's layout in the spare room.

 

David

Edited March 21 by DaveF

[Jeepy]

Westminster for me too, 70s it would've been, with my Father......I don't recall the name of the layout but I do remember us standing there mesmerised as my Father was trying to work out how one train disappeared into a tunnel at the back then another one with different liveried coaches came out the other end at the front......the operator eventually gave up his secret and showed us the coaches that were painted a different livery on either side! 😆,

 

Cheers,

 

Jim.

[Steven B]

Manchester New Century Hall, mid 1980s. Often on a Friday evening (late night as no school the next day!), getting the train to Victoria. Chee Tor and the large scale tram layout are still vivid in my memories!

 

Also went to Rochdale, Bolton and Heywood shows around the same time. It was quite exciting seeing traders who's names I'd seen advertised in Railway Modeller.

 

Steven B

[Invicta]

I seem to have been a bit of a late starter with exhibitions, not helped by a couple of lengthy breaks from active modelling since my teens- I remember going to a couple of small local shows as a kid , then in my student days, Newcastle at the Guildhall in the late 80's. After that,  nothing much until I moved to Kent and started doing the rounds of the Kent shows, Canterbury, Folkestone, Ashford, Tonbridge, Chatham Dockyard etc in the early/mid 90's - the first big national show I went to was Ally Pally in the early 2000's. 

 

 

Edited March 23 by Invicta

[DLT]

As a child, me and my cousins were taken the The Central Hall in the mid-1960s, during the brief period that we lived near London.

I clearly remember the big circular layout (from Southend?) and a short indoor passenger carrying line.

It was crowded, and might have been the first time I had a Coca Cola...

[bécasse]

My first was the 1954 Model Railway Club show at Central Hall when I would have been eight. I joined The MRC in 1960 and so stewarded from 1961 onwards except in 1969 (August that year), when I was a demonstrator for the first time, and in 1971 and 1974 (and also at Wembley in 1985), when I was a layout exhibitor.

 

Rather to my astonishment, I have exhibited layouts in France on six occasions since moving to Belgium thirteen years ago.