London Festival of Railway Modelling - Alexandra Palace, London

[Highlandman]

Visited Ally Pally today. Good show and enjoyed the exhibits. There were nice wide aisles and it wasn't as busy as i thought it might be. Here are some of my better pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you like them.

[Scale7JB]

Can you build an entire, sprung, Scale 7 engine and have it running in a weekend, whilst demonstrating at an exhibition ?

 

YES !

 

Okay, it's not entirely finished, but it's really not far off... Total build time so far approximately 14 hours..

 

 

JB.

[Andy C]

_{Just back after a good run up the M1 - the only hassle we had all weekend was trying to get the van past a fair number of inconsiderate traders who decided to put their stock in the ailes designated for van / car traffic. We had a brilliant weekend, New Hey ran faultlessly all weekend, very few unenforced errors. good to see many RM Web members and have a good chat with them, Baby Deltic, Buckjumper, Sandside, Gordon S and many more.}

 

_{My thanks to the MRC and Warners for organising a really good do. I won't mention the hotel breakfast chaos though, they (the hotel) received some very forthright feedback on that svore!!}

[roundhouse]

Yes, we had problems trying to get our small trollies down some of the aisles. Some traders are very good but others not so.

 

The only downside of doing this show is the loading and unloading. We are normally down and ready to load in 20 minutes but had a loading pass for 45 minutes after the show so decided to load via the lift into the lower car park.it always amazes me that the traders get in there immediately after the show closes but the rest of us can't. The Gestapo security seemed to be much better this year than in past years.

 

Good to see the real ale bar which is a nice return of decent beer to the venue aft some years.

 

 

Still, it's a well organised show considering the logistics of such a large place situated on a hillside.

 

Ian

[fiesta]

Seems to me there are few references this year to Hornby as opposed to other top manufacturers! As someone earlier said

there was a "relatively weak presence of Hornby" - why was that - normally they are forerunners!

[micklner]

Their stand IMHO is very poor and this year was even worse. The only Locos on display were the mock ups for the B17's as last year and not much else. They had the usual couple of very small basic layouts.

 

No comparison to Bachmanns effort onmock ups of new releases .

 

Didnt pay much attention to traders as ebay serves most of my needs in rtr

[Dave777]

Went today with Natalie. Had a great day. Great to catch up and put names to faces with several people.

 

Was that you taking photos on your iPhone in the West Hall around 4pm?

 

 

Disorganised jumble of thoughts on the day:

• Walk up the hill from the car park seemed a doddle this year - weird. I was puffing and panting 12 months ago!
  
• Not too crowded, and as per previous years once you get past 2pm on the Sunday the layouts thin out considerably and you can pretty much walk up to any and get a spot.
  

 

Traders:

• Won’t bore you with my purchases (not too sure why we have to list what we bought, is it of interest to anyone else?!)
  
• Lady on the Cheltenham stand was… brusk. I think my purchase was an irritation to her (although it was 4:15pm on the Sunday so maybe bonhomie was getting a little scarce by that point!)
  
• Some decent secondhand books for once, and at competitive prices…
  
• …unlike the new books which were at full RRP as if the interweb had never been invented…
  
• …which also applies to some of the secondhand tat that passes as ‘collectible’ rolling stock (as John Upton mentioned earlier in the thread). Some people really need a wake up call on what passes as saleable items & pricing. Unboxed Lima coaches for £8? Unboxed Hornby TTAs for £6? (you can buy them new + boxed for £4!). Unpainted Hornby 1970s-spec open wagons with missing couplers for £4? Blimey people, take 50% of those prices, generate some funds and save yourself the job of having to load it back into the van at the end of the day.
  
• Why are Hornby looking so tired in so much of what they do these days? They just seem to have really lost their mojo.
  

 

Layouts:

• Loch Tat was good (good water)
  
• Burntisland was excellent.
  
• Sound chipped class 37 on Mini-MSW was impressive, the first time I think I’ve heard N gauge sound (was there a general lack of sound-equipped layouts this year?)
  
• The Hornby Dublo setup was strangely mesmerising – there really is something about watching trains circulate endlessly with the controller whacked up near the top. I also like the fact that despite the hopeless inaccuracy of everything there is some attempt at prototypical running – the barrier wagon between the loco and tank wagons, for example
  
• Leighton Buzzard ticked the box – I felt strangely privileged to witness this slice of modelling history. Not only did it look ‘right’ for a terminus to fiddleyard setup, but the fact that you look around it and consider that practically everything you’re looking at is scratchbuilt or at least handbuilt is a sobering thought. And to think I complain about the odd bit of missing detail on a RTR release…
  
• The 3rd or 4th time I’ve seen New Hey and yet still a decent watch. Good selection of stock, always something moving, sparse & bleak scenic modelling.
  
• Generally the layouts were of high standard throughout, with only one or two duffers.
  
• (have to say, looking at some of the photos above, there’s one or two I don’t remember seeing)
  

 

Controversial bit: Liverpool Lime Street – I feel I just don’t ‘get’ this layout. The station roofs are astounding pieces of modelling, and the control panel was a work of art in itself (as was the auto traverser in the fiddleyard). Moving cars? Still not convinced, it’s the constant speed that I find slightly unnerving, I think. The car comes down a hill, pulls out into a road, goes round a corner and overtakes a tram without any reduction in speed. Perhaps it needs some sort of power drop off at turns to slow it down realistically before it accelerates off again. And looking from the station building end, as the car comes down the hill it makes a swerve around… one of the pieces of wood supporting the lighting pelmet

 

As for the layout and operation, I was there for 10 mins at 3:45pm and I saw 3 trains move. I seem to have this expectation that bigger layouts should have more operating, but perhaps that’s wrong – I just find it odd that smaller layouts can frequently get two trains moving and yet here was a big one that operated a ‘one engine in steam’ principle (despite two operators). And yet again it’s another case of slavish following of a prototype not always making for a great model – the station area is lovely, but why also model the road embankment in front of it so it blocks your view? The good bit was the station throat… so why put the two operators there so you have two heads partially blocking your view?! It’s early days I guess and probably still plenty of bugs to iron out, but personally speaking I was under whelmed after all the fuss about it.

 

A very ambitious piece of modelling that looks good now and will be superb once finished… but is it a good exhibition layout…?

[The Stationmaster]

Their stand IMHO is very poor and this year was even worse. The only Locos on display were the mock ups for the B17's as last year and not much else. They had the usual couple of very small basic layouts.

 

Did you miss a certain 2-8-0 by some chance? It was there.

 

I don't think Hornby are necessarily worse than they were (and maybe they can't get the trailer into that hall?) it's just that the others seem to have leapt past them in out & out appeal beyond the trainset. Dapol for instance didn't have a vast amount of display space but there was some 'exciting' stuff in it and someone (i.e. David Jones) right next to it to fly the flag and walk the talk. Bachmann have lots of display space compared with Hornby but the latter put a senior man up (i.e. Simon Kohler) who seems to be perpetually engaged in talking to his company's customers - maybe they're doing something right but need to up their approach on displays of new stuff?

[Les Green]

_{On behalf of the Lime Street crew, I would like to thank all the orgainisers of the exhibition. We had a fantastic weekend. The staff at the Palace were always smiling and helpful, especially the young girl on duty at the disabled car park on the Saturday morning. After a bit of sweet talking from us she let us park there! All the comments about the layout are taken home and discussed in detail to see how better to present the layout to the public. Not sure about fluctuating the speed of the cars though!}

_{The only down side of operating the layout over the weekend was almost severing my finger when it caught in the traverser!! Ouch!}

[Torn-on-the-platform]

Seems to me there are few references this year to Hornby as opposed to other top manufacturers! As someone earlier said

there was a "relatively weak presence of Hornby" - why was that - normally they are forerunners!

 

Their stand IMHO is very poor and this year was even worse. The only Locos on display were the mock ups for the B17's as last year and not much else. They had the usual couple of very small basic layouts.

 

Hit the nail on the head really. Their stand has changed very little over the years and was never very exciting to begin with. Two small cabinets with very little progress seen on the products within them - I'm sure we've had decorated samples of the B17s for a fair few months now? It would seem they simply have very little to show for themselves as Bachmann are making strides forwards into untapped waters.

 

Bachmann's staff were all friendly and were almost always engaged in a conversation with a member of the public. People could grab a reasonable bargain, whilst having their questions answered by the experts. None of Dapol's immediate forthcoming releases are of much interest to me so I didn't spend much time at their stand, but the staff all seemed to have the same positive attitude as Bachmann's during my brief visit.

 

I won't say any more about this at risk of going off-topic.

[micklner]

Well no idea where the O1 was hiding ?? Mr Kohler was getting swamped when I was there

 

As to Bachmann Dennis Lovett was there about 1 ish.

[The Stationmaster]

Well no idea where the O1 was hiding ?? Mr Kohler was getting swamped when I was there

As to Bachmann Dennis Lovett was there about 1 ish.

The O1 was in the showcase right at the front of the 'stand' but that area was quite crowded and you had to wait for folk to clear away in order to see it. And yes SK did seem to be perpetually mobbed with a queue waiting to speak so after a brief word I emailed him last night (and had a reply this a.m.) regarding the GW 8 coupled tanks.

[jcm@gwr]

And yes SK did seem to be perpetually mobbed with a queue waiting to speak so after a brief word I emailed him last night (and had a reply this a.m.) regarding the GW 8 coupled tanks.

Well we are all intrigued!

Cos I was wondering where they were.

Are you going to let us into the secret?

Jeff

[polybear]

Ok....who was the guy walking around in bare feet....

[The Stationmaster]

Well we are all intrigued!

Cos I was wondering where they were.

Are you going to let us into the secret?

Jeff

No secret - just another attempt on my part to try and make sure they don't make themselves look stupid with running numbers and various details. Mr K did say what stage he thought they had reached but no need to get excited in my view because if they are on time they won't be here before October. (apologies for veering O/T)

[Dave777]

_{Not sure about fluctuating the speed of the cars though!}

 

I don't know a great deal about electronics (as I'm about to reveal), but I'm assuming the cars work by the Faller car system or similar? That being the case, is there any way the power of the wire could be reduced at the bottom of the hill so that it slows down at that point? Once it's back out on the street normal power levels are resumed. That's the kind of thing I was thinking of.

 

 

Edit: Just out of interest, I tried a search and found a link to this site:

http://modelleisenbahn-claus.de/index.htm

 

(you can drop it into Google for a (not entirely successful) translation)

 

As far as I can tell, that's a DCC-controlled car system that enables varying speeds, including acceleration and deceleration, although it might be getting into a black art that takes focus away from the rest of the layout, hence my lower-tech 'reduce the power where you want it to slow down' approach (which may be totally impossible for all I know ).

[Michael Delamar]

Lime street's car system is faller which are powered by a rechargable battery so its hard to get them to speed up and slow down.

 

it does add interest when the station is quiet, and it does get quiet, that can and will be improved with more stock and better intigrating of timetable, but even then with any terminus station, it will always have some time even if you see 2 trains going in, 2 going out,thats 4 trains going at once, just after that there will be a slight lull.

operations will be happening, but because of the size of it, not always in every area, the cutting may be quiet while light engine movements are happening in the station area for example.

 

the layout would be harder to operate from the back, the front has its problems too, as has been said they can be in the way of the public, or maybe distracted by a member of the public asking questions which has the the possiblity of slowing things down.

 

 

the potential is there, its not easy again because its a terminus, if it was a through station then you can keep things moving easier

[PLD]

I'm assuming the cars work by the Faller car system or similar? That being the case, is there any way the power of the wire could be reduced at the bottom of the hill so that it slows down at that point? Once it's back out on the street normal power levels are resumed. That's the kind of thing I was thinking of.

If it is Faller, power is from an on-board battery; there is no power in the guide wire to vary...

[Fen End Pit]

_{On behalf of the Lime Street crew, I would like to thank all the orgainisers of the exhibition. We had a fantastic weekend.}

 

The Fen End Pit team would reiterate that. We had a great time too. There was a hiccup with the room for one of the operators, but it got sorted out quickly. We had a brief problem of my own making when i didn't take the ticket giving access to loading are back to the car at the end of the show. Still I was amazed that we were on the road only 1 hour after doors close which is good time for us.

 

My small storage box will hopefully respond to counciling soon, It got a bit of an inferiority complex spending the weekend next to the larger and better build boxes behind Lime Street!

 

David

[Les Green]

We had a brief problem of my own making when i didn't take the ticket giving access to loading are back to the car at the end of the show. Still I was amazed that we were on the road only 1 hour after doors close which is good time for us.

David

 

I saw you coming back in to the hall when you had forgotten to take your ticket. That threw us in to panic mode as we had lost ours! Found it in a stock box eventually.

I think were about the last out at seven o'clock.

Les

[C.A.T.Ford]

Did anyone get photographs of that Midland iron ore branch up by the Real ale bar they could put up please? I think it was called Empingham, the scenery looked rather good and the operation seemed OK. Overall I thought the layouts at the show were stronger this year than last. However it would be nice if some of the bits and pieces traders (wheels buffers etc.) could be present.

 

Colin

[jcm@gwr]

No secret - just another attempt on my part to try and make sure they don't make themselves look stupid with running numbers and various details. Mr K did say what stage he thought they had reached but no need to get excited in my view because if they are on time they won't be here before October. (apologies for veering O/T)

Fair enough, and thanks for the update/quick reply.

Trouble is, I can't help getting excited!

Jeff

[Geoff Endacott]

Ok....who was the guy walking around in bare feet....

 

Yogi?

 

Geoff Endacott

[Ravenser]

Did anyone get photographs of that Midland iron ore branch up by the Real ale bar they could put up please? I think it was called Empingham, the scenery looked rather good and the operation seemed OK. Overall I thought the layouts at the show were stronger this year than last. However it would be nice if some of the bits and pieces traders (wheels buffers etc.) could be present.

Colin

Happy to oblige:


And some others which haven't appeared




(in 3mm)

[Andy C]

The 3rd or 4th time I’ve seen New Hey and yet still a decent watch. Good selection of stock, always something moving, sparse & bleak scenic modelling.

 

 

 

Thank you for that Dave, its most appreciated - You get it!! Sparse and bleak is what New Hey exactly is, nestled in a Pennine valley it could be nothing else, my only regret as i explained to someone who commented that the only thing wrong is that it should be raining, was that I had thought about installing shower heads on the pelmet to give the watching audience a good late June downpour, but the health and safety police may have something to say about mixing water and 240 volts on the lighting rig.

 

One of the aims is to have something moving across the front all the time - whilst we run to what is effectively the actual working timetable to the line, its accelerated so one train follows the next immediately its gone into the fiddleyard at the back. Inevitably there will be occasions where nowt is on front of house, but its usually only a matter of 10 -20 seconds and I reckon theres plenty else to look at on the layout in that time.

 

Ive modelled the stock on prototype trains, although there are one or two interlopers in there, and everying gets a weathering in various degress from one to ten. Next time you see it (Scheduled at Stockport in May, Holmfirth in October and possibly Southampton in January) there will be even more as the fiddleyard is getting 3 extra roads in the next few weeks. One will contain a tractor train - in the early 60s disused mills in The Oldham Rochdale area were used to store tractors from the Coventry area before export - usually hauled by a Nuneaton based G2. Possibly another block train too on the other side, and in the final berth a 6 car DMU. In Nanking Blue. We have photos which suggest it used the route to get to Bury Bolton Street in 1966 on a charter.

 

Having had 24 hours to reflect on the show, and the annoyance re the strip down has dissipated, once again what a cracking show. We saw some excellent layouts, not seen Fen Pit before but what a superb model and concept. Burntisland, Loch Tat (do I detect a Scottish influence) and East Lynn and Nunstanton are some personal favourites. Thanks once again organisers.