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How to get lynched at a model railway show


BR60103
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I've nearly been lynched when announcing the buffet at the Saturday Social.   I did once announce that it was open initially for our exhibitors then members with their families, then traders, apart from a certian Mr Petty, then the rest of the members.  however there were three members who always won the competition as to how much food they could get on a plate (they even beat Mr P) then one year when the bar service was slow I noticed that all three were just about to get served at the bar and at that point announced that members could go.  The looks on their three faces had to be seen to be believed, trying to decide which way to go, abandon their place in the bar queue or head for the buffet before the rush.  It was worth the near lynching.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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Ways to get lynched,

1. Well as a male show up in a full drag queen outfit behaving very effeminately.

2. As an exhibitor run a steam era layout with every express passenger loco on a goods train and vice versa. To keep the GWR fans happy have a King shunting complete with a shunters truck at either end.

3. On a DCC layout be very absorbed and when someone is filming, then start saying in a loud enough voice the "ch" "ch" sounds and "toot toooooooot!!!".

4. On reaching the counter of a trade stand start a conversation on your mobile phone telling the person behind the counter to stop talking whilst your on your phone, or text endlessly.

5. On reaching a major manufacturer's stand say in a loud voice that their products are over priced rubbish.

6. Tell the exhibitors of a finescale railway that their toy choo choo trains are lovely.  

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A show in Southend in the early 2000s: a beautifully made and fine-running steam era layout... all operators in matching polo shirts with name badges etc. The concentration and pride on their faces was shattered when my son (then seven or eight) announced rather loudly that he thought that the steam engines were "crap" and could we please "go and find some diesels now?"... Having reunited him with his mother and sister, I did pop back to apologise, but the look on their faces told me I'd be wasting my time...

Edited by Pete_S
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I kind of agree and disagree, if that's possible. I have nothing but admiration for the skill that went into the building of a layout like that. I don't see why they should introduce a RTR dmu from the hidden storage sidings to complete a lap or two at a scale 120mph just to please my 8yr-old. My 8yr-old, however, didn't give a monkeys about the point rodding or handbuilt track and just wanted to go and look at something he could relate to...

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Ask an operator of the biggest dcc layout on show if he can demonstrate cleaning the rails, whilst pulling a pad of steel wool out of your show bag and tell him it was a 'freebie' from a trade stand down the other end of the hall...

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Just take my wife to the average exhibition of today - her reaction to diesels is not unlike that of the above 8 year old to steam. Strangely though she does not mind electrics. She actually admired an EMI (class 76 but in old livery) at Telford.

Edited by Poggy1165
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There is a passage in Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood" ...

 

Time passes. Listen. Time passes.

Come closer now.

Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you can see, in the blinded bedrooms, the coms. and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing dickybird-watching pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.

From where you are, you can hear their dreams.

 

... which for me expresses how we should view models - we cannot, in all seriousness, represent every aspect of railway operation. We can represent it, but there must be a belief that is encompassed in the phrase quoted above "Only you can see ..."

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A show in Southend in the early 2000s: a beautifully made and fine-running steam era layout... all operators in matching polo shirts with name badges etc. The concentration and pride on their faces was shattered when my son (then seven or eight) announced rather loudly that he thought that the steam engines were "crap" and could we please "go and find some diesels now?"... Having reunited him with his mother and sister, I did pop back to apologise, but the look on their faces told me I'd be wasting my time...

 

I trust that you did explain to your lad that it's not the done thing to refer to other people's pleasures as "crap", even if he is likely to hear the term from some of his elders and (alas) not-necessarily-betters.

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Ask an operator of the biggest dcc layout on show if he can demonstrate cleaning the rails, whilst pulling a pad of steel wool out of your show bag and tell him it was a 'freebie' from a trade stand down the other end of the hall...

You are welcome to try this on my layout on one condition... that you keep hold of the wire wool!

 

Andi 

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I trust that you did explain to your lad that it's not the done thing to refer to other people's pleasures as "crap", even if he is likely to hear the term from some of his elders and (alas) not-necessarily-betters.

 

You're quite right. I could have given him an impromptu English lesson and said "Son, those steam engines are not crap, what you mean is they're absolute rubbish". Are you kidding??? Do you want to get me lynched too...???

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You're quite right. I could have given him an impromptu English lesson and said "Son, those steam engines are not crap, what you mean is they're absolute rubbish". Are you kidding??? Do you want to get me lynched too...???

 

No, a quiet word as and when appropriate, which I would imagine is what you provided. "Crap" doesn't matter, context is all.

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Some have mentioned in previous posts in this thread of the aromatic personalities of some people who attend exhibitions. Well exhibition organisers could ask a local undertaker to come along and bring a display of cheap caskets (everyone is after a bargain at an exhibition) for those who smell like they're dead.

 

It couldn't be any worse than my previous next door neighbour who's youngest son said loudly in a supermarket checkout queue " Dad that woman in front of us stinks!!!"

 

Some could use the same line as Arkwright in "Open All Hours" and when people ask what the smell is some could say, "Well you've come on a bad day, as we get a lot of old people in which is OK unless it's been raining then some of them smell a bit damp.

 

How about asking someone who "pongs" a bit as to what is the name of that cologne that they're wearing, "Essence of Raw Untreated Sewerage" perhaps?.

 

On a trade stand have a young beautiful lady who has a selection of modelling clays such as Das but which have been taken out of their packets and have been shaped into large sausages wrapped in clear cling wrap so that people can feel the texture.

So if a man picks some up and gives them a squeeze she could ask "which do you prefer?. If he says " no thanks I've changed my mind" she could answer, in a muttering tone, "he's changed his mind, he's changed his mind. Looking directly at the customer she could then say in a loud angry voice, " how would you like it if I squeezed your sausage and changed my mind!!!!"        

Edited by faulcon1
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How about the Sodor Railway modelled realistically, appropriate loco classes but NO faces; liveries applied in a less cartoonish way with narrow lining and less gross numbers, preferably in a serif font. Thomas would be a real E2, Edward the appropriate Furness 4-4-0 class and James, well what was he based on? You'd have to match Gordon to his back story and as for Henry, either kit/RTR-bash a Gresley-style loco or do the later quasi-Black 5 rebuild. Ignore anything introduced by the TV series, but include a bit of the narrow gauge. The kids would be SO disappointed at the lack of faces! I wonder what the other visitors and public would think? Personally I think it's a viable alternate reality concept and would look good if done well. Would any EMs book it though? And no, I'm not doing it.

Pete

 

Aha - just stumbled across this - it's my current project at the moment!

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One of the ways I’ve found to upset the more ‘pedantic’ characters you meet at exhibitions is to reply to the obligatory “Excuse me. You do know that’s wrong don’t you!” with “Probably, but does it matter? They’re only toy trains aren’t they mate?”

I know I'm a terrible person but I find it highly entertaining to watch their faces go from white to near-purple before they stomp off in disgust!

 

Bill

Edited by Mythocentric
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A 1960's BLT then...

 

*dons tin hat*

Sadly that was often true in the 1960s and not just on branch lines. I can remember trains on the Oxford to Worcester line where a couple of passengers per coach was fairly typical.  I did though once travel to Woodford Halse from Banbury on a Wednesday afternoon which I think was market day and the two coaches were absolutely packed.

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