Thorncombe Modelex 2014

[DLT]

The 2014 Thorncombe Exhibition is rapidly approaching; Saturday November 8th, Thorncombe Dorset TA20 4NE

 

The Thorncombe Rail Activities Club (TRAC) website is at:  https://sites.google.com/site/traclubsite/Home  

The list of exhibitors on the site is still last year's though, but I'm sure Devonseasider (of this forum) will be along soon with the full details.

 

I'll be there with Bridport Town.

 

Cheers, Dave.T

 

[mudmagnet]

The 2014 Thorncombe Exhibition is rapidly approaching; Saturday November 8th, Thorncombe Dorset TA20 4NE

 

The Thorncombe Rail Activities Club (TRAC) website is at:  https://sites.google.com/site/traclubsite/Home  

The list of exhibitors on the site is still last year's though, but I'm sure Devonseasider (of this forum) will be along soon with the full details.

 

I'll be there with Bridport Town.

 

Cheers, Dave.T

I'll be there with Orchard Road and fellow club member Rob (west countryman) will be bringing Wipers Ridge.

[devonseasider]

Thanks for starting this Dave  -  you beat me to it.
 
Full list of layouts is as follows:

Badger's Quay            1960 - 70     Southwest England                        4mm / 00            Laurie Smallwood
Bridgebury Gate          1966 - 2000   Southern England                        2mm / N             Russ Hobbs
Bridport Town             1920s / 30s    Marshwood Vale                           0n16.5               Dave Taylor
Budemoor Junction     pre-nationalisation LSWR/SR Westcountry        4mm / 00           Barrie Blackmore
Budley Bay                  Freelance live steam                                          16mm Ng           Ian Gurr
Crackington Quay       North Devon / Cornwall                                       0n16.5               Howard Martin
Forest Green              1960-ish South Gloucestershire                          4mm / 00           Rob Whish
Lambeth Walk            1949 - 51 London trams                                      3mm                  Brian Golding
Neptune Road            1960s                                                                  4mm / 00           George Kinsman
Norton Vale                early 1960s   Oxford - Banbury area                  4mm / 00            Nailsea MRC
Orchard Road            1975 - 83       Exeter area diesel depot               4mm / 00           Richard Slate
Uffculme                    1950s / 60s    Uffculme (Culm Valley)                 7mm / 0             Culm Valley MRC
Wiper's Ridge            1914 - 15    Western Front                                   4mm / 00           Rob Morgan

Also, there's an "exhibition within an exhibition" from SWOONS  -  the South-West area group of the 009 Society.
They'll have a selection of display material and will feature 4 working layouts:

Dingsdabumster                00n9 / H0e          Peter Martin
Dorset Humbug                 00n9                   Mike Johnson
East Quay, Chapel Pill      00n9                   Angus Watkins
Tipyn O Bopeth                 00n9                   Ed Florey

Trade support provided by:

Alan Corwood                    A selection of railway relics, railwayana etc.
Rod Saunders                    Lots of good, used model railway items
Bob Jones                          Books & models at prices you can't afford to refuse!
Ray Heard                          A small selection from Ray's huge stock
Maple Tree Creations        Railway-themed gift ideas for all the family

Finally, we will have our usual support from Peco
and also from David Luesby, who runs a modelling group for youngsters in the Yeovil area.

 

Raffle, refreshments, snacks etc.

Free parking

Disabled-friendly

 

 

Saturday November 8th 2014

10:00 - 16:30

 

The Village Hall (& adjacent Primary School),

Thorncombe

Dorset

TA20 4NE

 

Admission  £3

children & TRAC members free

 

All proceeds / operating surplus on the day will go to Railway Preservation Charities.

 

 

[devonseasider]

The Thorncombe Rail Activities Club (TRAC) website is at:  https://sites.google.com/site/traclubsite/Home

The list of exhibitors on the site is still last year's though,

 

Now updated.

 

Mr TRAC Website Man is currently visiting family in Massachusetts & has apparently had problems with the lights going out  .  .  .  .

[DLT]

Less than three weeks to go now, I had better dig Bridport out and check it over.  Its been packed up since April!

Dave.

[devonseasider]

Week & a half to go and everything seems to be coming together nicely.

 

In addition to the list above there will be a hands-on/demo/practical session under the Peco banner, courtesy of Bob Phelps & colleagues.  Bob will be well known to some of you, having spent many years at Beer as their chief product designer and although now "officially" retired, he is still on the payroll in a part-time capacity.

[devonseasider]

Unfortunately, Bob Phelps has been forced to pull out of the show for family reasons.  Nothing too serious, I'm pleased to say, but enough to prevent him from attending.

Hopefully we'll have another small layout to fill the gap.

 

The doors open at 10:00 and the "official opening" will be carried out by Steve Flint (editor, Railway Modeller) at 10:30 or thereabouts.  Andrew Burnham (editor, Continental Modeller) will also be in attendance for at least a part of the day.

Peco, of course, are our close neighbours and we appreciate their on-going support and sponsorship.

 

If you can venture away from the safety of civilisation out into the wilds of the Devon/Dorset/Somerset border territory I'm sure you'll have a good day and, via your admission (a mere £3 for adults, kids free), you'll be contributing to railway preservation charities.

[devonseasider]

This coming Saturday.

Doors open 10am, formal opening by Steve Flint around 10:30

 

Make yourself known if you do come along.

 

It's only £3 and all surplus on the day goes to railway preservation charities.

[exmoordave]

Good luck with the show Mr. B., I'm sure it'll be first class! (Just a shame you're not........)

 

Looking forward to it & see you there.

 

A wellwisher......

[mikeyk]

Really naffed off that I can't make the show this year, but have to babysit two daughters, plus an early start on Sunday for a remembrance  parade. Hope all goes well with the show, the best small one that I have ever attended.

[devonseasider]

Good luck with the show Mr. B., I'm sure it'll be first class! (Just a shame you're not........)

 

 

We've moved the café tables outside this year especially for you, my friend.  We tried to put a gazebo over them but the wind kept blowing it away  .  .  .  .

 

See you tomorrow Dave.

 

 

Really naffed off that I can't make the show this year, but have to babysit two daughters, plus an early start on Sunday for a remembrance  parade. Hope all goes well with the show, the best small one that I have ever attended.

 

Thanks for that, Mike.  I realised the other day just how long it's been since we saw each other.  Must sort something out sooner rather than later.

 

 

Anyway, back home from setting up.  About half of the exhibits now in place with the rest due to appear early tomorrow morning.  Looking good so far.

 

Hope to see some of you there - make yourself known if you do come along.

[colinjamesporter]

Was a very good show today. Some very nice layouts on display. Was nice to talk to people whilst helping operate neptune road..

Best wishes

Colin

[spenc]

Had a great day today the layouts were very good food great bacon&egg bap went down nice & the home made ginger cake.Well done to Graham & his team for putting on a great show.

Steve

 

Ps nice to here Graham is going 0 gauge?

[PaulRhB]

Great little show despite it feeling like Atlantis this morning congratulations to Dave for Bridports two awards and thanks for letting me have a go all day. Very good spread of trade for such a local show and a rather nice book was my only purchase despite other temptations.

[exmoordave]

Congratulations Graham on an excellent show,  our little party from West Somerset all enjoyed it. By the way, I forgot to hand in my voting form, but you can send my prize anyway, and it'll save you all that work of having to go through the long drawn out process of drawing out a voting slip. See how I think of your well-being. I'm so noble!

 

Well done again & see you soon. All the best

 

Dave

[DLT]

Great little show despite it feeling like Atlantis this morning congratulations to Dave for Bridports two awards and thanks for letting me have a go all day. Very good spread of trade for such a local show and a rather nice book was my only purchase despite other temptations.

Thank you Paul, for all your help over the day.  You picked up the operation of Bridport very quickly, so I guess it can't be too fiendish!  It does still have a few little idiosynchrasies, but the worst ones have been ironed out.

 

Many thanks to Graham and the team for organising such an excellent show, and a great day out for us to come and play trains. 

All went well, inspite of the monsoon conditions and my worries about flooded lanes;  and the dog that ate my bacon butty while we were setting up...

 

I look forward to next year.

All the best,

Dave.

[devonseasider]

Apologies for the delay in posting but I wasn't really functioning properly yesterday and I've spent most of today catching up, tying up loose ends etc.

 

Firstly, to those of you who've made such nice comments above - thank you.  I'm pleased you had a good day - certainly turned out much better than I feared first thing in the morning.  At 8am I thought we would be much better occupied running an ark-building class than putting on a model railway exhibition!  Fortunately it all worked out in the end.

Attendance was down a bit on last year - hardly surprising considering the weather - but we still had just over 350 visitors during the day so there will be some money to put out to one preservation scheme or another, to be decided at a later date.

 

Particularly pleasing was the number of youngsters - almost 20% of the visitor total.  Of course, we don't charge for children, but those numbers must be very encouraging for the future of the hobby.

I'll include a quote from one of the emails I've had:

"We were struck with the number of really young kids at the show, who seemed awestruck at what was going on.  The layout in N guage next to ours was a very good booking. The hobby is surely safe with events like Thorncombe every year."

Let's hope he's right!
 

The N-gauge layout in question is one under construction by a group of youngsters in Yeovil who, for one reason or another, are unable to join a model railway club.  The group is run by a very dedicated man who is passionate about the hobby and about giving the kids an opportunity.  He puts in a lot of hard work and deserves every bit of support he can get.  Perhaps there may be a philanthropic fairy godfather/mother reading this who could take them under his/her wing?

 

 

Anyway, to all of you who were involved in any capacity, thanks for your time & efforts - after all, it's the exhibitors & traders who make the show an attraction and the visitors who make it a success.

Next year is scheduled for November 7th and is well on the way to being booked up.  As always there will be a range of high-quality layouts and some top-class modelling on view in an informal & friendly atmosphere.

Hope to see some of you there.

[DLT]

There were lots of cameras doing the rounds at Thorncombe, has anyone got any photos for us to see?

November 7th is in my diary for next year.

Cheers, Dave.

[devonseasider]

There were lots of cameras doing the rounds at Thorncombe, has anyone got any photos for us to see?

November 7th is in my diary for next year.

Cheers, Dave.

 

Better late than never (or maybe not, I'll leave you to decide!).  These are the only photos I've seen.

Richard Holt (Chairman) managed to get round & take a few in the quiet time just after we opened  -  due to the atrocious weather, most of the visitors were still trying to moor up in the Village Hall raft park or were in the vestibule emptying water from their wellies  .  .  .  .

Ironically, Richard is currently a little way off Trinidad, supervising the move of an oil rig to a new location.  Still lots of water, but generally better conditions!

 

So, in alphabetic order:

 

Badger's Quay

 

 

 

 

Bridgebury Gate  (visitors' choice, joint runner up)

 

 

 

 

Bridport Town (visitors' choice, joint runner up and Chairman's prize)

 

 

 

 

Budemoor Junction

 

 

 

 

Budley Bay

 

 

 

Chapel Pill

 

 

 

Crackington Quay

 

 

 

Dingsdabumster

 

 

 

Dorset Humbug Company

 

 

 

Forest Green

 

 

 

 

Lambeth Walk

 

 

 

Neptune Road

 

 

 

Norton Vale

 

 

 

 

Orchard Road

 

 

 

Tipyn O Bopeth

 

 

 

Uffculme  (visitors' choice, best layout in show)

 

 

 

 

 

Yeovil kids' n-gauge project

 

 

 

As Dave said, next year it's Saturday November 7th.  About half the layouts are booked at the moment  -  hope to see some of you there.