Chris M

The van at the NEC. And the loco has arrived. It was lost for about half an hour but luckily we found it!

Big stuff in the clubroom waiting for the lorry tomorrow.

I love being part of build up. These phots were taken many years ago but it looks the same each year, but with a better loco this year. 😊 Early Friday morning and the exhibition is nothing but a few chalk marks on the floor. The loco is always first in, as you would expect. 5164 this year. I'm sure admin will like this last photo.

The void area is great for easy loading up after the exhibition. Even though my layout will be on the far side of the hall I plan to use the void area. At a smaller show I reckon 30 to 40 minutes from end of show to being on the road when there are three or four of us who know what to do. At the Warley NEC show you have to expect it to take just a little longer.

Yep 250 stands and a real loco all trying to pack up and leave as quickly as possible will always make for an interesting few hours on Sunday night. Everybody thinks they are special and should have priority. I always feel quite sad when he hall is empty on Sunday night. In a few hours the hall goes from vibrant with plenty of trains running and full of happy people back to an empty shell of a building with no soul.

I'm picking up a Luton van in the morning and making my first journey from the Warley club to the NEC. This is the advance guard of stuff required for the NEC. On Friday I will make the same journey again with more stuff and accompanied by a lorry with a 40ft trailer. The club takes a lot of stuff to the NEC.

Well it’s not Glastonbury but Warley club is taking three layouts to a Carol service next month.

If you have had difficulty buying tickets from the Ticket Factory let me know so I can pass on any issues to the guy who deals with the ticket factory. They should be big enough and professional enough to have a near perfect ticket selling operation..

Advance ticket sales are available until 16:00 on Thursday. These will be e-tickets. Advance tickets can be used on either day. Sunday is always quieter and more relaxed. Go to https://www.theticketfactory.com/tickets/events/warley-national-model-railway/ if you plan to park at the NEC don’t forget to buy your ticket in advance w rather than on the day.

That's worse than when the Nat West bank had a department called Trustee & Income Tax Services many years ago. Everything was fine with that title until we had a meeting in a venue that abbreviated the name to "Nat West TITS" . The name of this department was changed not long after.

You are too kind Paul. I have had a number of "official capacities" over the last 30 years. This year I still have an official capacity, in fact I seem to have accidentally gained a number of official capacities, but my main aim is to spend the weekend running my layout, or to put it more accurately, playing trains.

All I can say about breakdown is see pages 5 & 6 of the exhibitor manual. I'll be in the same boat as everyone else only worse. I have to load two layouts at opposite ends of the hall into a van and pick up any bits that the lorry hasn't got room for from the organiser's office. The lorry has a 12 metre trailer which will be full. It will go over to the clubrooms after the show and be unloaded on Sunday night. After dropping off one layout at a house in Birmingham I will take the van over to the clubroom to help unload the lorry and anything in the van (except the second layout which will be sorted Monday morning). I may be a little tired by the time I get home on Sunday night. I expect I will think I'm getting too old for this game.

And I've just done another one for the lorry that takes all the club stuff across. Once you get used to Voyage its quite easy. 🙂

I went onto the NEC voyage site at 9:58 and I now have my printed pass all ready to use.

This floor plan shows where to find Revolution Trains with a big red arrow. There is also a ring around the N gauge blocks in purple.

The M42 still had some roadworks last weekend but traffic seemed to be running ok, albeit at 50mph. I don't get to see what the big trains are like as I am in hall 5 all weekend playing with little trains. As an alternative you could book your car into Birmingham International station car park in advance. It costs £9.50, should avoid the NEC queues and is a short , mostly covered walk to hall 5. See https://prebook.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/en/

Cheslyn Bay, an inspirational layout for me. I was in my 20s at the time and it helped to move me on towards better modelling. It provides an illustration of how a layout can look good even when running Lima locos. Front coupling removed which is good but the stupid lamp not being removed is not so good. I always removed the lamp, dropped in wire brackets and handrails and then did a full repaint on mine.

It changed to "for every British Railway enthusiast" in January 1994.

The camera is cruel to models.

Some small exhibitions have one or two average layouts and far too many less than average layouts. Yes I know exhibition managers can change but I vote with my feet. There are two exhibitions I have paid to visit this year that I will not be going to next year. There is no need for small exhibitions to be poor, I recently went to a £4 entry exhibition and it was delightful. There were no super special layouts but there was a good selection of interesting layouts entertaining both modellers and public.

What constitutes a "cringeworthy cameo"?

My little N gauge layout Dawlish Warren will be at the NEC this year so I'm justified in posting a few photos here. These are courtesy of Chris Nevard and Model Rail magazine. They are a lot better than the photos I take. Hmm - these clayhoods should not be heading West. Nice view of the estuary though. William Cookworthy taking old clayhoods towards the Midlands for scrapping. That's better! The trains that saved British Rail Duchess of Hamilton is quite legitimate on a railtour in the 1980s Parcels training heading to the North East

That's a very good question for which I don't have an answer. I suggest you go to the information desk when you get to the show and speak with them. In the meantime I will speak with the guy in charge of the information stand to see if he can come up with a good solution for you. Could you pm me your name so I can get something sorted for you?

Sometimes no news is good news. There has to be 14 days notice of a rail strike and, so far as I can see, there was no announcement of any new strikes yesterday. So we can be confident that there will not be a rail strike on 25th November. This means that those of you who travel be train to the NEC can buy advance tickets with confidence.

With a Lima loco the average modeller could afford to have a go at improving it and usually succeed. In many ways its a shame that this can no longer happen. Well it can if you buy secondhand.