GWC1

sorry about my post with the spurious 'not' in it. I seemed to be plagued by auto correct! Just back from the first day of our Nottingham show. It went very well. I had plenty of willing volunteers wishing to have a go at shunting the train or digging the chalk and loading it on my chalk pit layout. An interesting thing about inviting visitors to operate your layout is that you can get to sit and watch the layout while they do the work!

just got home from setting up the show. We spent some time doing repairs to the OLE on Deepcar. While doing this I realised that our model OLE has not been up 4 years longer than the real thing was!

LATEST NEWS The show is still on (though, as stated in last post, minus one layout) and we look forward to meeting you at the show. However, if you think you might have the virus (ie. you have a cough or a temperature), please DON'T COME and risk spreading it. We will be holding another show here next year and would love to have you there then. For those of you who don't have symptoms, the show goes on!

UPDATE - Tamaro, the N gauge layout based on the Italian/Swiss border, will not be coming as its owner, Hugh Griffiths, is ill. Fortunately, it isn't the dreaded virus, though it is very timely given that Italy has closed its borders! We wish Hugh all the best for a speedy recovery and will try and book Tamaro for 2021.

just to clarify - 298 means J24. J23 is Loughborough. You can leave at 23a if you like but you end up on the same roundabout at J24.

All packed up and back home. Thank you to everyone who helped make our first Spring Show a success, everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves and we were pleased with the results from the show. There were some things we will do slightly differently next year, but we intend to make this an annual event. Now we know how the show works in this venue, we will squeeze in a couple of extra layouts next time, and hopefully Mount Tabor won't double book himself and will rejoin us! I didn't manage to grab many pictures, but did spot a couple of celebrity visitors to Trent Lane Junction - perhaps the problem we had with some fiddle yard points was that they were Frozen!

Thanks to everyone who came to the show today. It was a great first day with a new show in a new venue. Visitors seemed to have enjoyed themselves and the new Trent Lane Junction layout was popular. I had an unfortunate accident with a train of kit built cattle wagons, so that is my modelling project for the next few weeks, repairing them! Lots of people photographed and video'd the layout, so lets hope they post some of those shots here. We do it all again tomorrow, so still time to visit.

Just making final arrangements for our new Spring show. I have heard one or two people express surprise that we are not running the large Nottingham East Midlands show at Harvey Hadden Stadium this year. For various reasons, explained earlier, we are no longer able to stage that show. We have instead chosen to hold a small show featuring just a few layouts, trade stands and demos. The venue is obviously a lot smaller than the old one, so layouts have had to be scaled back. However, we have aimed to keep the same quality that we were renowned for previously. Our star layout this year is our new Trent Lane Junction layout. We have shown individual baseboards from this at previous shows and I know that a lot of local people are interested to see it in its entirety. It will be at the show, with trains running on three levels. The Great Northern lines will be running with a reduced service as the fiddle yard is not yet complete for that line, but the full Midland line service should be running and trains will also be running on the Nottingham Suburban line, even though that closed before the period modelled. A popular feature that we introduced last year was toe 'Getting Started' feature, aimed at getting new modellers involved in the hobby. This was very popular so we are repeating the theme this year, but on a smaller scale. We will have demonstrations where you can have a go at aspects of modelling and our US outline shunting layout will be available for visitors to operate. Why not take a 'shunting challenge' to spot box cars in the right order in the right sidings in the minimum number of moves! We look forward to welcoming visitors to the show.

the link for the Aldershot show is http://farnhammrc.org.uk/?page_id=158

Netherwood's next outing is almost upon us. This weekend at Aldershot. A new feature fitted since the last show is visitor controls for the chip shop smoke and ice cream van jingle. We always try to operate these when kids are viewing the layout, but now they can operate them themselves!

We decided, at Nottingham MRS, that after this year's show it was no longer practical to hold the Nottingham East Midlands model railway exhibition. We are instead having a small local show on the same dates (16 & 17 March 2019) at the Highbank community centre in Clifton, Nottingham.

Preparations are underway for the layout's next outing this coming weekend, 30 June & 1 July, at GCR(N) Ruddington. This hot weather is not great when working in the loft to break down the layout!

Netherwood sidings will be there with our latest 76, now fitted with sound! The sound files were recorded from a real pair of class 76 horns (as my neighbours will testify, having recorded it in the back garden running off a compressor).

As we all know, the hobby is going through changes and these affect trade exhibitors in particular. Nottingham MRS have run the Nottingham East Midlands Model Railway Exhibition for over 30 years and Ian Trivett, our former exhibition manager, built the show up into a major undertaking with around 100 stands. The show aimed to showcase the best in modelling standards and had all the suppliers of specialist bits and pieces to support this. These specialists are becoming fewer as time goes on and the quality of modern RTR items makes their products redundant. Consequently, the club has decided not to hold the Nottingham East Midlands show in its present form and, instead, have a smaller show at another venue in Nottingham. The new show will be known as the Nottingham MRS Spring show and will feature around 6-8 layouts, rather than the 30+ we often featured at the sports stadium. We are still finalising the venue and details, but the show dates will remain as before, the 3rd weekend in March - ie 16&17 March 2019, and the layouts will be to the same high standard. Nottingham MRS would like to thank all our visitors and supporters over the past 30 years and wish them well with their modelling. We look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at our new Spring show.

As we all know, the hobby is going through changes and these affect trade exhibitors in particular. Nottingham MRS have run the Nottingham East Midlands Model Railway Exhibition for over 30 years and Ian Trivett, our former exhibition manager, built the show up into a major undertaking with around 100 stands. The show aimed to showcase the best in modelling standards and had all the suppliers of specialist bits and pieces to support this. These specialists are becoming fewer as time goes on and the quality of modern RTR items makes their products redundant. Consequently, the club has decided not to hold the Nottingham East Midlands show in its present form and, instead, have a smaller show at another venue in Nottingham. The new show will be known as the Nottingham MRS Spring show and will feature around 6-8 layouts, rather than the 30+ we often featured at the sports stadium. We are still finalising the venue and details, but the show dates will remain as before, the 3rd weekend in March - ie 16&17 March 2019, and the layouts will be to the same high standard. Nottingham MRS would like to thank all our visitors and supporters over the past 30 years and wish them well with their modelling. We look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at our new Spring show.

Just got home after packing up the show. Thanks for all the kind comments on here and very many thanks to the exhibitors and, above all, visitors who braved the cold and came to the show. I am glad you liked it. Our best wishes go to the EM crew after their accident last night and we are glad that they are OK. We apologise for the low temperature in the hall; sports halls are just not designed for indoor events in arctic conditions. In previous years we have been too hot and in 2014 and 2015 visitors were even picnicing outside! It was a challenging show to run, in the conditions, and we had to reorganise some aspects of the running of the show today to cope with the circumstances. Regrettably, we did take rather a big hit financially but the full extent won't be known until we have all the figures in. Exhibition managers are not supposed to have favourites, so I can't say which layout I liked best, but I can say that the public vote was won by Welby Lane , but only by one vote! In second place was Wickwar with Herculaneum Dock close behind. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by a layout based on the Melton Mowbray to Nottingham test track being the most popular here in Nottingham!

We have had snow forecasts before and we go on regardless. It doesn't affect the car parks as they are tarmac. We used to use the field as an overflow but they built sports facilities on that, so we only have the tarmac areas now. That is why we run a shuttle bus to the massive Phoenix Park P+R site, and it connects with the tram as well. The centre car park can fill up quickly, but there is free parking both sides of Wigman Road at weelends and last year, even at the busiest time, there were plenty of spaces on the road right outside the centre.

just finished doing the setting out calculations so that I can mark out the floor. Why do we still work in imperial, I wonder? Out of 29 layouts, only one quotes the size in metres. The Autocad plan of the show is done in metric, so I am always converting back and forth. Perhaps I will ask for metric layout dimensions next year!

The kits for the kit building part of the getting started feature have arrived from Peco. They have sent us an amazing bundle of plastic and card kits for visitors to try their hand at assembling, under instruction from our tutors. Come along and have a go at building a simple small building kit that you can take home afterwards - and it is free! We are grateful to Peco for sponsoring this part of the show (we just need to persuade one of our exhibitors to help with some plastic weld, cutting mats and knives now!).

Thanks for pointing this out Andy. I hadn't thought of that angle to use in our publicity. We have publicised features like Scottish layouts, or Woodhead layouts before, but not interurbans!

The Burnham on Sea layout will not now be at the 2018 show as its owner, Alastair Knox, is undergoing treatment for a medical condition. We all wish Alastair a speedy recovery and look forward to having the layout at our 2019 show.

stop press late addition to the trade stands: Model Power Depot, with British outline secondhand items.

Something a little unusual for the show will a 7mm scale model of John Constable's famous painting The Haywain. This is being constructed by David Wright of Dovedale Models for a new book he is writing and David will be showing the newly-completed diorama at our show in March.

Thanks for the comments. Netherwood has some more shows booked now (it doesn't get many invites ). Bookings are: Ruddington (GCR North): June 30 & July 1 2018 Aldershot: October 14 & 15 2018 Stafford: 1st weekend in Feb 2019.

Rich, I don't have any more bookings for 2017 (though I am open to them, if anyone needs a 'last minute' exhibit!). I have an enquiry about a show down south in October 2018 and it is booked for Stafford in Feb 2019.