bourneagain

40 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Don't tell her one of the main shopping streets is a Shambles.

Saturday, don’t forget that on Sunday, it is Easter Sunday, so all the shops in York will closed.

Any chance that a copy of the floor plan, with a list of the layouts and traders, which could be printed off, so that I and others could plan our day?

Also, don`t forget that there is no longer free car parking, except for the first 30mins and blue badge holders.

The tariff is

30min – 1hr £1.50

1hr - 2hr       £3.00

2hr – 3hr      £4.50

3hr – 4hr      £6.00

Up to 24hrs £8.00

Blue badge holders must scan their badge at the payment terminals and enter their vehicle reg number to receive their free parking.  

Car parking machines will only accept card payments, no cash. Vehicle details are collected on entry via ANPR. You can pay up to 24hrs online. After that time a PCN will be issued.

17 hours ago, Robert Shrives said:

Hi  At previous shows I organised 350 resting seats and NEC catering contractors supplied  twice as many.  It was a shame that folk hogged seats with belongings on  the resting chairs , NEC seats are based on catering contracts let and show numbers and at other shows seem to do the same, I think NEC did not grasp the ageing profile and act suitably - but then no profit in that.  I really hope the Warnley show catches on and margins work to see it have a long life, 30 years? 

Robert  

No matter how many chairs are provided, there’s always going to be moans that’s there’s not enough!

It would be useful if there was a copy of the floor plan with a list of layouts and traders that could be printed off so I and others could plan our day.

1 day ticket £21

2 day ticket £38

1 day ticket Junior (under 16)

2 day ticket Junior (under 16)

Not that much more considering that Warley was a much larger sized exhibition.

6 hours ago, JSModels said:

Phew, I'm glad someone else remembers it, a part of me wondered if it was all some kind of fever dream! 🤣

Could be the NEC Model Show, organised by the Exhibitions Division NEC Ltd 24-28 May 1990

Details taken from Exhibition Diary RM May 1990 

10 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I noticed that Oxford are doing TT 120 diecast "In association with Hornby" using a Hornby style logo.

In August 2021 Hornby purchased the remaining 51% of the shares in LCD Enterprises who owned Oxford Diecast  

12 minutes ago, C126 said:

 

Rail strikes...  😀

Unions now have to give 14 days notice before they are allowed to call a strike

3 hours ago, Chris M said:

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.

On the 8th November the RMT has agreed in principle to accept the latest pay offer, so the threat of any further strikes will hopefully be at an end.

1 hour ago, ELTEL said:

Well next year you will all be able to come to Stafford on the weekend of 28th & 29th September as I understand GETS will not be happening at Milton Keynes next year.

 

As we have been able to move the Stafford Exhibition to the last full weekend in September means  it will not clash with Scaleforum 

 

Bingley Hall Stafford is much larger venue than Milton Keynes and all on one level

 

Not as big as Warley, with good road and rail connections being just of the M6 and on the West Coast Mainline ( courtesy bus service on both days from the railway station.

 

FREE PARKING FOR OVER 250O plus extra if we need it

 

Have a look here on RMEB what visitors  said about this year’s Exhibition 

 

This exhibition is completely run by Stafford Railway Circle friends and support from local clubs.

 

Like Warley any excess funds run the club and fund the following year’s exhibition.

 

Terry 

 

 

Does that mean that it won`t be taking place at Milton Keynes, but it could be somewhere else, or has it been cancelled?

In 2018 the move was made from Gaydon, as this exhibition had outgrown that venue, history now appears to be repeating itself as I believe that this is now getting too large for this venue. Last year, on here there were quite a number of comments made on here just how crowded it was becoming and this year it appears to be even worse. I attended on Sunday, to miss the anticipated transport problems on Saturday (enough said) and I was taken aback just how many visitors were queuing before the doors opened at 09.30, as Sundays by tradition, was known to be a quieter of the 2 days. In past, on the Saturday, I can`t remember the Security Staff stopping visitors from going to the upper floors due to overcrowding issues, as they were doing this year. Time to move on again?

22 minutes ago, Arun Sharma said:

I picked up a copy of that flyer as well - The show is at the NEC on April 27-28 next year and called "Key Model World". However it is sponsored by Key Publishing and the flyer suggests that all forms of modelling [possibly not semi-clothed ladies however] including railways and plastic kits will be present. Key do publish the Hornby Magazine as well as Airfix Model World so that might be a clue.

The ban which I refered to in my earlier post was that the Warley Club has agreed with the NEC only involves other model railway exhibitions being held there. It does not cover toy fairs (which there are a number taking place) nor this exhibition on toy models.

Tomorrow the car parking will return to the area o/s the Arena; it was only moved today to The National Bowl due to the MK Dons football match at the adjacent Stadium.

I believe that the car parking is free, providing that you register your car reg on the tablet as you leave the exhibition. Don`t park in the adjacent Gym Fitness car park opposite the venue as you will receive a fine.

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

I would imagine like Wigan the show is booked before the football match dates are set, it's a lottery for the organisers.

 

GETS has been on a few years, it's got lucky so far, Wigan managed and it had no alternative car park to use.

There is an annual pattern with all football fixtures, a team will commence one season with a home match and finish the season playing away. The following season it’s the opposite, away first match, last match will be at home. Therefore on any given weekend, it will be a home match one year followed by an away match the next, and so on. So next season MK Dons will be playing away for this weekend, as they were last year, just check with their or any other clubs past fixture lists. Hence my comment for moving the exhibition to alternative weekends, but it probably won’t be possible as the venue has already been booked up by other third parties.

Not possible, as I believe that the Warley MRC has an agreement with the NEC that they will not accept another model railway exhibition taking place there. 

10 hours ago, fezza said:

How many vintage buses have they got? Not sure how they'll get everyone from the free car park to the venue at 10am as this is likely to be a very busy show....

 

Can you park elsewhere nearby and walk to the venue?

Probably there really isn`t any, not unless to are prepared for a long walk, as I would imagine that the MK Council would have already put restrictions in place to prevent the Football Supporters from parking there. That’s the reason the decision was made to build the Stadium in that location.

My main concern is not getting to the venue and parking in the National Bowl car park in the morning, but trying to get back to the car park before the 3pm kick off, to drive home, when the hoards of Football Supporters are coming the other way and trying to park in the Stadium car park. It’s a pity that this exhibition is not being held either the week before or after, every other year, so not to clash with the football match. So this year it’s going to be a Sunday visit for me.

On 04/10/2023 at 20:48, JSModels said:

I'll be there all weekend, up on the balcony (so should have a great view of the rest of the show!). Looks like it should be a great weekend.

 

I was a little surprised however when I saw the layout list that there isn't a single O gauge layout there...

Let’s hope the lifts to the upper floors are working this year!

I remember that last year both lifts in the arena area were out of order, which resulted in either a long escorted trek to the lift in the Stadium, probably not an option this year, or those who had mobility issues missed out seeing those exhibits on these floors.

23 hours ago, Dr.Glum said:

It didn’t take much testing of the four couplings (that I list above) to find that the 647 has been located far too far in towards the bogie pivot, i.e. it doesn’t stick out far enough. See last photo above.

The others also had problems. In daylight I found that two of them were happily travelling with a 1mm gap between magnet faces with a further five carriages in tow. Gosh! The buffer faces were together on the straight, which is fine for carriages with springs on the coupling carrier, but these are rigid. On a 30 inch radius curve there were prototypical graunching noises (from the buffers) such as you might hear on preserved lines when carriages or loco tenders negotiate small radius points.

All very amusing, but not conducive to reliable running. I did comparative running with the original rake which had the T-bar couplings glued on (see head of this thread). This gave me the dimension on the straight for the gap between the buffers: nominal 3mm.

Previous attempts had shown me I was not able to install the couplings in a consistent manner. I took the time to build a jig, as I have 12 carriages to deal with.

The white card is just under 1.5mm thick and the buffers rest against it.

The carriage above is one that has its coupling set back too far – see the gap between the magnet face and the brown card cradle. My plan is mark any holes for drilling with the coupling lying on the bogie while in the cradle. I will report back.

I don`t want to dispute the sterling work that you are undertaking in finding the ideal solution to the coupling issues on your Suburban coaches, but I would like to share with you some of the tests I carried out some time ago to solve the same problem. I believe that your current measurement of the magnet ends of 1.5mm over the buffer faces is a little bit optimistic with a 30 in curved track.

I set out to establish which was is the best version of magnetic coupling to use on my layout with these Bachmann Suburban coaches, these I have already fitted with the adaptor plates, as described earlier, travelling around the minimum 30in curve on my layout.

The 2 couplings that I used were

The 641 Close 9.5mm length

And 642 Intermediate 11.4mm length

I did try some others that I had but were discarded as either being too short or long for use on these coaches.

With the 641 coupling fitted, the measurement over the buffer face was approx 1mm, with the 642 coupling the measurement was approx 3mm.

First test I tried, 2 carriages that had the shorter 641 couplings fitted, when pulled around the curve, I found that the 2 inside buffers came together, but as the 2 couplings are quite short in length, the magnets were pulled apart, resulting in the 2 carriages separating.

Next I tried 1 carriage with the shorter 641 coupling fitted and the other had the longer 642 fitted. The result was again the 2 inside buffers came together, but this time the 2 magnets were only pulled slightly apart, but they were still very close enough not to cause the 2 carriages to actually separate and continued together around the curve.

Lastly I had both carriages fitted with the longer 642 couplings, although the buffers came together the 2 magnets kept in contact with each other, which Is the ideal situation.

I have ended up installing the 612 Buckeye Stepped couplings (11.7mm length) on my Suburban coaches, although not strictly prototypical, they do hide the bright magnetic sides of the magnets. As they always travel in sets, the height is not an issue.

Although it doesn`t really matter where the MEN pocket is installed under the coach, it’s the distance over the buffer faces of the magnetic end that is critical in the smooth running of the coaches.

Many thanks for your explanation; yes, I do see the thumbs up symbol on your post. I do now see how the system works. The person posting doesn`t see the symbol on their postings, because they can`t rate their own postings, but everybody else can see it. I been wondering for ages what button that I need push to get the symbol on my very few posting that I comment on, as everybody seems to have one!!

Many thanks for taking your time to reply.

Can somebody please help me, I`ve got the same problem - none of my posts have this symbol. What do I have to do to restore it?

Thanks

I had the same problem with all my older Bachmann Suburban’s. My solution was much the same as described above, but with a couple of slight differences. I removed the old coupling moulding, flush with the bogie face with a fine tooth razor saw. As mentioned this plastic material is quite tough to cut through, so I used a slitting disc in a mini drill on a very slow speed to make a number of cuts through the front bogie bar wide enough to fit the adaptor plate, but leaving a very small amount of plastic material each side still connected to the base. This cut material was then removed by using a 20mm x 3mm grinding wheel, again on a very slow speed, making sure that all the material has been removed, making a flush surface with the bogie base. If necessary the adaptor plate can be trimmed down slightly each side of the NEM pocket to fit the slot.

Using the grinding wheel, I removed the 2 plastic pips on the reverse side, this  is to allow a newer type of bogie (if you have one), with the wheels removed, to fit flush on top, to act as a jig for the correct location of the adaptor plate securing screw hole. I pushed a 2BA bolt through the 2 centre fixing holes to keep them aligned and clamped both together in a vice. Using a 1.7mm drill in a pin vice, I then drilled a hole into the old bogie, using the newer bogie hole as the guide. If you haven`t got a newer type bogie to use as a jig, the adaptor plate fixing hole is 15mm from the front bogie face.

The adaptor plate can now be fixed into place by using the original coupling fixing screw, which will self cut a thread into the plastic and hold it in place.

Since the last exhibition was held there, car parking charges have now been introduced, currently £3.50 up to 7 hours, although it`s free to museum visitors. Will it be free for visitors to the exhibition?

6 hours ago, AY Mod said:

Thanks to @ELTEL we have a copy of the floorplan and the list of layouts and traders so you can plan your day.

 

MMR 

Due to a change in circumstances MMR are now able to attend the Stafford Exhibition.

Terry 

What stand number will they be on, as they don`t appear on the above list?

My printer uses HP 56/57 inkjet cartridges; I have been buying unbranded ones since 2012 with no problems at all, initially from Cartridge People.com, but more recently from Amazon. I can’t really comment if they are any better or worse printing wise, if I was to use the HP branded ones, except of course the price and they don`t have the  facility that the HP ones, giving an indication of how much ink is left in the cartridge, critical if you are using your printer for business purposes.    

I`ve just booked my ticket to the York Model Railway Show, who are now using the same company Eventbrite, as Warners are using for their 3 shows, but the one big difference is that with the YMRS, there is no need to specify a particular visiting day. Tickets are valid for any one of the 3 days: Sat, Sun or Mon.

It would save a lot of hassle if Warners would adopt the same arrangement for their shows.