MarkSG

They were built as class A tanks between 1939 and 1944, and then some were converted to class B in 1947, so only those in original condition would be suitable for the 1930s and even then only the very tail end of it. Both the class A and class B would be suitable for the 1950s. The easy way to tell the difference is that all the class B tanks were black, while the class A tanks were silver, white or beige. Although one minor gotcha here is that, although not stated by Dapol, the Shell-Mex Motor Spirit tank (class A, silver and red, number 7522) appears to be an as-preserved example and wouldn't have carried that livery in service. So if you're after realism, then it's probably best to avoid that one.

Not quite the same venue. The Key Publishing show is going to be in Hall 17, which is a very different part of the NEC. It's also going to be a very different kind of show, covering a range of different modelling disciplines as well as just model railways. So comparing the two is going to be somewhat meaningless.

It's a long day, though, being an exhibitor or demonstrator, and at a two day show it's taking up your entire weekend. I've never been more than a guest operator at Warley, so all I needed to do there was a couple of sessions on the layout to give the owner a break (and all I got in return was a mug of coffee and a biscuit!), but back when I was a club member and did operating and demo sessions at our own show I was knackered by the end of it - even though I'd spent half the day sitting down! So I think it's entirely reasonable that the people who make the show what it is aren't out of pocket as a result. Because if they weren't there, none of the rest of us would be, either.

Yes, that's a very common setup whereby membership based organisations (clubs, trusts, charities, etc) have a separate trading entity to handle the commercial aspects of of the organisation's role (eg, selling products, organising events, etc). It both protects the core organisation from any financial difficulties experienced by the trading company and allows the trading company more freedom to engage in commercial activity than the core organisation. You can see that in action at almost any level, all the way from a village hall up to the National Trust. So there's nothing at all unusual or esoteric about the way that the Warley show is structured financially. It just means that descriptions such as "profit-making" and "non-profit" have to be qualified by reference to which level of the structure you're referring to.

Welcome to the world of finance and accounting, where the word "profit" means many different things according to context 🙂 As an event, Warley is profit-making as it is intended to generate a revenue surplus for the organising entity, Warley MRC Exhibitions Ltd. As a company, Warley MRC Exhibitions Ltd is profit-making as it is a private company limited by shares. Warley MRC Exhibitions Ltd is wholly controlled by Warley Model Railway Club. As an organisation, Warley Model Railway Club is non-profit-making as it has no shareholders and all trading revenue is retained within the organisation. The word "profit" has a different meaning in all three of those statements.

I'm inclined to agree with that. I do find it easier to navigate round shows that try to keep the layouts in a reasonably regular grid. I do appreciate that that's not always possible when you're short of space and need to play with the tessellation to get it working. But I don't think that's really a problem at Warley.

OK, a few thoughts on the show this year. Firstly, it was definitely worth going, as usual. I do have a few criticisms, which I'll come to later, but none of them were show-stoppers. There were no queues to get in when we arrived on Sunday morning, and with the benefit of pre-paid online tickets it was straight into the hall. Overall, the layout worked well, and it felt spacious. At no time during the day was I assaulted by a rucksack or poisoned by noxious clouds of BO! Even the photographers were behaving themselves. Contrary to earlier reports, there seemed to be enough seating - certainly, no less than previous years - and we managed to find a table to eat lunch at with no problems. Although I do accept that, as there were only two of us, it was easier as we could share a table with another small group. A larger group who wanted to sit together would have found it harder, and I suspect it was probably more of a problem on the Saturday which is typically the busier day. But that's one of the reasons why I generally go to a big show on the Sunday. In terms of layouts, I actually found the narrow gauge and smaller scales sections the most interesting, despite being an OO modeller myself. There were some very good OO layouts, of course, but the standouts for me were the two larger OO9 layouts, Clyre Valley and, especially, Bron Hebrog. It's unusual, and refreshing, to see narrow gauge done as a "train in a landscape" rather than minimum space, and both of these layouts did it very effectively. But most of the smaller, more compact narrow gauge layouts were very well presented. Among the more true-to-life models it was also good to see some layouts that were just plain fun, including the fictional settings of Angst Lesspork and Karolina Falls as well as the childhood memories evoked by Binns Road and Loft City Central. Other people have already remarked on the nameless diorama (it was in the list as just "3D Landscape Demo"), but I also felt that Warley MRC's "Cradle to Grave" display was brilliant. Plus, of course, the layouts I'd seen before, including Copenhagen Fields, Moors View, Beijiao and Long Melford Junction, were as good as ever. So, what about the negative side? Well, I do agree with other comments that the overall quality wasn't as good as it has been in the past. There were still enough great layouts to justify the trip, but there did also seem to be a bit more filler than normal. I don't know whether that's simple randomness at work - every year is a different selection of layouts, and they can't all be equally good all the time, so some years are bound to be a better vintage than others - or whether it reflects a deeper underlying issue. Is it getting harder, post-Covid, to find enough top quality layouts to fill a space that large? And if so, what implications does that have for the future of the bigger shows? Also, I was a little disappointed in the trade stands. As I've said earlier, I'm not that interested in the box shifters, so I'd typically skip them anyway, but this year there didn't seem to be as much second-hand stock available as nomal and the specialist traders were noticably thinner on the ground. Somewhat unusually, I didn't buy anything at all from the traders - I don't always spend a lot, but I almost always spend at least something. But not this year. Is this just another blip, or is it also indicative of a trend? So, in summary, definitely worth going, and I'm glad I did. But I did feel that it fell a bit short of standards set by previous years. If I was awarding a grade, I'd give it maybe 7/10. Which is good, but leaves scope for improvement. I did take some photos, I'll post those later in a separate response.

If it's DCC (which I presume it is), then it could be done by having a wagon in the train that's got hidden internal braking which is DCC controlled. So as the train goes up the hill, you could tighten the brake until it forces the train to a standstill with the loco's wheels slipping, then loosen the brake a little when the banker starts to push.

Oxford Rail isn't exactly prolific, but Oxford Diescast has been, and continues to be, busy. I do agree that Hornby doesn't seem to have been particularly sure what to do with Oxford. At one point it did look as though they were going to make it effectively a sub-brand of Hornby, similar to what Bachmann have done with EFE Rail. But the latest signs are that they want it to operate separately, more akin to Corgi or Airfix which are also owned by Hornby Plc but aren't marketed as part of the same range. That would fit in with Hornby's established pattern of working with its wholly-owned brands. The main difference, of course, is that Oxford, unlike Corgi and Airfix, does make products which directly compete with those sold under the core Hornby brand. But I suspect that Oxford Rail is a sufficiently small part of Oxford as a whole for that not to really matter. And, of course, their joint ownership should at least enable them to avoid unnecessary duplication.

They do look nice. Justifies my decision to pre-order one.

I think that if you reduced the number of layouts, you'd struggle to justify the entry price. The whole point of Warley is that it's huge; it costs a lot to go to when you factor in travel and parking as well as entry, but in return for that expenditure you get a show you can easily spend all day at and see some of the best layouts in the country (and beyond this country) while you're there. Lose that, and the show becomes a lot less appealing.

As an OO modeller, it's primarily the layouts. There's not a huge amount that I need that I can't already buy elsewhere, so a purely trade show wouldn't be that attractive. I can appreciate that a specialist trade show for modellers in other scales, or who are primarily collecters rather than modellers, though, works for them, so I'm not knocking the concept. I just don't think I'm in the demographic that a trade only show would be targetted at. That said, I do like having trade stands there. Although I'm not that interested in the box shifters, they rarely have anything I want or need that I can't already get online or at my local model shop. What I do like are the specialist traders, which sell the things that are harder to get online and aren't stocked at my local shop. I also like rooting through second hand stalls in search of a bargain or something interesting. At the other end of the scale, at the big shows (like Warley) that attract manufacturers as well as retailers, I do like looking at the samples of forthcoming products and seeing examples of new releases, especially if I might want to buy one but haven't yet made up my mind.

If their marketing department is on the ball, they'll do a twin pack!

Yes, it makes sense when you take into account that Oxford is primarily a manufacturer of model vehicles rather than model trains. The railgun fits neatly into Oxford's collection of military and historical vehicles in the Diecast range as well as the Rail range. I can easily imagine a military diorama featuring it. And I suspect that, for that reason, only Oxford could really have pulled it off, because the other model railway manufacturers don't have that existing crossover market to draw on. The crane, on the other hand, is a purely rail item that doesn't have any particular interest to vehicle model collectors. So it won't have that crossover appeal, which may well be one of the reasons why development hasn't been a priority.

OK, those of you who are there today, please report back later on your "Must see" layouts of the show for the benefit of those of us who are going tomorrow (it's always handy having someone else do your research for you!). Also, to make my daughter happy, any layouts featuring cats and/or pigeons!

it turns out I will be driving to the show, not going by train. The curse of weekend engineering works strikes again. 🙁

I should just add that I have successfully purchased advance tickets just now, so it does seem to be working fine at the moment.

Here's the latest version of the unofficial show guide. If there are any last minute corrections that anyone wants me to make I will have time to update it this afternoon, but otherwise this is probably the final version. unofficial-warley-2023-v2.pdf

Well, maybe because we can't always be certain we're going until closer to the date. Personally, I think that the idea of having a cut-off at all on e-tickets is a bit unnecessary anway. Obviously, back in the day when buying advance tickets meant getting them posted to you, then advance sales had to close far enough in advance for the postal system to do its job. But when the ticket exists solely on your mobile phone (or printed off by you at home), then there's no reason not to allow purchase even on the day itself. It would significantly reduce queues at the ticket desk and get people into the venue more smoothly. I'm not sure, though, whether the cut-off is a feature of the NEC's ticketing system, or whether it's a choice made by the event organiser. If it's the former, then obviously nothing can really be done about it. If it's the latter, then I'd urge the Warley organisers to drop the cut-off next year and allow online ticket purchase right up to closing time. I do also agree that if there is a cut-off, that fact should be clearly stated on the ticketing system itself, not just elsewhere on the show's publicity. Again, I don't know if that's a weakness of the ticketing system, or if it's under the control of the event organiser. But, either way, it's something to consider for next year.

It's not entirely dissimilar to at least one of the layouts on the Great Model Railway Challenge 😉

I suspect that part of the issue is that the NEC is a professional exhibition space and is set up for professional exhibitors. At the vast majority of NEC events all, or nearly all, of the stands will be trade stands staffed by organisations who are themselves regular exhibitors at such events. So the exhibitors will know how it works, and have a good understanding of the process and the timescales involved. Warley is unusual in that it has a large proportion of non-professional exhibitors, who don't normally attend events in that kind of setup and therefore don't always know what to expect. If you're more used to taking your layout to a church hall or a leisure centre then the NEC is likely to be challenging! I've never been an exhibitor at the NEC, for Warley or anything else. But back in the day when my dad ran his farm machinery business and did a lot of the agricultural shows I used to help out with that, and the issues were similar. Basically, you have to trust that the venue operators know what they are doing and are doing their best to facilitate everybody getting on and off as efficiently as possible, but they can't (and won't) give priority to someone who thinks they can jump the queue by shouting louder. I've sat in a van doing the crossword while waiting to get access to the stand, and it can be infuriating when you were hoping to be on the road an hour ago and you haven't even loaded up yet. But it's part and parcel of the job, and people who do it for a living know that. It's the people who don't do it for a living who tend to struggle with it more.

That's precisely the kind of useful information which will be included in the final release!

As promised earlier, I've spent a bit of time putting together an unofficial show guide that people can download and print off, given that there won't be an official one this year. It's very rough and ready, I haven't made much effort to make it more presentable, and it's likely to contain errors so please don't rely on every aspect of it! Here's a first draft, I will do an updated one by the end of the week if I get any corrections or additional information: unofficial-warley-2023.pdf

That's brilliant work. I particularly like the ones where the lettering is practically invisible. Although I model early BR, I've bought one in LMS livery with the intention of doing something like that, the aim being to portray a wagon that hasn't yet found its way into the paintshop. Do you mind sharing what paints/tools/techniques you've used to do that?

I don't think the complaint is about the design being used. As the original post says, it was deliberately released for free, so there's nothing to stop anyone using it. The point seems to me to be more about the fact that someone is charging more than a tenner for something which, if you've got a 3D printer, costs only pennies to print. Having said that, I don't think that's a justified complaint either. The tenner isn't the cost of the materials, it's the cost of the time and effort involved in converting the design to a physical product, as well as amortising the cost of the printer. That's entirely reasonable; in the vast majority of manufacturered products the overheads massively exceed the cost of materials. I bet there's only a few pennies worth of plastic in a typical RTR wagon, as well. But it's not the plastic you're paying for. I do agree, though, that it is very, very cheeky to use the designer's own photo to publicise the product. The seller could at least have made one and taken their own photo of it for the listing. Using the original designer's photo gives a misleading impression that the product is in some way authorised or approved by him, which isn't the case. If it was me, I'd be inclined to complain to eBay about the use of the photo.