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Exhibiting layouts at model railway shows.

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Cowley

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I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while.
Have any other forum members exhibited or helped to exhibit a layout at any model railway shows?
I’m sure someone on here mentioned that they had at some point (was it you @EbbwJunction maybe?).
I’m helping a friend to show his at Taunton Railex tomorrow if anyone is in the area and wants to say hello:
http://www.railextaunton.uk/

We’ve been doing it for a couple of years now and it’s been very enjoyable.
Luckily both of us are quite sociable and enjoy talking to the punters. I was quite nervous doing it for the first time, but actually it’s really good fun and the layout has attracted a lot of positive comments over the last couple of years.
It’s been interesting working out how not to get too self indulgent with it (we don’t run a timetable to real-time) and to keep it entertaining for the people that stop to watch what’s happening for a few minutes...
Does anyone else on here do this kind of thing?
 
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GusB

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I haven't done so for some time, but in my younger days i used to attend various events (not necessarily model railway exhibitions) with my local club.

Most were local, but I did venture further afield on a few occasions, including Model Rail Scotland where our layout won the ScotRail cup. I've seen a fair few dodgy BnBs and curry houses as a result - memories of Uphall aren't positive ones!

We hosted our own annual exhibition too. I don't think we ever ran to a specific timetable with any of the layouts, but the general mantra was "keep things moving".
 

Cowley

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I haven't done so for some time, but in my younger days i used to attend various events (not necessarily model railway exhibitions) with my local club.

Most were local, but I did venture further afield on a few occasions, including Model Rail Scotland where our layout won the ScotRail cup. I've seen a fair few dodgy BnBs and curry houses as a result - memories of Uphall aren't positive ones!

We hosted our own annual exhibition too. I don't think we ever ran to a specific timetable with any of the layouts, but the general mantra was "keep things moving".
Oops. I think I may have posted that three times by mistake...

Gus - Have you got any photos of the layout your group won the prize for? Sounds interesting.
 

GusB

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Oops. I think I may have posted that three times by mistake...

Gus - Have you got any photos of the layout your group won the prize for? Sounds interesting.
I probably have some iffy pics lurking around the house somewhere, but nothing in digital form. If you do a video search on Google for Invermoray there's a fairly lengthy YouTube video (which I haven't watched).
 

plarailfan

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I've been building exhibition layouts for around forty years. My first one was twenty foot by six foot, but that was back in the days when there were lots of local enthusiasts to help set up and dismantle the layout at the venue.
During the last decade, or so, the hobby has changed a lot in many ways and these days, I just build compact train set layouts, to show the punters that you can have a railway without spending a fortune
 

EM2

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Used to assist with a fairly well-known layout on occasions. Always enjoyable, a bit tough on the feet if you're not used to standing though!
 

AnthonyRail

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I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while.
Have any other forum members exhibited or helped to exhibit a layout at any model railway shows?
I’m sure someone on here mentioned that they had at some point (was it you @EbbwJunction maybe?).
I’m helping a friend to show his at Taunton Railex tomorrow if anyone is in the area and wants to say hello:
http://www.railextaunton.uk/

We’ve been doing it for a couple of years now and it’s been very enjoyable.
Luckily both of us are quite sociable and enjoy talking to the punters. I was quite nervous doing it for the first time, but actually it’s really good fun and the layout has attracted a lot of positive comments over the last couple of years.
It’s been interesting working out how not to get too self indulgent with it (we don’t run a timetable to real-time) and to keep it entertaining for the people that stop to watch what’s happening for a few minutes...
Does anyone else on here do this kind of thing?
Oh that’s on today. Might see you later
 
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AnthonyRail

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Oh that’s on today. Might see you later
I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while.
Have any other forum members exhibited or helped to exhibit a layout at any model railway shows?
I’m sure someone on here mentioned that they had at some point (was it you @EbbwJunction maybe?).
I’m helping a friend to show his at Taunton Railex tomorrow if anyone is in the area and wants to say hello:
http://www.railextaunton.uk/

We’ve been doing it for a couple of years now and it’s been very enjoyable.
Luckily both of us are quite sociable and enjoy talking to the punters. I was quite nervous doing it for the first time, but actually it’s really good fun and the layout has attracted a lot of positive comments over the last couple of years.
It’s been interesting working out how not to get too self indulgent with it (we don’t run a timetable to real-time) and to keep it entertaining for the people that stop to watch what’s happening for a few minutes...
Does anyone else on here do this kind of thing?
So much detail in N gauge. Tops Tor is superb, glad to have seen it on its last showing.
 

Cowley

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Thanks for that Anthony It was really good to see you there.

That was a real show of two halves for us in the end. For anyone interested this is how it went (sorry but it’s a bit of an essay):

Saturday:

The show was in Taunton School which was all very posh. We’d packed everything up on Friday night and I turned up at Paul’s at 7:30am Saturday morning to load up (we had the smallest railway but the biggest van :lol:).
When we got there we were put in a fairly small room with one other layout and a trade stand which was next to us, and both of these were run by really nice people who’s company we enjoyed all weekend and had plenty of laughs with..
The weather was dire - it was warm, very wet, very windy and in the room it was extremely sticky due to the heating being on and the incredible amount of punters walking in and out with damp coats on etc.
Well this played absolute havoc with our running...
The track kept getting dirty, the points were playing up and the locos weren’t at all happy with the humidity levels in the room.
At one point we were down to just one properly working loco (a Farish Pannier tank) and I (apologies to Gus who’s already heard me moaning) seriously considered hurling Pauls 4MT across the room at one point. I was then told to go and get a cup of tea and calm down. Probably for the best.
There’s virtually no straight track on it, so putting stock on with an audience can become somewhat stressful when you think it’s all on but then send it out of the tunnel only to derail ‘on stage’...

Sunday:

The exact opposite really.
Much cooler, everything ran well and it wasn’t quite as busy so we had more time to chat to people.
One of the Panniers played up for a while but I managed to fix it and the other two locos were working fine anyway.
A family came to see us that had made a special trip just to see our snowy layout as the son is making one himself.
I can’t take the credit for the layout other than operating it and helping out with the track, but it was really lovely to hear all the positive comments from people and that’s what it’s all about really.

All in all a great weekend despite a few problems on the Saturday, and we’ve learned lots from the experience of showing ‘Tops Tor’ over the last couple of years.

The new layout is booked in to the local circuit for a few shows next year already and I think it’s going to be great. Hopefully we’ve avoided the mistakes that were made with Tops, and we’re really looking forward to showing it for the first time at Exeter in May.
Bigger, better, stronger and longer, and hopefully a bit different to anything else out there.
I can’t wait...
Tops Tor should hopefully be featured in the January edition of Railway Modeller. Which to be fair wasn’t something we expected to happen when it first started coming together.
If we can do it then anyone can... ;)

@AnthonyRail - Would you have a couple of decent photos from the other day that you took on your fancy camera that you could post on here by any chance?
 

Cowley

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I've been building exhibition layouts for around forty years. My first one was twenty foot by six foot, but that was back in the days when there were lots of local enthusiasts to help set up and dismantle the layout at the venue.
During the last decade, or so, the hobby has changed a lot in many ways and these days, I just build compact train set layouts, to show the punters that you can have a railway without spending a fortune
Thanks for sharing this. I meant to reply the other night but got a bit caught up in what we were doing!
 

AnthonyRail

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11 Jan 2015
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1,208
Thanks for that Anthony It was really good to see you there.

That was a real show of two halves for us in the end. For anyone interested this is how it went (sorry but it’s a bit of an essay):

Saturday:

The show was in Taunton School which was all very posh. We’d packed everything up on Friday night and I turned up at Paul’s at 7:30am Saturday morning to load up (we had the smallest railway but the biggest van :lol:).
When we got there we were put in a fairly small room with one other layout and a trade stand which was next to us, and both of these were run by really nice people who’s company we enjoyed all weekend and had plenty of laughs with..
The weather was dire - it was warm, very wet, very windy and in the room it was extremely sticky due to the heating being on and the incredible amount of punters walking in and out with damp coats on etc.
Well this played absolute havoc with our running...
The track kept getting dirty, the points were playing up and the locos weren’t at all happy with the humidity levels in the room.
At one point we were down to just one properly working loco (a Farish Pannier tank) and I (apologies to Gus who’s already heard me moaning) seriously considered hurling Pauls 4MT across the room at one point. I was then told to go and get a cup of tea and calm down. Probably for the best.
There’s virtually no straight track on it, so putting stock on with an audience can become somewhat stressful when you think it’s all on but then send it out of the tunnel only to derail ‘on stage’...

Sunday:

The exact opposite really.
Much cooler, everything ran well and it wasn’t quite as busy so we had more time to chat to people.
One of the Panniers played up for a while but I managed to fix it and the other two locos were working fine anyway.
A family came to see us that had made a special trip just to see our snowy layout as the son is making one himself.
I can’t take the credit for the layout other than operating it and helping out with the track, but it was really lovely to hear all the positive comments from people and that’s what it’s all about really.

All in all a great weekend despite a few problems on the Saturday, and we’ve learned lots from the experience of showing ‘Tops Tor’ over the last couple of years.

The new layout is booked in to the local circuit for a few shows next year already and I think it’s going to be great. Hopefully we’ve avoided the mistakes that were made with Tops, and we’re really looking forward to showing it for the first time at Exeter in May.
Bigger, better, stronger and longer, and hopefully a bit different to anything else out there.
I can’t wait...
Tops Tor should hopefully be featured in the January edition of Railway Modeller. Which to be fair wasn’t something we expected to happen when it first started coming together.
If we can do it then anyone can... ;)

@AnthonyRail - Would you have a couple of decent photos from the other day that you took on your fancy camera that you could post on here by any chance?
Will have a look. The lighting in room didnt help.
 

AnthonyRail

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Joined
11 Jan 2015
Messages
1,208
Thanks for that Anthony It was really good to see you there.

That was a real show of two halves for us in the end. For anyone interested this is how it went (sorry but it’s a bit of an essay):

Saturday:

The show was in Taunton School which was all very posh. We’d packed everything up on Friday night and I turned up at Paul’s at 7:30am Saturday morning to load up (we had the smallest railway but the biggest van :lol:).
When we got there we were put in a fairly small room with one other layout and a trade stand which was next to us, and both of these were run by really nice people who’s company we enjoyed all weekend and had plenty of laughs with..
The weather was dire - it was warm, very wet, very windy and in the room it was extremely sticky due to the heating being on and the incredible amount of punters walking in and out with damp coats on etc.
Well this played absolute havoc with our running...
The track kept getting dirty, the points were playing up and the locos weren’t at all happy with the humidity levels in the room.
At one point we were down to just one properly working loco (a Farish Pannier tank) and I (apologies to Gus who’s already heard me moaning) seriously considered hurling Pauls 4MT across the room at one point. I was then told to go and get a cup of tea and calm down. Probably for the best.
There’s virtually no straight track on it, so putting stock on with an audience can become somewhat stressful when you think it’s all on but then send it out of the tunnel only to derail ‘on stage’...

Sunday:

The exact opposite really.
Much cooler, everything ran well and it wasn’t quite as busy so we had more time to chat to people.
One of the Panniers played up for a while but I managed to fix it and the other two locos were working fine anyway.
A family came to see us that had made a special trip just to see our snowy layout as the son is making one himself.
I can’t take the credit for the layout other than operating it and helping out with the track, but it was really lovely to hear all the positive comments from people and that’s what it’s all about really.

All in all a great weekend despite a few problems on the Saturday, and we’ve learned lots from the experience of showing ‘Tops Tor’ over the last couple of years.

The new layout is booked in to the local circuit for a few shows next year already and I think it’s going to be great. Hopefully we’ve avoided the mistakes that were made with Tops, and we’re really looking forward to showing it for the first time at Exeter in May.
Bigger, better, stronger and longer, and hopefully a bit different to anything else out there.
I can’t wait...
Tops Tor should hopefully be featured in the January edition of Railway Modeller. Which to be fair wasn’t something we expected to happen when it first started coming together.
If we can do it then anyone can... ;)

@AnthonyRail - Would you have a couple of decent photos from the other day that you took on your fancy camera that you could post on here by any chance?
490-C4611-925-D-4-C97-A34-B-1-C074094-B242.jpg
 
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