Saturday 2 February 2008

Stafford Model Railway Exhibition, 2008

'Whitley South Dock' in 4mm
Stafford Railway Circle hold an annual exhibition at the Stafford Showground. John Archer invited Richard and I to accompany him to the show on 2-Feb-2008. With 45 trade stands and 24 working layouts, we had an interesting time. There was a very wide range of model products, books and framed (and unframed) prints on offer and I made a couple of small purchases. The standard of modelling was very high on each of the layouts but a crowded exhibition is not an ideal spot for photography, so I only recorded four of the layouts and I have to apologise for the poor quality of the results.
My personal favorites were:-
'Penhallick' represents the North Cornwall Line in the late 1950s in 4mm scale.
'Hassell Harbour Bridge' in 7mm scale.
'Treneglos' represents the L&SWR in the West Country in 4mm scale.
'Whitley South Dock' in 4mm was a very convincing depiction of a port area. It had seagull sound effects, too.
Stafford & District Model Engineering Society have permanent quarters on the showground. They have an elevated 'G' scale railway and a dual-gauge (5 inch and 7.25 inch) ground level passenger-carrying track. 'King David' was in steam and giving passenger rides. However, the day had turned bitterly cold so our visit to the outside tracks was cut short in an attempt to avoid hypothermia!