Just got back from helping out at the annual exhibition of the Maidenhead and Marlow Model Railway Club – a long day, and hard work.
We had a new venue this year. The last couple of shows had been at the Town Hall in Maidenhead, however this time last year the council were considering demolishing the building to sell the site for development. By the time they decided not to, just a couple of months back, we’d already booked a school hall instead; model railway exhibitions take more than a couple of months to organise.
In the event, the school hall proved to be a better venue; slightly more usable space, and far better car parking, and about the same distance from the railway station. We’ll probably be there again next year. The only problem was the amount of school furniture we had to move about; about 100 examination desks that had to go back on the stage, and many heavy tables we’d moved out of classrooms into the hall for the use of traders. Still, breakdown after the public closure at 5pm took only one and a half hours; less than we feared.
I wasn’t totally satisfied with the choice of layouts; all were end-to-end layouts without a single tail-chaser, and too much emphasis on 4mm scale. All but two layouts were steam-era too; modern traction represented by one 3mm line set in the late 50s, and a modern-era French layout. Still, all the layouts were to a high standard.
I did manage to keep my new year’s resolution so far; I resisted the temptation to buy a second Ian Stoate OCA kit (let’s build the one I bought at Warley first!), and purchased only a 2003 calendar, a tin of paint, a bag of imitation scrap for wagon loads, and a book of colour photos of modern wagons. No rolling stock at all!
