Joined
·
6,634 Posts
So Sunday I did the 130 mile round trip to the Bath and West showground to see what was there with 19 year old son.
Firstly the signage was truly lacking and there were other cars than mine wandering about looking for the right place to park, once this had been sorted we needed to trekked around the building to find an entry door coughed up £12 each and we were in.
I'll gloss over the smallest toilet ever as this was nothing to do with the show, actually there was a fair bit of space inside but rather more people than you might think, so we started to look around.
Dominating all was the huge O gauge Calder Valley layout sort of 1980's blue is bland but the sounds were appropriate and the model quality good, everything was weathered but the representation of Healey Mills yard has to be finished, son took a lot of film with his ipad and worthwhile it was to see, how much it all costs in another matter but you could easily watch all day so all kudos to the team.
There were some other O gauge layouts some quite small such as Oldham King Street, my folks were from Oldham but I do not recall such a station but it was nicely done, certainly had some atmosphere so again nice if a bit of a diesel fest.
Some other nice layouts such as Bournemouth West with a lot of running but in many cases it was hard to get close and there was quite some scale speeds going on, no OO9 however.
In so far as the stands go for the manufacturers
Heljan, I did not speak to them but they had a small stand, mentioned the narrow gauge stuff but none on display nor the O2's and Garretts which as this is the UK I thought they might have had some UK stuff out there.
Peco, a nice stand some examples of what can be done I talked to Sales Manager Steve about a number of things so that was quite helpful which as elsewhere saw me buy a Small England.
DCC Concepts, another simple stand but some examples of their kit as working so able to demonstrate the functionality, would have liked to say hello to Richard Johnson but he had gone somewhere and thus this was not able to be actioned.
Bachman, another simple stand but a couple a decent guys there and had a talk with them as well all very helpful especially
Hornby not there
There were a few sales stands but not many so the choice of stock to buy was limited.
So generally it was OK for the money even if the cafe was very small and had limited seating anyway after about 3 hours that was enough and I came home.
Firstly the signage was truly lacking and there were other cars than mine wandering about looking for the right place to park, once this had been sorted we needed to trekked around the building to find an entry door coughed up £12 each and we were in.
I'll gloss over the smallest toilet ever as this was nothing to do with the show, actually there was a fair bit of space inside but rather more people than you might think, so we started to look around.
Dominating all was the huge O gauge Calder Valley layout sort of 1980's blue is bland but the sounds were appropriate and the model quality good, everything was weathered but the representation of Healey Mills yard has to be finished, son took a lot of film with his ipad and worthwhile it was to see, how much it all costs in another matter but you could easily watch all day so all kudos to the team.
There were some other O gauge layouts some quite small such as Oldham King Street, my folks were from Oldham but I do not recall such a station but it was nicely done, certainly had some atmosphere so again nice if a bit of a diesel fest.
Some other nice layouts such as Bournemouth West with a lot of running but in many cases it was hard to get close and there was quite some scale speeds going on, no OO9 however.
In so far as the stands go for the manufacturers
Heljan, I did not speak to them but they had a small stand, mentioned the narrow gauge stuff but none on display nor the O2's and Garretts which as this is the UK I thought they might have had some UK stuff out there.
Peco, a nice stand some examples of what can be done I talked to Sales Manager Steve about a number of things so that was quite helpful which as elsewhere saw me buy a Small England.
DCC Concepts, another simple stand but some examples of their kit as working so able to demonstrate the functionality, would have liked to say hello to Richard Johnson but he had gone somewhere and thus this was not able to be actioned.
Bachman, another simple stand but a couple a decent guys there and had a talk with them as well all very helpful especially
Hornby not there
There were a few sales stands but not many so the choice of stock to buy was limited.
So generally it was OK for the money even if the cafe was very small and had limited seating anyway after about 3 hours that was enough and I came home.
