Exhibition Review - The Chatham Show

From time to time I'm going to put my thoughts and a few pics of the various model railway exhibitions I visit.

For the past several years the Chatham & District Model Railway Club has been organising a June show in one of the buildings in the Chatham Historical Dockyard. This has grown in to one of if not the largest show in Kent. A quick count shows 50 traders, 9 societies, and 29 working layouts.

SWMBO and I arrived mid day and started wandering the aisles. The layout of the traders and exhibits was good with lots of aisle space. Something too many shows lack. I did notice the area used this year was smaller than the 2006 show.

In my mind one of the most interesting layouts was the Dam Railway by Chelmsford Model Railway Club


I wonder if they got tired of hearing "this is the best dam layout I've seen" .

Another excellent layout, and one we've seen before is the 7mm scale 'Rottingdean'. Its layouts like this that tempt me towards the dark side of larger scale modelling.

Overall its a very good show. Well organised, well signposted, and at £6.00 for adults, good value for the money.

As for shopping, I came away with some nameplates and a Churchward LSWR signal box kit. A blow by blow of my first attempt at soldering up a building kit will come in the future.

A couple of pints of Goachers in the Britannia wrapped up a great day out.

Virgin Media = steaming pile of poo

This was supposed to be so easy to do. I mean how hard is it to write something and plop it up onto a blog. No such luck. Coming between me, my modelling time, and getting this blogging stuff off the ground is a big bad useless corporation.

I'm talking of course about Virgin Media. (nee NTL, aka NTHell)

Once upon a time we had NTL for our home cable TV and phone. They didn't offer broadband in our area. When we moved we were able to get it and decided to drop BT and go with a single company. Shortly after that our troubles began.

Here is a short history of our dealings with the pile of poo that is Virgin/NTL

First they send out 2 engineers on 2 different days 2 weeks apart. Was this some sort of throw back to 70s unionism? Is it not possible for the man who unwraps and plugs the cable box into the wall to also unwrap the cable modem and plug it into the wall? Do they have to have different certificates for opening different sized cardboard boxes.

Afer a couple of months of up and down (working not working) service we were told that all the cable would need re-pulling.........................

bla bla bla bla.................

One year later, and its still as flakey as a box of corn based breakfast cereal. We're on the 4th cable box, 3rd modem, had the cable repulled after half a dozen non-starts. There have been 6 booked appointments where they simply didn't show up, but have the gall to repeatedly warn you on the phone of a £10 charge if they are kept waiting.

This past week the broadband has been going off roughly every 2 hours like clockwork. Virgin's stock answer is to stall and book an appointment for an engineer that may or more likely won't show up. If he does, it will be when the bloody thing is working. He will test the signal strength, say its fine, then bugger off for lunch. Not bad work if you can get it.

I know why they rebranded as Virgin, because like most virgins, they just don't give a f**k!

Normal postings to resume.

Here's one I made earlier

This isn't the first model railway I've built. Over the past 25 years or so, I've created and exhibited 8 different layouts. Either by my self or with a small group of others. This was the last one to be shown.






It started life as a small end to end, but eventually grew into a bit of a topsy. There lies mistake number one. If you plan on expanding something that is essentially complete, make sure you plan ahead. In hindsite, I would have taken better notes about what colours I used for the ballast, weathering, grass, etc. In the end I had to separate the new from the old with a set of arches and a bridge so the changes in pallet wouldn't be so noticable.

This project taught me many things. Hopefully I will avoid those screwups this time around.

Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Who would write about being a model railway enthusiast? Well as a brief introduction, I'm quasi-normal, married, in my 40's. An IT consultant that just likes to build things with his hands after spending 50 - 60 hours a week creating virtual things. I've always had an interest in the mechanics and operation of trains. Not to the compulsive extremes of some, but enough to make it my hobby of choice. I've lived and worked in Canada, the US, and the UK. One of the things that has persuaded me to write is the big difference in the way the hobby is seen on both sides of the Atlantic.

What am I writing about? The idea is to chronicle the building of a model railway with the intent on exhibiting it one day. I'm hoping to capture a diary of all the trials and tribulations. Warts and all. Maybe I can convince some that we aren't all lunatics. Maybe it will help someone else from making the same mistakes that I have made, and will continue to make. Maybe, just maybe it will give a few people a good laugh as well.

Where? My garage in SE London.

When? Over the next couple of years as I go from a pile of wood to a 3 dimensional working sculpture. (sounds bloody pretentious)

Why a blog about a trainset? Hell, why a trainset? What is it about grown men 'playing' with trains that brings derision and labels of anorak or geek?

Why on the west side of the Atlantic ocean does 'Model Railroader' on one's CV represent a positive aspect to your personality. Why, in the UK doing the same would get you branded as a sad freak? Why the big difference?

Is it just playing trains, or is it something a bit more? Can a reasonably normal person survive in a hobby that in the UK seems to be infested with Roy Cropper clones?

Before anyone asks, no I don't own a knit cardigan, no I don't have an anorak, no I don't stand on railway platforms with a soggy pork pie and a bottle of Tizer, and no I don't drive an old Ford Anglia.