February 2008

Holland Park made its debut at  Stafford Railway Circle  exhibition over the weekend of 2nd - 3rd February 2008. The layout was started on the 6th January 2007 and when I visited the Stafford show as a punter in 2007 I was asked by the exhibition manager Terry Robinson if the new layout would be finished in time for the 2008 show. As I had made good progress in the first month of the build I said yes no problem. Progress was going really well for the first 5 months with the first two boards almost complete but for June no work was done on it as I was out of the country for the month. July, August saw little work as it was the summer months with other things to do and in September a bereavement in the family curtailed any more work on the layout for that month. October and part of December saw me out of the country again so by December only half the layout was built with 2 months to exhibition time! The third board was built but no point motors or wiring until January and then a week before the exhibition the final (fiddle yard) board was built and wired. The Friday morning before we set off to Stafford saw all 24' of the layout put up on the drive in between the hail stone showers we then spent the afternoon working out a way to transport the boards by bolting them together two at a time face to face then everything was loaded into the van. Saturday the 2nd of February dawned and we set of to Stafford at 05.30am and arrived around 07.50am which gave us two hours to get the layout up and tested properly. Considering we had never really put the layout up properly before let alone operated it I was very pleased with it. Of course we had a few teething problems mainly dirt on the track and wheels by Sunday when we had got used to it preformed relatively smoothly. At times the layout was 4 or 5 deep with spectators and was very well received by the public and other exhibitors alike and we came away with a potential 7 more exhibition invites for next year. We now have time to refine it and make a few adjustments for the next show on June 7th - 8th which is the DEMU Showcase at Burton Upon Trent

I must say a big thank you to a few people because without their help this layout would not have been possible. John Humphries for doing all the wiring which is quite complex in places and for operating the layout at the weekend. Geoff Griffiths for his dedication as a operator at the weekend. Rob and Jeanette from Express Models for supplying all the electronic wizardry sometimes at very short notice and Nigel and Sue from Modern Structures in Miniature for supplying road vehicles, freightliner wagons, kits, transfers and various other bits and pieces.

Some snaps from Stafford

The layout before the exhibition opened.

Geoff concentrating!

John relaxing!

The layout is there somewhere!

An impostor behind the layout!

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