Wycrail 2010

We don't normally do one day shows nowadays. It's not that we're too stuck up to go to shorter shows you understand, it's just that as the only driver on the team, I don't like hammering down the motorway, setting up, playing trains, packing up and then driving back. Makes for a loooong day. At least two days means only one driving session per day. Anyway from an exhibiting point of view, the extra day requires no more extra work than a track and wheel cleaning sessions.

High Wycombe is only an hour away and so we made an exception. Actually I can't remember how we ended up booked in but I'm glad we did.

The journey was fine apart from getting lost between the motorway and venue. We tried three exits before finding the right one. Thanks to random man outside a newsagents to helped out when we stopped to ask. Despite the delay we were still wandering around the show having set up 20 minutes before it opened.

It was a good job the wandering was done early too as after a slightly slow start, the crowds kept coming. Walking around in the morning was difficult, the lunchtime lull never happened and even at 4pm there were still plenty of punters in the hall.

Much of this must be down to the quality of exhibits. This was higher than many major two day shows and certainly the best one day I recall for quite a while. I'll certainly be looking at the list next year to see what's occurring. Trade wasn't bad either with a good mix and just enough RTR to keep everyone happy as well as a selection of more specialist sellers.

Of the layouts, the one who wins "Layout Phil wants to build" from the weekend had to be Egypt Brewery. This is an absolutely tiny model with great big buildings (it's a brewery obviously) between which, industrial locomotives are scurrying around. The presentation was nice too, something easily overlooked if you just want to build a little layout.

Elsewhere you could see Mr Nevards rather nice Comwich which shared trains with the adjacent Bleakhouse road thanks to a handy bit of cassette fiddle yard carried between the two models. Ingenious and I think, unique. You can read more on his blog.

On the cake front we managed to bag some excellent chocolate fudge cake. The sponge was nice an moist with a creamy topping covered in bits. This was mid-morning and by the afternoon supplied were exhausted. Others have photographed different cakes which apparently also very good. It goes to show that people don't come for the trains, they come for the confectionery.

If I have a complaint, it was that there were a higher number of smelly people than you find at shows. I'm not sure if this is more prevalent in the south as there haven't been any at shows closer to the north pole this year. Maybe they were congregating specially for this even. Is there club called "The Great Unwashed" ?

More photos on Flickr.