Monday, March 14, 2011

Wyre Forest 2011

Quiz PuzzleWe Won !!

No, not a best layout competition. There wasn't one, and little layouts don't win those anyway. No, our team won the Saturday night quiz at the exhibition. The one for exhibitors, club members and traders. The top team, heroically named the "Flockburgh Wizards", made up of myself, my Dad (The Flockburgh bit) and Andy from Wizard Models, correctly recognised all the obtuse photos taken of layouts and trade stands at the show. This was despite none of us having had a chance to take a proper look around the hall at that point.

As you can see from the attached picture, the shots were challenging to identify, but by deductive reasoning, observation and mostly sheer luck, we identified every single one correctly. If you want to nick the idea for your own quiz, then do - it's great fun !

Anyway, what about the show ?

Excellent. The trade was good, the layouts were good. For your fiver entry fee you found a sports hall full of stands that would occupy any modeller for many hours and should have emptied thier wallets too. The move from the centre of Kiddermister didn't seem to have hit the numbers attending. The location was easy to find although it lacked the closeness to a preserved railway or a town centre.

I can't single out one layout for special mention. Maybe I learned a bit from the On30 model but then I loved the P4 colliery too. I'd certainly pay to go in in the future. Although I wouldn't get to go to the quiz that way...

Flockburgh ran pretty well. I had to resolder a couple of blades to tie-bars. The Jinty was particually smooth running for a change. The biggest problem was the recently repaired Gaugemaster controller, which lasted 5 minutes so it will be going back to them for another go. Good job the old one held up !

On Sunday, Mike Harper joined us to get his first taste of life inside the barriers. Because of his enthusiasm we generously let him do most of the operating leaving us to lounge around and look at the show. Except when he was dispatched to collect the teas.  There was a (very nice) lunch included though.Hope you had a good time Mike.

More pictures on Flickr.

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