Stafford 2025

 

An early start to be at Stafford show on the Sunday. Along with York, this is a show for me, not necessarily for work. 

First stop is always the second-hand stall. They usually extract some money from me, but this year, it had been stripped pretty much clean by all the people on Saturday! That's good news for the club, as numbers through the door were good, and probably good news for me as I don't really need any more toy train stuff. As it was I picked up a couple of turnout operating units that appear to be commercially made. Cheap enough for me to have a proper look at some point in the future. 

I consoled myself with hot chocolate and cake. Both excellent, but when did railway modellers start ordering fancy coffee with a "shot of whichhazel" or other pretentious demands? What happened to a dunked teabag, or cup of instant? Fussy coffee slows up the queue, and stops me getting to my cake!

The layout selection was excellent this year. Not a single space-filler. I picked up a few photo shoots for BRM, which I'll sort over the next few months. And we'd already featured quite a few on our pages in the past - always the sign of a quality show. 

Trade was also good. Were money no object, an Aster G1 German steam loco would have found its way into the back of the car. As it was, I've picked up some new TT:120 models. To be honest, I'm not short of projects for either work or me, so the day was more about wandering around, chatting and enjoying the trains. 

All of which, the show did admirably.