Ally Pally haul

Or, "What rubbish did you buy from the show this time Parker?"

You know the law. If you go to a model railway show, you are required to buy something.  Anyway, where's the fun in coming home empty-handed? 

We start with some almost sensible items. The Woodland Scenics kits could be useful additions to projects, especially the water towers and tool shed. The middle one is, Tractor Pit Stop, there are whitemetal castings and scenic materials in the box, and it was cheap. Probably a blog project one day.  

I spent more than a penny on these two public toilets, but they are interesting kits. Artitec stuff is always high quality, and the design of the building looks amazing. PN SUD Modélisme are a new name to me, but this one is mostly cast plaster with some slightly (compared to Artitec) agricultural resin castings. More blog projects, as neither really fit into magazines I write for, but they look fun. 

 Looking at the website, I wish I'd bought the lovely looking PN water tower now. But I have enough kits. 

Moving to the German Railway society, I picked up a genuine carriage board. Obviously, I snagged the one with Wuppertal on it as a souvenier of my trip. It's accompanied by a Groudle Glen Railway fridge magnet from Saddletank Books, proving I will buy anything GGR related. 

And a planned purchase - Bob Symes from Buggleskelly Models. I met Bob once at Brighton show, where I was exhibiting Hellingly. He knew the line, and we had a very enjoyable chat. 

I've been trying to buy this 7mm figure for several shows, but I always forget until the end, and he's always sold out. This time, I had him put by early. A wise move as it turns out. 

Now the big stuff. 

I have coveted a raindeer car from Bachmann for years. 2016, to be precise, when I first saw it in the catalogue. Apparently, the heads move in and out as the car moves, a bit giraffe car ish. Just up my street!

No idea why the blokes from the MRC wanted to take my photo doing this. I suspect fowl play in the future. There will be a proper blog post at some point in the future on this wagon. 

Finally, before the show even opened, MRC shop operator, and layout booker for the show, Tom, spotted me, and offered me some junk he didn't want to put back in the van at the end of the weekend. He felt that out of the ten thousand people visiting, I was the only one likely to be mug enough to hand over a fiver.

Yes, it's an Airfix Railway System Multiple Train Control (MTC). According to Wikipedia, it is an analogue system introduced in 1979 and used 20V sinusoidal alternating current on the track with a superimposed control signal. It can control up to 16 locomotives, of which a maximum of 4 at a time be controlled simultaneously. Unfortunately, it was only produced for about 18 months when Airfix went into receivership, and the concept was dropped.

And yes, this fascinating item will also be a blog post. To be honest, it is a bit of a waste of money, but it has been such a good laugh already, I'm glad I bought it. Now, does anyone want to buy it off me?