You know how it is, head off to a fashion outlet store, and suddenly you find yourself in a model railway exhibition!
Well, that's (sort of) what happened last weekend. The Association of Larger Scale Modellers held a trade show in Steam, the redeveloped Swindon works.
I had gone along with my Garden Rail tweed on, to chat to the trade and scout out potential news for the magazine. There was certainly a lot of chatting done. Plenty of people seemed to know who I am, helped by a name badge of course!
Because it's a trade show, there's not much to show on here, but you'll want to see some cake. Lunch catering was a bit limited, although there is a seperate cafe, I went for a slice of Swiss Roll and a very nice cup of tea.
One of the few trains running was on the Fawley Hill G3 test track. If you needed toy train action, Hornby could oblige in the main museum.
Press the big, green button and the trains move!
Parking is 5 hours for £2, a bargain, but stay too long and the price rises to £12, so I headed off within my alloted time. This didn't allow time to tour the museum, something I must rectify one day. And maybe head to the fashion stores too.
Did you buy anything? Yes. But that will be revealed later this year...
So was the show actually worthwhile?
ReplyDeleteFor me, yes. Lots of very useful chat and contacts made.
ReplyDeleteFor the trade? I'm not sure. Can't see the numbers through the door would make anyone rich. Odd, as it's the perfect place to drop the family at the outlet stores and then see who can spend more money.