The London Festival of Railway Modelling 2018
MATT LOVELL reports back from this recent show at Alexandra Palace.
In the early hours of Friday the 23rd March, 2018, Matt Taylor, Jack, and I all drove up to North London to set up our stand for the annual London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace.
We have supported this show for many years and it is always a great show to attend. This year's stand stood at 24ft x 8ft, and included lots of products from our great ranges.
Once the metal work was erected we started to fill the stand with frames, boxes and counters ready for stock to be added where needed.
After a few hours the stand was fully erected, stocked up and ready for the show to open at 9:30 sharp the following morning.
The stock on the stand featured a mixture of products from Z Scale to OO/HO and included figures, locomotives, building kits and railway electronics. One of the main focuses on the stand was our DCC display layout which was being powered by our DCC02 Prodigy Control system and one of our new DCC05 Wifi throttle modules.
This unit was demonstrated a lot throughout the weekend with lots of interest from beginners and advanced modellers.
Jack Demonstrating the DCC05 Wifi Module
Also on display we had a selection of starter sets from Fleischmann, Kato, Roco, and the Märklin MyWorld range for kids. These always get lots of attention as they are the best way to start out in the world of model railways as they include a locomotive, rolling stock, track, and a controller.
Two of the starter sets we had on display were our own Railway Renewal and Eurostar sets, these sets both use the Kato M1 track oval and controller pack which can be added to by using the Kato Variation packs. The Railway Renewals set uses a Dapol class 66 which is an exclusive commission for us and three IOA ballast wagons. The Eurostar set has an eight coach Eurostar in the new blue and silver livery.
On the right hand side of our stand we incorporated DCCconcepts, and we had the pleasure of having a few members of their staff demonstrating their products, answering technical questions and aiding us with sales.
DCC Concepts Staff Members Richard Brighton and Soren Schulte
That was our stand, now lets look at the rest of the show.
Layouts
As I was having a look around the show there were lots of very nice layouts but one that really stood out for me was a 16mm live steam layout called Hambleden Valley. The attention to detail was excellent and I found myself looking at this layout quite often throughout during some of the quieter periods of the show.
Being a fan of industrial scenes I really liked the small individual dioramas which formed parts of the layout.
The next layout that caught my eye was a military layout called Up The Line. Normally I am not a fan of wartime layouts but looking at the detail on the buildings and scenery it was very hard to just walk past this layout. As an added bonus it was narrow gauge...
Another layout that I really liked the look of was an American Outline layout called 59th and Rust, which is a fictitious scene loosely based on a typical switching yard in New York City. This layout featured lots of detail and really made you feel like you were in the scene watching freight operations take place.
That's it for my top three layouts but as an added bonus I did get a chance to see a very famous locomotive (no not the Flying Scotsman) The first live steam locomotive to run from Fort William to Inverness Silver Lady which was showing the signs of the incredible journey it went on, on the Channel 4 programme The Biggest Little Railway in the World.
Overall, this year's show was as good, if not better than those that have gone before at this colourful venue.