Macclesfield Show

When I was very young, Macclesfield Model Railway Club seemed synonymous with a certain kind of modelling that appealed to me. I couldn't define it to this day, but if you saw a photo you could tell it was their handiwork.

Now we live down the road from Macclesfield,I've no excuse not to go their exhibition - except that for some reason I didn't go last year and regretted it.

This year I decided to make a real effort and turn it into a day trip.

It is always a good start when there is a free vintage bus service from the station to the venue.

I think every young child who saw it waved at it.

I'm not always impressed by exhibitions held in schools, but the one used works really well. It is spacious, doesn't involve negotiating a maze of corridors and missing a key room, and, although I had other plans, the catering looked very good indeed.

The key attraction for me this year was the 3mm Ballyconnell Rd.. It always looks superb and I I still harbour occasional thoughts about an Irish layout. What it isn't, is easy to take photos of, at least not photos that do it justice, or look different from views you've seen before. 

It is, though, a lovely layout to just watch trains run past.

Manygates, the London-based layout, didn't need any trains to be running, it could work as well as a static diorama, full of atmosphere.. if I ever get around to building my Minories based layout, this will be a major inspiration.

I didn't manage to get any photos of Culthwaite, there were just too many people in the area. In fact it took me several attempts to reach Charles Insley and the SW Lancs Railway.


This little continuous-run OO9 micro is one of those layouts that always attracts a very interested audience that is keen to talk, helped by an operator who is both front of house and willing to engage with them.. The small NG loco appeals to children, and the whole concept seems within reach of the space-challenged modeller.

    
                                        

Hall 4 was next. A space dominated by the 7mm Allerby.

It was just after this point that I made a stupid mistake with my camera settings. Fortuantly I also saved the RAW files, but it does mean I don't have a record here of some layouts because the JPEGs arent acceptable to me.

The one layout that is underrepresented was the big N gauge mainline one. 

It was really nicely done, and maintained an interesting and frequent operating pattern and I'm sure came closest to how many of us remember railways before locos became unusual. My apologies to the builders.

Attercliffe Works was another layout that gave me ideas for my own project. It was also another that I couldn't get a decent photo of because of the interested and engaged viewers, which suits me, because they are more important. Incidentally it is another layout continuing the trend towards N gauge layouts  where people have to ask "Is it N gauge?" which I think is really positive.

Memories of my time in Lincolnshire were brought back by Horncastle

As usual, there are a few photos that I can't work out relate to which layout. I think this is Cherry Willingham

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I've no clue about these N gauge ones, though.

Just to finish off N gauge, Ishinka, the Japanese layout using many commercial models, was very popular. It was not just different but also had some nice cameo scenes and again showcased the art of the possible for many people.

Moving on to 7mm, as well as Allerby, it was well-represented elsewhere. Vale View probably won the award for the best tree on a layout.

I think this is Jennings Sidings. It seems that the show guide map was subject to last minute changes, which will teach me to forget to use the phone to take overview photos of each layout for reference. In any case it had a really nice atmosphere  with a distinct look and feel.

Newfield was another layout where the operator was interacting with the audience, as well as featuring some very nice rolling stock and the odd suspicious character.

Finally, in 7mm, though NG7, was Caroline Concrete, which again had an interestingly different concept, being based around a modern industrial scene

Finally one of the most impressive layouts was the OO9 Blackmoor, which really showed that prototypical OO9 can take up an awful lot of space.

Overall impressions? An excellent show that enabled great interaction between operators and visitors. It was nice that the focus was very much on layouts, not trade stands, which also prevented the worst of the crushes.

I'm glad to see more 7mm and 2mm layouts on the exhibition circuit, especially the number of industrial layouts.

Next time, I'll remember to use my phone, not just the Fuji, though mostly it did a good job except when I inadvertently changed settings. It struggled with the white balance ona couple of layouts, not unusual when the layout lighting and the ambient lighting don't match, and it does have a tendency to set a slow shutter speed if left on aperture priority mode.

I spent just over an hour and a half at the show and felt I got more than my money's worth.  Bear in mind I don't spend much time on randomly browsing trade stands and I'm not one for hogging the barrier watching trains go by for ages. A question I'm beginning to ask myself these days is how long would I be happy to spend travelling to a show. I guess time at the show x 1.75 is a reasonable benchmark. There is a caveat though. As it happens the show coincided with several other events in the area. Rudyard Lake had their diesel gala, and Foxfield a vintage car rally. So if you had to trval you could have made weekend of it. That is not to forget the attractions of Macclesfield itself, which took up the rest of my day....