David Holman

Over the last few years, I've average around ten shows annually - until now. Managed a couple of shows at the start of the year, but of course nothing since March with Alexandra Palace, Nailsea, Salisbury, Bexhill, Milton Keynes, Faversham, Uckfield, Tolworth and Cultra all falling by the wayside. All but Uckfield were for Fintonagh, with Belmullet supposed to be making its debut at the last mentioned. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with shows, as I very much enjoy the camaraderie, but am less enthusiastic about loading everything back in the car at the end, especially if the weather is bad. Last year, I clocked up my 100th show with one of my own layouts, though helping others and being part of the team that organised the Chatham Show probably adds half as many again. Therefore thought it might be interesting to start a thread of exhibition memories, which others could add to over time in the hope that we'll eventually be able to get out and about again. The Chatham Show For me, the best place to start. It was my first ever exhibition, in 1987 - a year that saw the Chatham & District Model Railway Club begin its relationship with the Historic Dockyard Museum. The naval dockyard had not long closed, with much of it being sold off for commercial and residential use, but the historic core was reserved to eventually become a world class museum. The club had previously used the Town Hall in Chatham for its exhibitions and am not sure how the Dockyard first became the venue, as this was the year I joined, but somehow, what is known as the Fitted Rigging House was procured. The building itself is VAST - a thousand feet long and over five stories. The bit we hired was just one section, with a newly carpeted ground floor for the show and a totally bare section of the first floor for exhibitors catering. We must have been mad in those days, for pretty much everything was done 'in house'. For catering, all we had was a cold tap, but members loaned/donated cookers and the kitchen sinks too, while wives and girlfriends took on all the cooking. The exhibition halls were a forest of pillars holding up a Georgian warehouse, so fitting everything in was a bit of a Chinese puzzle. To help exhibitors during the show itself, we installed the 'tea run', where mobile trollies did the rounds throughout both days to keep exhibitors well lubricated. Meanwhile, for the first few years, club members were pressed into doing 'bed & breakfast' for many. Thus it was that my wife & I hosted Barry Norman and his wife Jill in the first year, Les Darbyshire [esteemed historian of all things Colonel Stephens] the next and finally Gordon & Maggie Gravett - the latter firm friends ever since. The exhibiton manager is those days was the redoubtable Graham Baseden, whose mission was to get all of the best that was available. To that end, he reckons he racked up around 2-3000 miles a year, visiting shows all round the country and beyond - so much so that many exhibition managers used to come to Chatham rather than pound round motorway network themselves. Graham certainly got us some start attractions. Barry Norman brought Petherick, the EM gauge layout with lifted scenery several levels at the time. Gordon & Maggie brought Ditchling Green. Over the 12 years were used the Fitted Rigging House, around 300 layouts visited. One of my favourites was Wenford Bridge - an early 2mmFS layout with a working gantry crane. Graham also made a point of gathering together the very best of trade support at the time. Hence we had a range of what were mainly 'cottage industry' stands, but which covered etched kits, specialist suppliers of bits and pieces along with the best of local model shops. I'll need to delve into my journals [have kept a modelling diary for years], to pick out other names, but what certainly stands out from those days were the characters we met. When the Pontefract club brought their circular 0 gauge layout, based on Robin Hood's Bay, it wouldn't fit inside the many pillars around their allotted space. Their remedy was to saw a bit off to make it fit, while the crate of light ale we provided as compensation went done well. We had a club dinner on the Saturday and they turned up with dickie bow ties, flat caps and such Yorkshire accoutrements as a stuffed pigeon on one shoulder, an invisible whippet on a lead and it was rumoured, a ferret down someone's trousers! A great bunch - though it took a while to get used to the rich accents of the rhubarb and liquorice triangle they hailed from. Barry Norman's Petherick was memorable for various reasons and not just the scenic excellence which was years ahead of its time. The baseboards were five feet deep and only three feet wide - hence the railway ran through the scenery. Goodness they were heavy though! Helping to dismantle at the end of the show showed how robust the boards were - frames made of a sandwich of 9mm ply and one inch softwood did not make for easy manoeuvring. How did I end up exhibiting amongst such excellence? As with most shows, club members who had layouts available always got an invite, provided you met Graham's criteria of reliable running, good presentation and [preferably] a back scene. I'd created a small EM gauge layout called Oare, that was based on the Davington Light Railway - a short lived line to some gunpowder works near Faversham. Eventually, I worked it up to a reasonable layout, but that first show was not without incident. My K's Terrier was far from being a good runner, though at least it didn't catch fire like the Adam's Radial from the same stable! My Wrenn R1 0-6-0T did most of the work that year, though as I gained experience a few reliable commercial locos were converted to EM like the Dapol Austerity, while I also built the Taurgem kit of a pair of Ford railcars and scratch built the Muir Hill tractor from the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway. The following year, I got invited back, because someone had dropped out and things must have gone better because I got invited to Expo EM. That show was actually held in Bletchley Park, which was certainly an interesting venue, this being well before it became a museum. Next time, I'll go share some experiences of other venues I've visited over the years - the good, the bad and the interesting, but if others have tales of exhibitions they've attended, either as paying guests, or operating a layout, then it would be nice to share and maybe help fill the gap until we can meet up at shows again.

Long time no see, but certainly worth the wait! Fabulous paint job.

That's the one. Notice the spectacle plate lower down the post. It showed a clear white light to proceed I believe.

Sister's wagon and coach axles plenty long enough, Ken. I just move the wheels out to the correct 33.98 back to back and there is still enough to go in the bearings. As for pace of work, that pretty much sums up scratch building in this scale, indeed any scale - though the larger to model, the more the detail than can be incorporated and hence the time it takes. On a short sabbatical at the moment, while domestic chores/decorating take over - it helps to keep the domestic authority happy!

Add a fair bit of skill too, those tile lines are excellent. Not much room for error in 4mm scale before such things start looking wrong. Proper job!

The Sligo had a three armed signal to control the same number of adjacent level crossings. Copied it to use on my Arigna/Belmullet project. Will try to post a picture later.

Further to the Ulster & Connaught idea, a few notes are in the Clogher Valley book, because the U&C would have traversed some of its track, along with the Cavan & Leitrim and Bessbrooke and Newry. The railway would have gone westward to both Galway [dual gauge possibilities here] and Clifden [somewhat less busy]. It would have crossed the 'western corridor' line at Tuam, where there was a sugar beet factory of course. Cork meanwhile offers possibilities, as there were two narrow gauge lines there and a total of three standard gauge termini as well - Bandon, Macroom and GSWR. Some kind of link line offers all sorts of possibilities, including a prototypical background to a line going along the riverside.

Following on the from the hearse/fish van and glasshouse brake, have now started on some vans to complete the train for the J19. Apart from a few GNRI vans, most of my wagons are SLNCR, so seems appropriate to add some from the MGW & GS&W railways. Alphagraphix do a card kit for a 'semi' from each company, so have used these as drawings to scratch build two of each. For those who might be interested, will do a stage by stage account of how I build them - though whether any of this is good practice, or an example of the strange ways my mind can work, I'll leave others to decide! I use 40thou [1mm] plastic sheet for van bodies and 80thou for the floors. Sides and ends are drawn out, complete with any planking lines, which are then scribed prior to cutting out all the pieces. Assembling the box is straightforward, so you soon have a basic shell. I added the under frames next - 80thou strip for the sole bars and buffer beams, then cast white metal W irons fixed on with cyano, with the wheels going in at the same time. The important thing here is to make sure the axles are parallel. Whitemetal castings likewise used for the buffers. I used ones supplied by Alphagraphix in their wagon chassis packs and interesting to note that of the five packs I bought, there are three different types of buffers. When I first started modelling the Irish scene, this would have worried me a little, but photos seem to show that variety was indeed the spice of life on many old wagons, with some having different types on each end! The rest of the model is about adding detail and the two MGW vans I'm doing at the moment were very 'strappy'. However, there is something curiously therapeutic about building up such detail with micro strip. I used 60 x 125 and 60 x 60 for the corners, then 60 x 80 everywhere else. The doors are 60 thou sheet - black because that was all I had available, though have since found a sheet of white - of course... So, photos show progress thus far, about 10-12 hours work, which also includes some 20 thou overlays on the solerbars, which have been riveted where appropriate. Lots more riveting to do as the vans are festooned with additional plates and strapping, so probably only about halfway in terms of time taken thus far.

Some of the current ready to plant buildings are very nice indeed, but a project like this shows how one can be made bespoke and much more interesting.

Looks much better to me. Low relief buildings can be made to work, but need carefully blending into the back scene, with (especially) something to hide the lack of depth at the ends. Trees, or a deeper building can do this. The silo, having more depth anyway, clearly doesn't have this problem.

The Limerick market branch could be one inspiration, though for mixed gauge might have beens, the city of Derry has more than a few options. Another thought is the enormous white elephant that was the Ulster and Connaught Railway. Had that been built, there would have been several mixed gauge opportunities right across Ireland.

Dare I say that all this fun you are having with 4mm scale would translate very well into 7mm narrow gauge! On a slightly serious note 0n16.5 has much to offer anyone who enjoys model bashing, especially if freelancing. Second hand stalls provide a wealth of materials, while right curves and tension lock couples look fine. Plus you can build a 7mm narrow gauge layout in pretty much the same space as an 00 one. Worth remembering for the future, though looks like plenty of fun is being had with the current project to want to change any time soon.

Add some legs to make a free standing one and you have a nice view blocker to hide the hole in the sky leading to the fiddle yard.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the main difference between Irish open wagons and those in Britain, the fact that in Ireland, they mostly had 4 or 6 planks, whereas 3, 5 or 7 was common in Britain? Now worried I've become a plank counter. Hopefully can get get some cream for it.

Great stuff all round. Thanks JB.

Interestingly that odd numbers of coaches seem to look better. Certainly three always seems better than two or four to me. Will have to have a think about how many vans I could make. The initial idea was for a single turf van, together with three other four wheel wagons or vans, plus a Sligo brake, as essentially that is all the room I have in the fiddle yard. However, three might be better. More thought required!

Away last week, so only just got to look up Shepherd's book on the WLW. Appendix D on coaches lists at least five 6 wheelers converted to turf wagons, all five compartment thirds that were broken up in 1955. Clearly not enough to cover the needs of the Emergency, but looks like I can justify at least one on Belmullet in its 1950s phase. The information on this thread also highlights just how creative the railways had to be in those difficult times. Thanks again!

Impressive, though Iain Rice would certainly argue in favour of a single slip having designed numerous layouts using one with just a three way point for company. A dual gauge single slip is probably stretching things though...

Quite a man cave! And you can never have enough books.

The early Triang diesel dock shunter may be a start for a G, the chassis being a four wheel bogie. Pretty old now, so only second hand. Scary to think had mine over 50 years ago, but it could pull more than my Princess Royal pacific and had a top speed of Warp 9, while buzzing like an angry hornet.

Needless to say, Turf, Coal and Trains is available on Amazon. Several copies, second hand from a tenner and new from twenty quid. Hopefully have mine by the weekend. Thanks again everyone.

Wow, fabulous stuff - thanks everyone! Looks like the project is on. As I have given Belmullet a distillery, the idea is that a coach or two of turf from Bangor Ferris bogs will be used to take fuel there. So, either a single coach, with a removable load, or one full, one empty to likewise create the fantasy. Am thinking that a plasticard and plastic strip body on an Alphagraphix chassis should do the job.

A small one for the cognoscenti among you. Am interested in building one or more of the 6w coaches that were converted to carry turf, mainly by removing the roof and boarding up doors and windows. The Waterford Limerick and Western book shows many of them were their coaches originally. The questions therefore are, how long were they used for and what livery would they have been? Hopefully will make for an interesting project, including how to simulate the load!

Those buildings have come up really well.

Class.