Chatham Show 2025

[David Holman]

 Thought I'd give an overview of our Exhibition, now back in the Historic Dockyard for a second year.  The Chatham & District Model Railway Club has had premises here since about 1990, though it goes back to just after WW2.

 The Historic Dockyard Museum celebrates the history of the Dockyard, which includes, among other things, the building of sailing ships going back to Tudor times, not least HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalger. More recently, iron and steel ships were built, including submarines. The site is huge, with many important buildings, which now house other national collections.

 Our Show takes place in the Number 5 Covered Slip, once used for shio building. but now a vast, barn like structure. A similar slip next door houses a lifeboat exhibition.

 Opposite is what is known as the 'pea shingle', a large square, where we once held a show in a marquee. The was the year Adavoyle visited & was lucky to escape when the roof leaked! Note the range of historic buildings in the background.

 Next come three open docks. The first holds HMS Gannet, a Victorian 'iron clad', while the second is home to HMS Ocelot, a post WW2 attack submarine. Finally comes the destroyer HMS Gannet, built at the end of WW2 and, at the time, one of the fastest ships in the Fleet. All three are open to visitors.

 More fine buildings lead you past the helipad, next to which is a loco shed.

 Inside the loco shed at the moment are an early diesel shunter and Marcia, which is owned by Andrew Hardy, proprietor of Rapido Models. Marcia has only recently moved here, but is used regularly, including this weekend, offering 'Driver for a Tenner' runs. All proceeds go to the Dockyard.

 The almost rural scene below is where a number of preserved wagons are stored, along with a couple of working steam steam cranes too.

 After that comes Anchor Wharf and the Ropery, a run of Georgian buildings over 500 metres long. The Ropery still makes specialist ropes, while the space between the two buildings is regularly used for filming scenes for the 'Call the Midwife' TV series. Indeed many feature films have had sequences shot here. The Model club has premises in a 16 metre square cellar here too.

 Among other buildings is the old fire station, while the tramway tracks wander all over the site, some of which are still in use for public displays. Indeed, some of our club members are qualified steam and diesel loco drivers for the Dockyard.

 Heading back to the exhibition hall, we pass the original No1 Covered Slip - a fabulous timber framed building, home to a mezzanine exhibition space and an eclectic collection of dockyard stuff below.

 Back outside our exhibition hall is this Fife Coal wagon, which the club are helping to sponsor its repairs. 4mm scale models have been commissioned are are on sale at the show.

 Inside the hall here are are a few pictures showing exhibitors setting up this afternoon. Layouts include James Street [N gauge in this month's Modeller] and a 20 metre long Gauge 3 [1:22]. Around 40 layouts in all and a total of over 100 stands. Entry to the show gets you a half price ticket to the rest of the Dockyard and if you can't make it this year, plans are already well advanced for 2026.

 Will post more pictures from the show itself tomorrow and Sunday.
 

[Georgeconna]

Fab place to visit. Some much to see.  Highly recommended. 

[leslie10646]

Good luck with the Show, David - a pity that's it's so far away - over two hours by train for me - I need notice to plan an expedition like that! I wouldn't do it by car!

So, make sure we know a month before? If you did, I'll consider my hand slapped for not noticing.

Looking forward to seeing the pics.

[Patrick Davey]

Very interesting!

[David Holman]

Well, the worst of the amber warning for thunderstorms passed us by, though it was a pretty dark and soggy morning nonetheless.  However, in some ways better than bright and sunny, because if the weather is poor at this time of year, you are more likely to seek out an indoor venue than go to the seaside...

 Considering I supplied around 80% of all the stock on the layout, most of it ran well, though it took most of the morning to work out what trains went best with each loco. In the end, despite hoping to run 7-8 coach passenger trains and 20 wagon goods, we had to settle for half that, mainly because the uneven floor in our area resulted in a significant gradient around part of the circuit. Once that was organised we had four trains in each direction doing 2-4 circuits. Doesn't sound much, but at around 100metres that is about half a day's work on a short terminus-fiddle yard layout.

 The photos below are just of North Circular, because I was on duty most of the day. As I'm one of the judges for the 'best layout' awards, this should be a good opportunity for pics of the rest of the show tomorrow. Apologies for the shortage of trains - the light was so poor, I was down to a shutter speed of 1/8 of a second!

 

[Horsetan]

1 hour ago, David Holman said:

Well, the worst of the amber warning for thunderstorms passed us by, though it was a pretty dark and soggy morning nonetheless.  ....

It wouldn't be Chatham without some sort of rain.

[Tullygrainey]

Great pictures of the layout and the venue David. Thanks for sharing. A wonderful place. It's been on my list for a visit for a long time!

[Mayner]

Visited the Dockyard & the Show when I lived in the South East during the 80s-90s, last visited the Show from Dublin around 25 years ago flying in through London City Airport.

One of the highlights for me was the late Dave Walker's 7mm Broad Gauge Killaney layout almost entirley scratchbuilt WLWR/GSWR/MGW layout, possibly from one of the shows during the 90s.

Used to be a great place for sourcing kits and components, went home from the 2000-1? show with an Impetus Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST, Branchlines split frame axles/assembly jig & plated brass MW wheels & an Impetus 08 Chassis, at the time one of my side interests was industrial modelling in EM.

[David Holman]

 Overall a decent weekend for the Club, with over 2300 visitors, up around 200 on last year, despite [or maybe because of] the weather. Feedback from both exhibitors and traders has been positive, with the only negatives being about the poor lighting. With the weather being so gloomy at times, any layout without its own lighting was at a real disadvantage, because the Covered Slip relies more on its skylights than any artificial means.

 Indeed, very few of the pictures I took on Sunday [while acting as one of the layout judges] are worth showing here. Suffice to say that the standards were high, regardless of scale & gauge. James Street, in the current Modeller, is certainly very impressive, but we gave the 'Best Layout' award to the St Neot's Club's "Bowaters", a beautiful rendition of the Paper Mill in Sittingbourne. My photo really doesn't do it justice! Runner up was the remarkable Lego layout of the Forth Bridge. All of the trains are made from Lego too and are very much identifiable as the real thing.

 I took a few pictures of the mobile cranes, which may be of interest. Plus the Lightship, which has recently appeared near the wonderfully named Thunderbolt Pier. Vic 96, the little victualling ship, has recently moved here too.

 So, lots to see and well worth a visit. There are several videos of the show now posted on the web, including YouTube. Will post some addresses later - unless anyone wants to get in first!

 

[David Holman]

Just go on YouTube and type in Chatham Show 2025. There are numerous videos, including one over two hours!

[Horsetan]

On 20/7/2025 at 10:41 AM, Mayner said:

....Used to be a great place for sourcing kits and components, went home from the 2000-1? show with an Impetus Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST, Branchlines split frame axles/assembly jig & plated brass MW wheels & an Impetus 08 Chassis, at the time one of my side interests was industrial modelling in EM.

You may have been there the weekend it rained, leading to the canvas tent roof collapsing and dumping quite a decent amount of rainwater onto a trade stand....