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Exhibition Report
Banbury
2 November 2003
After an extremely wet and windy night we arrived at the Banbury Exhibition shortly after 8.00am. Our original notes from the Exhibition Manager had stated we were on the stage, but not that we were sharing it with the Guage 1 Model Railway Association. Never mind, we can make it work. As you will see from the first photograph we made it work through 90 degrees with 2 screens behind us and 1 screen on the back wall facing the main hall. With only 2 known operators in attendance we set 1 screen on the London to Brighton Introductory Train Ride whilst we set to demonstrating other routes including Severn Valley, Cannock Chase, Inglenook, Tysdon and Fallingdon, MidEast and a route that has been around a while but new to us - The Delaware and Hudson (A Real Drivers Route).

Our 90 degree setup about 30 minutes before opening time. One of the younger Banbury club members tries his hand. Laurie and Chris discussing one of the new LBE activities. Chris and Laurie deeply engrossed in an LBE activity.

Matt had set himself the task of testing as many of the activities for the Severn Valley Diesel Gala CD (shortly to be released) as was possible. Not long after opening time we were joined by Lad491 who was more than happy to help us out. We were fortunate enough to have a pre-release copy of the new LBE pack and Laurie put some of the activities through their paces. Later in the day we were joined by Chris Parsons (a recent convert to MSTS) who had a number of questions to ask us and he spent several hours with us chatting and watching Laurie run the new LBE activities.

He says he needs trees for his layout, so I make trees, hundreds of them... Can't see the trains for the trees.. TeeHee. The Giant Redwoods in HO scale. The European Z guage layout.

We also received visits from ForburyLion and simuk who was at the exhibition with his Club layout (St Neots MRC). Overall the exhibition was good. A nice selection of layouts from Z Guage up to Gauge 1 and a fair selection of traders. Most disappointing from my point of view was that there were no traders selling Peco OO Guage items. I should also mention here that Cab_It was on form as usual keeping us plied with Mince Pies (well it is getting close to Christmas) and Kit-Kats.

British N guage. European N guage. simuk on the St Neots OO guage layout (Why does he look so glum?). Three of the Banbury members who helped us unload and reload.

Our thanks go to the kind people who come along and help us demonstrate the routes and models and promote UKTrainSim and to those who drop in for a chat and a drive.

Special thanks to the members of the Banbury MRC for the invitation, for helping us unload the car in the morning, re-load the car after the exhibition and for looking after us so well. We look forward to seeing you again in 2005. As always, thanks to the modellers, route builders, activity writers etc who make it all possible.