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We arrived mid afternoon Thursday to set up and were greeted by the stewards of the exhibition who led the car into the
SECC directly to our stand to unload. After unloading they led us out again to the car park. Superb. With Doug's
assistance we were soon up running and testing out the setup. We were directly behind the Bachmann stand and with the
judicious use of some of the Bachmann crates we created our own table for Cab-It's paperwork.
The show opened on Friday morning at 11.00am with the traditional pipes and drums and we ran TrainSim solid for NINE
hours until the doors closed at 8.00pm. Wow, what a day, with 9,000 visitors it was manic.
Saturday, 10.00am til 6.00pm and Sunday 10.00 til 5.00pm were just as hectic with close on 28,000 visitors over the
whole weekend. If you couldn't get to this Exhibition then you missed a brilliant one.
We were ably assisted during the weekend by Doug Kightley, Dinmore (Mike), RobertM, Martin Hodgson, Ian MacMillan,
JonathanAG and Alan Howat. On the Saturday we were again joined by the Kuju Crew of Richard, Sabrina and Simon.
I think the numbers got to them and the call of a southbound airplane as we bid our farewells to them at 3.30pm.
Numerous UKTS members also visited the stand over the weekend to stop and chat and pick up a freebie CD.
During the course of the show we ran out of Vern's 5 route compilation and Scottish Central, not surprising
as these are the LOCAL routes. Surprisingly we also ran out of Vern's Blackpool Tramway. The one route on
show that we could have given away hundreds of CD's of was Highland Mainline. A very well received route.
The layouts at this exhibition were top notch and time was spent watching them. John and Jane Jacobs with their latest
OO9 layout - Nettlecombe. A new N gauge layout - Spitzweisertal from David O'Rourke who brought us Hochstein in HO gauge.
Plenty of G gauge for the larger / garden railway enthusiasts and Hornby with their live steam. The Bachmann stand
had plenty to show as well including the new 9F (due out in April), some new liveries available later this year
on some of the locos, new Manchester Pullmans and a host of locos and stock from Lilliput and Mehano for the
European modeller.
All in all a brilliant exhibition with something for everyone, regardless of scale or gauge or size.
Our thanks to Ian Porteous (Exhibition Manager) for the invitation, to the Association of Model Railway Societies
Scotland (AMRSS) for the superb organisation and management of the exhibition.
Our thanks to all those that gave of their time to help us demonstrating, to those who dropped by for a chat
and to the members of the public who visited the exhibition over the weekend.
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