Arriving on Friday afternoon to setup, we were met by LAD491, dkightley and RobertM who had been travelling around on the Great Little Trains of Wales
over the previous few days. We were also joined by Alan Howat a short while later.
This was to be the Inaugural Model Show Wales, a joint venture between I & G Steam and Venue Cymru. A large theatrical style hall plus the foyer / reception
area was the space available and it was put to good use. We set up next to a 16mm live steam layout (very nice, smell that coal and steam.)
Bright and early saturday morning, final setup and check out the kit. Over the course of the weekend we demonstrated Microsoft Train Sim with the
North Wales Coast (current WIP version courtesy of Chris Baily, thanks) plus the collection of narrow gauge routes we had with us. EA Rail Simulator
was also on show with the Talyllyn Railway (latest WIP version courtesy of Steve Pontin, with locos and stock by Kevin Martin, thanks) and with the
RailDriver. We also took the opportunity to demonstrate FlightSim X, with a helicopter over Llandudno, also 18 wheels of steel.
We had also received a video from the Model Railroader Magazine in the USA of an interview with Rick Selby and a demonstration of MSTS2.
There was also the North Wales Model Engineering Society running trains along the promenade across the road from the venue.
We were joined over the weekend by LAD491, dkightley, alanhowat, RobertM, king125, partyspritz, terrycunliffe, lumpchase plus a number of UKTS members
dropped by for a chat about simulation and DCC.
The general standard of the exhibition was excellent, good layouts and good trade support. The bottom section of the main hall was given over
to model car racing which proved equally popular to the rest of the exhibition. Only two grumps I heard were that there were too many larger scale layouts
and there were NO ready-to-run box shifter traders. But then you can't please everybody. At the end of the day we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and
the general concensus was that the visitors had also enjoyed themselves.
As always, the photographs on this page and the larger ones they link to are much smaller than the full size originals which are 3072 x 2304
and around 1.2Mb each. If you would like a full size copy then please email our support desk support@uktrainsim.com.
Our thanks to I & G Steam and Venue Cymru for the invitation, the refreshments and the location.
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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