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Gallery: Events: Shows: 21st September 2002 'Great Western LEGO® Train Show'

(click here to see all the pictures on one page)

Mark Palmer also has some pictures on his website

	REPORT OF 'GREAT WESTERN LEGO® TRAIN SHOW AT THE 'STEAM' MUSEUM, SWINDON ON 16th NOVEMBER 2002 (by Jon Reynolds) INTRODUCTION Phew, our largest show ever and with more members and modules than ever before plus a fantastic venue, we had taken on quite a mammoth task. This one demanded more planning too because, for 3 of the 5 scenery builders, this was the first time they had connected up their individually built 'modules'. The GWLTS committee included Jason Railton, Huw Millington, Mark Palmer, Tony Priestman and myself. PLANNING Mark originally flagged up the Steam museum as a suitable venue as it was quite local to him in Swindon. Following an initial meeting in Cheshire, we assembled a group of 5 keen exhibitors, trundled along to the museum whilst they were hosting a model railway display and met up at Mark's for a planning meeting. In between mouthfuls of Palmer hospitality we worked out layout designs, who was building what, publicity etc. and followed this up with another meeting with the STEAM's event manager. It was all going swimmingly except for the rather excessive number of emails floating about between us - luckily this largely receded when the planning issues were resolved with the aid of Track Designer. TRANSPORT/SETTING UP We all arrived around 8am to unload and truck our equipment into the hall for assembly which was completed in about 2 and a half hours. Sounds easy? Well, actually it was. The difficult bit was building scenery in a way that allows transportation and loading cars in a way you wont get arrested or lose a supporting leg through the windscreen under heavy braking. Having all faced the same problems, we attacked it in various ways. Mark's humungous hill had to be transported in situ on it's module, Tony's station roof was also transported in one piece cosseted in a blanket and perched carefully between a module and the headlining of my car (following an earlier incident where the roof landed on my daughters head it required a little rebuilding anyway). I managed to build my valley sections so they would sit within the dimensions of the dropped module and allow further modules to sit on top without breaking the scenery and Huw used the clever idea of locating tiles and bricks on flat baseplates so that his buildings could be packed up more easily in boxes. Even without using the generous space inside the module frames, Tony and I managed to cram 9 modules, 22 legs, extension leads, track, stock, nuts/bolts, scenery, camera, curtains and toothbushes into a Mondeo estate. During the assembly process we managed to bolt up 14 modules complete with legs in a pre-planned formation for the first time. This was quite a feat because most of them had been built about 100 miles away at our own homes. Even the scenery interfaces worked well with one exception - Minifigs trying to drive through the barrier at Huw's engine shed were faced with a wall of green on the end of Mark's tunnel...ah well. The main features of the layout were Mark's massive 'white horse' hill, Jason's Brickley station (plus working windmill), Huw's engine shed with road overbridge, Tony's station with arched roof and cutting, my river valley and bridges, an impressively long fiddle yard and Mark's sidings and water tower. Michael LeCount's Tower block made it's second guest appearance and, as a construction aid (!) I had built a model of our layout...adjacent to a model of an old steam engine...inside a model of the STEAM museum itself. Once the track and scenery was in place, it all started to look rather good...then we put the curtains on and the museum staff brought along barrier ropes...What a difference! OPERATION Believe it or not, we were not 'playing trains' despite comments to the contrary by certain NBLTC members. With two running loops and rapidly filling-up sidings it was quite a task to keep something running at all times, operate signals/windmill/crossings etc and talk to the visitors. With 5 of us, this was eased somewhat and allowed for tea breaks but at one stage we must have had seven people in the operating well admiring each other's stock and scenery, swapping details etc (it was about this time I received my first 'yellow card' for inattentive driving, just a natural coincidence). The MiniFig assassin, thought to have been caught at Southport, also reared his ugly head again (you know who you are) but this time we had very few derailments as a result. The original idea was to restrict the inner loop to official LEGO® trains only with MOCs on the outer. As befits the nature of most of us, we all wanted to run our MOCs so we did - save for a couple of Metroliners, a SF loco and some of the 'MOT' oil tankers. There was an embarrassing abundance of stock - visitors and museum staff brought along plenty more to make it more of an obscene abundance in the end! Very little shunting took place due to this occupancy (and the need to keep things running at all times) so for future layouts, this will be addressed. During the day, we attempted to run a variety of stock but the star train was definitely Jason's MOC of the Caerphilly Castle itself complete with illuminated table lamps in one of the coaches. We also had requests from visitors to see the steam locos running and one particular LEGO® fan was really impressed with Chris Dee's SF train complete with his excellent (pre-MOT) coaches. Tony's tanker train was extended to fill the massive siding at the back of the fiddle yard and was so heavy that his class 24 and my class 37 struggled to reach a decent speed double headed with 4 motors - quite realistic really! We also had some interesting special trains running, like Chris Dee's P&T Tamper-Liner (a self-propelled ballast maintenance vehicle), Huw's APT look-alike (which looked best a full speed but we had to watch the corners) and my mischievous SR Motor Luggage Van which demonstrated, like the prototype, that it can run on it's own batteries as well as the track voltage (hee hee....why is that goods train over there moving? - I've switched off the power!). Mark built a ghost train which hid inside the tunnel and ran around menacingly for a few laps, but nobody was scared. The layout of the museum brings all visitors past the Caerphilly Castle (the GW loco we displayed in front of) so everyone had to pass the layout. Nearly all of them stopped, most of them stayed a half hour or so and some kept returning with a glazed look in their eyes. We deliberately had club members along the front of the layout to talk through the features of the layout and tried to work an undocumented rota based on tea breaks. At about ten past four we unplugged the controllers and started to pack up - a much speedier task than setting up in the morning but we still had to fit the kit in the car like a Chinese puzzle. FEEDBACK Apart from the usual complimentary comments we had a few new ones... "Are you from LEGO®?" "Surely LEGO® support all of this?" "Do you have a LEGO® train catalogue I can take away?" (sadly, the answer was no to all three.) Also confusing conversation on the lines of... "Where do you get the special mouldings?" "What special mouldings? It's all LEGO®" (quizzed look) "So you make the moulds yourself then?" "No, it's all standard LEGO® that you can buy in a set etc. - here look" (breaks off a piece of Michael's tower block to show him). (smirking) "But it all fits to the LEGO®!" (exasperated)"It IS all LEGO®!" (walks off in disbelief) Another tale of woe... "Bah! I came here today to see the Caerphilly Castle and take photos of it but there is there is a pesky LEGO® show blocking my view!" But....everyone else we spoke to loved it and we have been asked back next year. CONCLUSION Undoubtably a complete success. We have shown, once again, that members can build their modules and scenery in the comfort of their own homes, then drive 100 miles to bolt it all together and it all works. To do all this in front of a famous British steam locomotive was the icing on the cake. This time, we concentrated as much on presentation as we did on the layout content itself which had some really humourous details. Curtains, barrier ropes, information notices and enough helpful members all contributed to a more professional display. We now have more members, more experience and hopefully (when we've recovered from this one) more enthusiasm to put on these displays on a local or national basis. The North British Lego Train Club is no longer the NORTH British LEGO® Train Club, but the name is staying!

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Disclaimer:The North British LEGO® Train Club has no connection with The LEGO® Company.
The NBLTC is a private club which is not endorsed by, or affiliated to The LEGO® Company in any way.