club christmas show layout 2014

what an absolute mission this show was. completely drained and threw a rather long hissy fit on the thursday.
my stuff is always outside, and a complete maroon put the tarp up, leaving a huge gap at the top. even though its summer, of course it rained. so my couple of hours spent setting up was wasted basically, and my layouts were packed up by 8pm.
i was so cross that day i didnt even get photos. by the end of the night, i had been at the club for 12 hours, on my feet the whole time and was completely wiped out.

so, these photos are from friday night. thankfully it didnt rain.

major issues with this layout. the trains i ran [plarail DD51, xmas thomas, hello kitty and lady] all got stuck at the trackmaster xmas buildings. the roller bits seemed to make them stick for some reason.


the other side. normally its more decorated than this, but i was not in the mood.


toy story. this was static last night as something is up with the track terminals. i actually dropped the loco on the concrete on thursday, amazingly no damage either inside or out!


both layouts together. no matter how close to the wall i put them, or how close together, little people insist on squeezing in the gap.


ride on train, on the lawn!!!! this worked well. tacked the tracks down with tent pegs to hold it together. surprisingly, didnt suffer much touching, despite being unfenced and not under my "protective umbrella."


the little N scale tomix thomas ran flawlessly. not sure how popular he was, as that layout is inside, but im sure he caught a bit of attention.

Outside with your layout????? At the train show I go to it HAS to be inside.no questions asked. I did a layout there a couple years ago. The thomas stuff usually attracts a lot of attention. Its all for the little kids. I think I have a picture that was taken by the times and transcript (local newspaper) one of the three years I set up there.

this is only a small club show, with layouts owned either by the club or individual members. theres no room inside for my stuff, as we only have the two rooms, with the far room mainly occupied by the fixed HO layout. we are in the process of getting funding to finish the extenstion, which will mean i can be inside.
when we have open days, there are less layouts, so i can build something basic and be inside.

we have a big show every 2 years, not sure if there are rules on inside or not for that, but then we use a facility with enough room for everyone to be inside. our next one is in september, and will be my second. didnt do a thomas layout last time as another member also ran thomas and wanted to combine our collections for the event. i can safely say, some of my rare stuff would have "accidentally" gone home with him and been gone for good. that guy has since left the club, so will be using tomy this time round.

photos of the rooms here: http://sunsthomasandfriends.weebly.com/club-rooms.html i need to do some updating as things have changed a bit recently.

That's a nice club area, I can see the expansion area is dug out, hope it goes well.

cheers. cant wait to get it done. we will be getting a proper verandah with lean to roof, wheelchair ramp and double doors in the area where my layouts were set up.

[Super]

Very xmassy as always Sunhuntin. Too bad there was rain on your parade and a bad day that should have been wonderful.

cheers, super. to say i was highly annoyed is a polite understatement! felt like all the work i had put in, the time i had spent being good, and santa still somehow stuck me on the naughty list.

One or two exhibitions I have been to (here in the UK) have had a layout outside the building.
Some of our summers have seen heavy rain for days on end, although, fortunately it hasn't happened when the exhibition takes place, but it is a risky strategy and it helps if you have waterproof sheets to cover everything up if the worst happens