I had a phone call on Sunday evening asking if I'd like to take a layout to our local gathering of the Hornby Railway collectors on Wednesday. I normally take a small vintage Hornby Dublo 3 rail shelf layout of some kind but my latest was packed away. It occurred to me though that I had a small baseboard (2ft 5ins x 3ft 10ins) and a spare roll of grass mat, so it should be possible to put together a basic Plarail Advance layout. I wondered what people would make of it, in among the vintage O and OO gauge but it being Christmas I reckoned they'd probably tolerate it. So starting at 10pm Tuesday I put this (pretty basic) effort together:
I was surprised at what a positive response it got. Only one person recognised it as Advance (and was a bit sniffy about it), and a few others recognised the blue Tomy track. But all were intrigued, impressed by the detail of the trains and interested to know about them. The simple layout proved fun to operate for a few hours too. It turned out to be a popular exhibit and a successful outing.
I was surprised at what a positive response it got. Only one person recognised it as Advance (and was a bit sniffy about it), and a few others recognised the blue Tomy track. But all were intrigued, impressed by the detail of the trains and interested to know about them. The simple layout proved fun to operate for a few hours too. It turned out to be a popular exhibit and a successful outing.
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