Thanks to John (Davies) for a great show at Landford, nr Salisbury on 4th September.

With a 16 minute drive Dad and I arrived at the venue as the last ones there half an hour (or less!) to opening time. Layout took about 15 minutes to set up (which also meant we were first away!). This is exactly why big isn't always necessarily better (although I would love a roundy-roundy).

The show seemed very friendly and the exhibits were arranged so that there was plenty of space between them so people could move freely. Unfortunately big crowds never materialised at it seemed to go very quiet from about 12 onwards which is a great shame as it was a lovely little show! Just hope there are more people next time.

A varied selection of lovely layouts were on show ranging from N to 0 scale IIRC. I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying that the show was intended to be of a selection of local layouts and this did seem to come through to me. There were a couple of trade-stands which were useful as I needed some track for the fiddle yard! Seems I brought the fishplates but not the track .

It was a joy to exhibit at and I came away with a few ideas and a couple of exhibition invites. One of which is to Exbury Gardens & Railway where I will be based in the locomotive shed with Calshot MkII. See here: Exbury 'Steam in the Gardens'. Should allow me enough time to get a few more details onto the layout but I doubt it will be finished due to college work!

Although I didn't take any photos of any other exhibits I did manage to grab a few of my own layout which should help show how much I had completed by the show:

And one final thing. You may remember in the title it has the two words 'future plans...' well I suppose I'd best briefly explain. Looking at other layouts at Landford and after the experience of my first time spending more than 10 minutes operating Calshot2 I came to a few conclusions;

1. There would not really be enough room for two operators (and finding a willing helper may prove difficultly anyway)

2. The fiddle yard is completely inadequate! No room to store stock or safely manoeuvre whole trains etc.

3. Operating the NG and SG simultaneously will only end in tears.

4. To solve 3. I could make a new fiddle yard to include a loop of NG track for lazy running or when I'm dealing with the SG.

Hence my future plan will be to make a new fiddle yard that is likely to include a semicircle of track to form the rest of the loop of NG. Also I've got to design a way of hiding the scenic exit and I will be trialling putting a mirror by the sluice on the backscene to be able to view the sluice better.

Well I think that's everything I wanted to mention.

Thanks for taking interest!

P.S. One gentleman came up to my Dad and said he was from this forum and was really glad to be able to get the chance to see Calshot (IIRC!). Unfortunately I didn't meet him nor find out what his username was?