12/13 JAN 2019 STEVENAGE SHOW

The model railway show at Stevenage in January 2019 was the first official exhibition where we had all sections of the layout present. Previously at the Acton Depot Model Railway Exhibition in 2016, we only 2 sections; one being the fiddle yard and the other a scenic board. This was slightly problematic only by the big reason we didn't have the other 2 boards or albeit hadn't been constructed yet. The other issue which was that not everything had been tested and we couldn't use the full control panel because that was to go on the next board that had yet to be constructed so we had made a temporary solution just for the show.

Comparing it to the Stevenage Show, we had all 4 sections of the layout however it was the second time that we were able to put all 4 sections together. You may be asking why it was the second time and not several and I shall explain that later in another post. The previous time was at 'Teccy Bob's' house the weekend before Stevenage and we were beginning to see issues with the track not aligning between sections and trains not being able to run because of the 3rd and 4th rails being too high. This had caused an issue of creating enormous pressure for the youngest member of the group who found it a bit much when the customers had come through the door at the exhibition and realising that he could barely run any trains. A bit awkward to explain that one, eh? Scenery wise, it was a dramatic improvement over this 3 year period with tons of interest and hours spent in creating an underground atmosphere and with knowledge how things are arranged, it had given a real good image to the layout. The scenery around the tunnel had huge amounts of detail including the fine cables adjacent to the trackbed as well as the shrubbery between the tracks. Electrics had worked reasonably well although my mind has gone a bit blank looking back at it.