So we had a trip to the Great Electric Train show on Saturday. Due to the football traffic we used the train and the free rail link bus, but actually traffic didn’t seem that bad (although the car park at the Marshall Hall was 80% odd closed for the footie). Saturday wasn’t too crowded, and the aisles were quite wide. I did feel for those displaying / selling etc who had been put into a different room or a balcony as they were seeing a lot less footfall and at times (they said) twiddling their thumbs. With 30 layouts versus 57 retailers it did seem like a big shopping market with some layouts thrown in, and the kids certainly noticed this. It also meant that the popular layouts were hard to get to at times as people were four or five deep at some. I know the retailers fees help cover the costs but the split was too one sided for us. Call out layouts were (this is the kids list): Manston Airport; Fairwood Junction; Redbridge Wharf; and the Team Grantham layouts Per Ardua Adastra and All the Fun of the Fair from the model making TV show (disappointingly for them, hidden in the corner of a back room past lots of people sat on the floor). We bought some new brushes and a pot of superglue! The Minima Forma landscaping stuff being demo’d on the DCC Train Automation stand was very well done and two 10 year olds spent 20 minutes watching them so they did put on a show. Interesting stuff. So all in all a decent day out but 4 1/2 hours of trains, tubes and buses was a lot for all of us. Probably only go back if we are target shopping for something.

Posted by David N. at 2024-10-13 22:34:32 UTC