A Blast from the Past

On Saturday, took my Dad over to Nottingham Club’s autumn exhibition at Ruddington, on the right side of Nottingham for us.

Growing up, Tuesday evening were club nights at Nottingham Model Railway Club and Dad has been a member since soon after we all moved to Nottingham in the late 1970s. The first weekend in March was also spent helping run the exhibition at the Victoria Baths, usually for me on the Club Sales stand.

Since moving nearer to us, Dad can’t attend club nights any more but we are both keen to attend their shows when we can.

On display was the Club’s model ‘Deepcar’, an excellent model of the Woodhead electrics, that was celebrating forty years on the exhibition circuit. Forty years on, you still don’t see many models with scale overhead electric wires modelled and even fewer of the Woodhead.

Quite an achievement, the club started building the layout when I was a junior member there so makes me feel old!

‘Hindlow’ from the Clay Cross group also caught my eye.

As did this smart and compact Polish HO shunting layout.

And finally the scenery on this simple but stunning 009 oval layout.

There were some other layouts, but this is what caught my eye. Sadly, like other shows, there were some I’d consider to be dioramas rather than operating layouts! We stood at one for a good 15 minutes with nothing moving whilst two of the operators put the world to rights!

But still, an enjoyable trip out and we bought a few bits for the layout I’m helping Dad build.