The Yorkshire Group attended the first National Festival of Railway Modelling at the NEC, held on the 23rd and 24th November 2024. Our Dixon Green and Sead-Y-Parc layout was setup on Friday by our very dedicated team of volunteers. So dedicated that they’d all managed to get up on time to make it to the NEC for the early morning setup, despite the traffic!
Our first obstacle to contend with was a low loader parked across our layout space. We thought we’d be bringing the biggest locos to this show, but the Talyllyn trumped us by bringing No.6 Douglas. We could at least claim to be the largest layout, although it soon went up once we had our space back. Having a level floor was something of a novelty too and made setup easier. Before long it was all ready for the Saturday morning opening, allowing us all to head back to the hotel for some much needed rest, followed of course by food.
The alarm sounded early the next morning, it was time to head to the NEC for day one of the show. Arriving somewhat wet, we soon got to preparing locos, setting out stock and switching all the features on. 09:30 came and with bellowing voice from above, the show was announced open.
As always with this layout, running was a mix of diesels and small steam locos. Some would make there way around the full layout, choosing which route to take to pass others. Others would man the layouts features, including the mine, dock and factory. We soon had many people around the layout, mainly as a good number of them had never seen 16mm scale at a show of this type before. We enjoyed seeing the even more surprised look when we pointed out that it’s real steam coming out of that chimney!
The flow of visitors was constant throughout both days, with many questions asked (and of course answered). As is often the case, popular viewing spots were beside the mine and factory, but the new dock board also became a hit. Especially as having a dock and canal boat seems to be a requirement for many of our smaller scale friends.
We did have some teething issues with some of our features on Saturday afternoon. Our mine seemed to run dry at one point without any rhyme or reason, investigation was required at the end of the day and the culprit found. It seems the strip of duck tape we installed around 7 years ago had worn out! We had to fit a whole new 2 inches of tape! Sunday was trouble free mind so maybe we should replace the tape more often, say every 6 years?
Before long however it was show closing time. That bellowing voice was back, stating the show was now closed. We all relaxed, it was done….no wait. Now we have to pack it all up. Thankfully, we’ve done this a time or two now and the layout was down and all the buildings and figures back in the boxes. Can’t be sure they were the boxes they came out from mind, but it all fit so we must have done something right.
So with that, we said good bye to the NEC, headed out the hall door (Getting wet once again) and headed north back to Yorkshire.
Thank you to the team for attending the show, and all those who joined us to run on the layout. A fantastic effort by all, showcasing what 16mm and the Yorkshire Group has to offer.
- Yorkshire Group
- 32mm
- Anything Goes
- Raised Level
- Indoor
- Level
