Last weekend I was once again assisting Mike Wild, the editor of Hornby Magazine, this time operating his Southern Region basedlayout Bay StreetShed. This was a model railway exhibition with a difference as it was held amongst full size heritage steam and diesel engines and trains at the Midland Railway Centre.

Although Mike’s layout is set in the twilight years of  steam, alongside 3^rd rail EMUs and the newly introduced diesels, I warped time slightly (well just by just over ten years or so) running, as promised in my post below, my model of the Bulleid Leader.

It did haul the occasional train but spent of the weekend in a prominent position on shed (not unlike the real thing in 1951/2!) which attracted a lot of attention, questions and conversation. It was good to note that a lot of visitors actually knew what the engine was.

The exhibition was spread out among the many buildings at Swanwick Junction and we were located in the Diesel workshop / shed. The meant that a natural weathering process occurred over the weekend as the dust (and sand used to fill the gaps between the floor and the running rails) was blown about and settled all over the layouts. Despite this the layout ran very well over the weekend and was probably offering visitors the most intensive train service of any of the layouts on show.

One slightly unusual aspect of exhibiting at this show was the fact that we had an aisle on both sides of the layout. The meant the fiddle yard was in full view, which the public seemed to enjoy as equally as much as watching the front of the layout!