The annual pilgrimage to the Uckfield exhibition. It was packed! I got knobbled by the manager as soon as I'd walked in. They'd decided to run it more or less as normal as it would be tricky to change it. I agreed. The usual spacings and room layout, so as you can see from above the usual sharp elbows to get round. The only consideration was sanitiser on the way in. Because of this mask wearing was high. Notably a couple of the regular traders had been replaced, but no holes in the room.
Uckfield leans toward a finescale vibe, but was missing the usual 3mm and S attendees. That aside, some top notch stuff on show. There is a problem with this. Adrian prides himself (surely not?) on getting debut appearance layouts from quite long distances and possibly because of this, or maybe the finescale thing there, was way too much fingerpoken and push-along going on, even by the time I left at ten to three. This ain't a good advert for higher echelon modelling despite it all looking stunning. As I've said repeatedly over the years on here - this is a show guys, not a club night.
Food was taken at the cafe at the front of the building, which as always was excellent and cheap. All in all it was a brave and worthwhile move considering that shows are still being cancelled due to drop outs (but do they bother to try to get replacements?).
Show: 8.5 (sort the running )
Catering: 11
Rucksacks: 0
Masks: 8
Covid preparations: virtually nil
But it was FINESCALE finger poking you heathen. Just bow down before the perfect of P4 and be grateful that you are allowed to look upon such marvels. True finescale operates in a different world to the rest of us and it's adherents are above such minor considerations as having things work reliably or colour balancing photographs...
ReplyDeleteIt was a lot quieter on sunday, though it got quite busy early in the afternoon for a while.
ReplyDeleteHad a good day, enjoyed the layouts, spent a few quid (mostly on N gauge bits), went home happy.
Only time I saw stuff run badly or fall off was when cameras were pointed at it. Mr. Windle says all his locos are trained to recognise when videos are being taken and react accordingly. I thought the 2mm FS stuff seemed to run very well, especially Modbury, and I was very taken with John Greenwood's w.i.p. portrayal of Padstow, watching the train approach around the curve over the bridge is very impressive.
Hi,
DeleteW.I.P?
Andrew Knights (anon)
Work In Progress.
DeleteCheers! I was expecting something more "Finescale"! :-)
DeleteAK Anon
Could we have a namecheck for the layouts you've featured please?
ReplyDelete