Alexandra Palace show

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

This thread is now moderated.

Positive comments on this show are welcome.

regards david

Edited By David Clark 1 on 18/01/2013 12:56:47

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I will be there on Saturday on the St Albans stand so come along and say hello. Our club members will be happy to give advice on a particular problem or just chat about modelling in general.

[nick feastParticipant @nickfeast85472]

I will be there on Sunday on the Polly stand to talk to anyone building a Q1. If I don't go my loco will end up in Nottingham, much too far north for a Southern engine!

Nick

Edited By David Clark 1 on 18/01/2013 15:42:54

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I'll be there Tomorrow as well, don't particularly need much this time but I'm sure I will come away with something, will post some photos on my return.

J

[Captain BigglesParticipant @captainbiggles]

Coming tomorrow from Essex – first time. Excited.

Edited By David Clark 1 on 18/01/2013 15:43:38

[Bob LambParticipant @boblamb44747]

It has actually stopped snowing here now and the main roads are clear including the all important hill up to the Palace. Buses seem to be running OK and the occasional applause could be heard from the snooker hall next door.

I had thought the weather might have put off a lot of people and although it seemed a bit less crowded than normal there was still a lot to see and buy. I enjoyed it and even met a friendly "local" who had been there on the bus on the way home.

Bob

Edited By David Clark 1 on 18/01/2013 15:44:26

[JamieGParticipant @jamieg]

Here it is still snowing! Unfortunately I will not manage to attend the event.

Cheers,

Giacomo /Sweden

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Gentlemen,

I'm thinking of going to Alexandra Palace tomorrow, how wsa it under foot today as I'm not to steady on my legs at the moment.

Martin P

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Well it was pretty busy yesterday (Saturday) even into the last hour which is normally rather dead. One person talking to me on the stand admitted to reading the forum but I must have been off spending money when the rest of you dropped by. Sorry I missed you. Might have been better for my credit card if I had stayed on the stand.

Or perhaps I was just at the wrong show? I didn't think Ihad been to this one….. **LINK** Obviously taken on set up day but how can a reporter completely miss the primary theme of the show?

Notes for organisers: No parking for disabled at the show entrance like there used to be! Not very PC.
Last weekend I was at the amateur run Chiltern MRS show and exhibitors had FREE coffee all day and FREE roast beef lunch on Sunday.

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

I will repeat myself from a different thread as maybe it will be shut down, so here goes as the show is now over you never know your luck

33 photos

Jason I agree and that is why my grandson and I did not go we went 2 years ago and his comment when we eventualy found 2 chairs an extremely expensive beer and coke and when he looked at the menu said grandad that is 2 weeks pocket money,( and that is a lad who built at the age of 16 a sterling hot air engine in my workshop). and why is there so many people selling market stuff. No wonder people were hogging all the tables eating there own grub and drinks. We came down on our club coach with 35 bods but this year we had to drop the idea as we only got 5 names. Oh my first posting on this wording would have been similar was deleted also so waited for the Berlin wall to fall. Organisers I do hope that you will take this as constructive comments. Bob

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Show highlights. Massive crane jib on the Chingford stand. Hope they bring more bits each year as it progresses. Pair of brand new shiney Pansy's. One perhaps had had a short test steam. Wonder if they will run as well as my 40 yr old one. On the boating side a superbly finished steam launch to the Wideawake design and others were impressed by a massive 12ft long warship. Steamboat Phil still hasn't finished his steam springer. Photos later.

Lunch. For the last couple of years the exhibitors' provision has been the rather cold ice rink corridor (sheppards pie £7.30) It used to be the more salubrious carpeted bar somewhere behind the organ but perhaps us engineering types were leaving swarf footprints in the deep pile carpet. At our club show we do the catering which keeps it cheap while profitable . I think Taunton had to use the on site caterers but Bristol was perhaps club run. Never tried the catering at Sandown. Chiltern mentioned above used to self cater but have now subcontracted it to the pub next door hence the carvery on Sunday (with free pint).

[Halton TankParticipant @haltontank]

Having spent 3 days stewarding at Model Engineer show at Alexandra Palace I would rate the show as average in terms of shows now days. In this show there are no competition models and the models on show are all supplied by the clubs exhibiting. This year I noticed at lot less of models that you see year after year.

Bob (Springbok) not exactly sure what you are trying to say. The way I read your post is that you did not come this year because when you went a couple of years ago you didnot like the catering.

Regards Luigi.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

An excellent club stand

Alan in the picture was given a ride in the cab of a Virgin trains HST as a sort of 90th birthday present.. He commented it was rather quieter than the cabs of the steam locos he drove in the fifties.

Hope you can make out the crane jib in this picture. Around 6ft long.

Those Meccano guys can build anything. This is an automatic french knitting machine.

There were a LOT of 4 in traction engines at the show, but strangely no 3 in and only a couple smaller. Here are 4 from Harrow club including a stone crusher on the end of that belt drive.

Edited By Bazyle on 21/01/2013 22:12:50

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Here is a showma engine (unfinished showman's geddit?)

I didn't take a picture but another stand had 4 in Burrell.

If you look closely this is a loco transporter held together by R clips. Has some good ideas that I might consider instead of my Dexion set up.

I snapped this Stent grinder on the Romford stand because there is another thread running about the variety. This is the first show that has not had several Quorns on display. the red thing is a 6in ruler. Shows how much smaller it is than a Clarkson.

Finally there is a Wideawake picture in my album that I can't get at to add so you will have to make the effort to look for it.

Edited By Bazyle on 21/01/2013 22:27:21

Edited By Bazyle on 21/01/2013 22:29:44

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

Bob (Springbok) not exactly sure what you are trying to say. The way I read your post is that you did not come this year because when you went a couple of years ago you didnot like the catering.

Hi Luigi
That was only a tiny part of it, most of the traders looked very unhappy and grumpy, they had printed the floor plan in reverse so took ages to find anything, On the whole barren and cold. Was not impressed by the ammount of market traders, but on the upside when we eventually found the upstairs rooms lots of lovely models, Did not spend much a tool on offer on the ME and MEW stand and had good chats with ME people I bumped into or were on club stands. I have to say that most of our coachload felt the same so I feel that contributed to only 5 signing up this time.
I do hope that explains it better.

Bob

[Geoff SheppardParticipant @geoffsheppard46476]

Sorry Bob,

Not quite sure which show you are writing about. There were thirty to thirty-five people on the Bristol Society coach on Sunday and we enjoyed a sociable day out despite the snow. No hold-ups anywhere.

Geoff

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I find the 'market traders' useful for all sorts of things like wheels and extra spanners and a bunch of things that only they have. Without Proops there a whole other stuff that they do was missing too. And no 'battery man' or 'motors man' like there used to be.

Somehow the whole day went far faster than usual and I didn't get anything like the time off-stand I could have done with. So must have missed a lot of stuff though this year I had a special look at the SMEE stand having missed a particular demo last year. I used to do 2 days sometimes at the old Womberly shows and that was before I was involved with a club.

So come on drop the moaning and tell/show me what I missed.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Well the few pictures I took did not come out too well but her is a link to an ablum posted by one of teh members of TT with plenty

**LINK**

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Gentlemen,

I went on the Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed myself, I did ask on here what the weather conditions were like as my Arthritic knee's make walking on dry ground hard work so slippery conditions would be a no no, for some reason the posting didnt appear until after the show so I took a chance and then found that it wasnt very good under foot particularly when I had to walk from the railway station to the underground because of un recorded track repairs, my high light of a very good show was on the Victoria Model Steam Boat Club stand, they had a laptop running loads of pictures one of which was my Grandfathers boat "Smokey" on Victoria Park pond where he used to take it for the straight running competitions. After speaking to a gentleman who turned out to be the VMSC secretary he has kindly sent me a copy of the picture, made my day.

Martin P

[Halton TankParticipant @haltontank]

Bob (Springbok), I think you are refering to show at Sandown Park. The show at Alexandra Palace is a different show run by a different company and there isn't no upstairs at Ally Pally unless you mean the toilets.

Regards Luigi.

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

My apologies everyone got mixed up

Geoff see you on the 6th

Bob

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