A Warley Wander...

The arrival of the festive season in my calendar always comes around with our annual visit to the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. This huge festival of all things model railway is well worth a look, particularly with it being pretty much on our doorstep. Having booked tickets a few weeks ago, we arrived in the bustling foyer area outside Hall 5 for around 09:00, with advanced ticket holders queuing to be let in at the usual opening time of 09:15. Once pushed and shoved into the exhibition hall, we wandered around to see what was on offer. These days I don't really buy anything, as my collection of railway bits in various gauges needs to reduce rather than grow further, but it never hurts to look! The two main centrepiece engines this year were of a slightly different breed than the standard gauge variants that usually attend. 15" gauge "Samson" and "Northern Chief" (of 1927 and 1925 vintage respectively) were visiting from the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch. The impressive pair were immaculately turned out and a credit to their owners...

I have something special planned for a visit to the RHDR next year so watch this space on that one. We haven't been for over 10 years and a return visit is well overdue! Elsewhere in the hall was Statfold-based "Alpha" and the recently restored War Department Hunslet. The layouts made for an impressive mass of colour and variety as usual. These days I rarely photograph anything at Warley as a) my pictures don't do the show justice and b) it's quite often far too busy to get a clear shot of anything. We spent around 3 hours enjoying a steady wander around the show before we reached our usual limit of being bashed by the rucksacks of several thousand bobble hatted show goers. As usual, it was a nice morning out. Best Regards, Sam...