Arriving early on Saturday morning we drove the cars into the venue to our allotted plot and unloaded the layout before driving off to park up about half a mile away. Returning to the venue we quickly set up Queen Charlotte Dock ready for operation before the public came in. The venue was unusually spacious allowing us plenty of room behind the layout
and with wide aisles in front it never got too crowded. The downside was that the lighting was very poor however we had our layout lighting with us which alleviated the gloom to some extent.
There was a good crowd on both days although as usual less on Sunday. The layout performed well and received many compliments. As at previous shows Martin operated his Bluetooth fitted locos from the front of the layout and invited youngster to have a go driving them up and down the front of the layout. This is a very popular innovation not seen on other layouts and indeed not just with children as a lady of a certain age also had a go and really enjoyed herself laughing and smiling the whole time. We are now starting to develop little cameos around the layout and these give interest to members of the public who are not necessarily train nerds.
During the weekend we received probably six expressions of interest in inviting us to other shows. Given our policy of restricting ourselves to no more than four shows a year we will have to think carefully about these in order to avoid over exposure and operator burn-out.
Our adjoining EKOGG stand was manned on Saturday by Geoff and Fred with Geoff’s diorama and models on display. On Sunday John D manned the stand with the diorama and some of his models. A number of people expressed interest in our club so hopefully we might see some of them at Badlesmere.
So, all in all another very good outing for Queen Charlotte Dock and EKOGG. Chris
