Owing to the cancellation of the Marklin Club UK meet at Ian's, I was able to visit the Warley Model RR Show at the Birmingham NEC (UK) with fellow Forum member Nigel on Sunday 24 November 2013.

The Warley show is organised by the Warley Model Railway Club see Link, and is said to be, currently the largest show in the UK. I am no expert, but I can say it was the biggest show I have been to in recent times in the UK, and I would highly recommend it to anyone in the UK.

The Show this year was over two days at the NEC, and features some manufacturers like Piko and Backmann, some traders selling a wide range of mostly UK Model RR stock, memorabilia and the like, a selection of display layouts (this year I understand there were 84), some pieces of real steam locos and an area of demonstrations direct hand on tuition, such as weathering locos, and building scenery. I stress this is mostly UK orientated and accordingly a wide selection of scales were represented, and there were some foreign displays (A Dutch RR club had brought a large modular display to show, and there was at least one German) as well as some Englishmen displaying foreign RR equipment, including Marklin Z gauge, Japanese N gauge, American scale 1 and N gauge to name a few). My son says I must also add that there was a sizeable Lego layout and a very impressive wind up layout of UK based stock. At least two of the UK displays from Eurospoor were also present. Oh and there was a layout using live steam locos, I took a great video of this layout which showed the controller, setting up a loco for operation so lots of steam and noise, with the rear tender open so you could see all the control mechanism, but then sadly discovered that the video was not actually on.............DOH!!!! , and so I had to shoot another video, which sadly was not as exciting, which you can see below.

The show did not quite fill the exhibition hall, and so there was plenty of scope for the likes of Mike and Dan to display there layouts there next year. The turnout was good, and around noon, the hall was quite packed. My only complaint with UK model shows is that a lot of the layouts are in fact really dioramas and whilst interesting in their own right, and show very high levels of skill and workmanship, not a lot happens, and the trains often do not go anywhere. Several layouts actually mimic real time timetables, say with 24 hours compressed in 7 hours, but even so, there is a lot of time where nothing actually happens, or that you are waiting for the train to be cleaned, etc. The attention to detail is admirable though, but I prefer to see an exciting layout with lots happening.

Apart from the Marklin Z gauge there was no other Marklin on display, but we faired a little better with the traders, with some new and second hand items being sold, these items consisted of track, a signal, some locos, and some rolling stock. The prices varied from the expensive to the almost surprising and as I found some were open to offers, and I managed to add this beauty to my collection;






In addition there was a reasonably good selection of model kits for sale including Vollmer, Kibri and Faller models, mostly overpriced by Ebay standards, but there were a few bargains to be had, and I managed to acquire these kits with a little hard bargaining. I am not used to UK traders haggling, but maybe it is a sign of the times, but on these model kits I was able to negotiate 20% discount on quoted prices, so in future don't be shy;




There was also a wide range of tools and accessories including Presier figures and a multitude of items for UK Model RR, typical of other UK shows and meets.

Verdict: This was the best show I have seen recently in the UK, seemed well organised, something for everyone, we had a good visit and I would recommend it to others and so I will give it a 7/10.

BR

Glenn


PS: The videos are taking forever, and so I will post then tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

The second is of a nice rural English layout called Scorbiton;

The final layout is a layout modelling Kirkhill Depot on the ScotRail Network in Scotland. Although more of a diorama style layout, I thought this was well presented and a lot of work had evidently gone into the layout, and the trains ran very smoothly.



I am afraid that's all I managed to film, mostly due to the hustle and bustle of the show it was at times difficult to get a good vantage point to show off the layouts. Must do better next time.

BR

Glenn

Alan,

Thanks for the comments. There was one Trader who had about 20 to 30 Mini-Club boxes with various goodies in, some locos, coaches and rolling stock and so there may well have been some items of interest, for you. The Z gauge layout was good, it had been exhibited in a number of shows and had won best of show at one.

I am hopeful that maybe Mike will show his layout there next year and help to raise the profile of Marklin in the UK. I agree whatever the layout you must applaud the people for making the effort to come and display their layouts, I am sure it is time consuming as well as hard work, and all too often the visitors take it all for granted.

BR

Glenn

Excellent videos, Thanks for watching.