I haven't done a preamble before as such, just a few words appended to the first picture of a show sometimes. However, this time I want to say a bit more so here is my first proper preamble and overview.

I came to this show in 2008 and was reasonably impressed, so was looking forward to this one. It was in the same venue but I had not done my homework and on entering was asked for £10 entry, which felt like a mugging at the time - especially as there seemed to be nothing to indicate what was what (at first I actually thought the till was just selling guides and tried to go round it). This price did include the guide, which is big and glossy with many pictures, so if you look at it as £7 entry and £3 guide it isn't toooo bad. BUT I do object to not having the option on this and I'm sure a lot of people, especially those coming with others will feel this was too much of a burden. One reason it annoyed me is that (especially with a large guide) it is a pain to carry around all the time, and I will often buy one on my way home rather than on entry. So not a good start.

This is quite a big show by local standards, so having got there early I did my usual swift walk round to see what was what before the crowds built up, then started my detailed run where I have a good look at all the layouts and take pictures of those I want to put up here.

So after a couple of hours I'd done that and went in search of refreshment before doing a trawl of the traders and having a last look at favourite layouts. The 'cafeteria' was in another hall, so very spacious, but the serving area looked quite amateur. There was a long queue, few staff, coffee appeared to be a dollop of instant in a styrofoam mug, and there was no visible price list. So, still stinging from the entry fee shock, I decided to go home instead.
This was a bit sad as I realised later that as well as skipping the traders (not a big deal) I'd missed a few layouts on my detail round which I would likely have picked up on the later round, particularly Purgatory Peak.

As to the layouts, there were a few duplicates from Warrington as expected. However there was a big preponderance of 'late steam British' which gets tedious. A diet of black engines nudging four wheel wagons and maroon coaches around is not my thing, though obviously it is for a lot of people, and an excess in one show puts me off - I haven't been to the Manchester show for many years as that seemed to have become almost exclusively little 1950's shunting layouts. (OK, I exaggerate a bit, but not much I think). I'd rather do a smaller (cheaper) show with diversity than a big one padded out with lot's of clones.

There also seemed to be an excess of the 'hand of god' in operation during my visit. Probably just one of those chance things, but as I was there on the second day most of the teething problems should have been sorted. Some of it was the usual manual coupling/uncoupling that goes with 'black engines nudging four wheel wagons', but a lot was operators apparently doing modifications or fixing stuff. Nothing destroys the carefully built image of a piece of 'reality' than a massive hand fiddling around for five minutes in the middle of it - pull it off the track and fix it out of sight please!

So all in all a disappointing trip though to some extent my own fault. I don't think I'll do this one again - it's moving to June in future which counts me out next year anyway (coaster trip to the USA - yay). I think the Warrington one last month, though much smaller, was better and better value.

Next - the layouts, which are in alphabetical order.