Wirksworth it?

As mentioned yesterday, I visited the Wirksworth show put on by the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway. Was it worth it? Well, there are quite a few things that disappointed me:

- £4 to get in was expensive frankly.
- It was spread across 3 halls across the town, which was just about OK, until it started raining!
- Similar exhibits were not grouped together
- A number of layouts were plain shocking and were no better than a hornby box set placed on a flat board with some shoddy scenery.
- Almost all the trade stands were identical - model shop stands selling OO equipment.

but...

There was a clever little 009 layout made in a violin case, a decent 7mm NG layout and some excellent American and French continental layouts.

so...

One way of considering how good an exhibition was, is to conider how much I spent (or could have spent) and how many layouts that were there, that I would have liked to own. Well, I spent £5 (and didn't want to buy anything else) and there was only 1 layout I would have liked to own. Oh dear!

Next year I hope there will be some better traders...tools, scenery etc... and the bad layouts are expunged...

Colin