Sandy Shores @ MRC Christmas mini-exhibition 2023

 
A while back, Sandy Shores was invited to the MRC's Christmas mini-exhibition. Suddenly, it was only a week away - cue a panicked few days of getting things ship-shape! To add further complexity, an unexpected photoshoot cropped up out of nowhere, as well as regular work to get done (and other last-minute requests!). The upshot of all that is that my plans were somewhat curtailed, however, some things were indeed done. I haven't shown everything, but here are some quick snaps taken on my phone (so apologies for a reduction in image quality for most of this post, as I was understandably in a rush!). 

Above: Back in March (was it really that long ago?!), ahead of the Basingstoke show, a new promenade was built, along with some beach huts nicked from my Beach Diorama that I produced for a BRM how-to article. Unfortunately, the new sand that I used to blend it all in doesn't match the original. For all these months there has been a noticeable difference in colour - so it was time to try and blend it in a little using various washes of paint. This took a lot of trial and error, and although the end result will never be perfect, it is at least a lot better than it was!

Above: Given the introduction of a brake van, and also the number of times that I've found myself using the 'mainline' as a third siding, I thought it was high time I added an uncoupling magnet to aid in automatic uncoupling of wagons. The first photo shows the hole drilling for the new uncoupling magnet. The gap between the sleepers here was ever so slightly too small, so I did end up having to carefully cut away a little bit both sides, but thankfully it's not too noticeable. I actually, for the first time, used the Greenwich height gauge to make sure the magnet was the correct distance below the rail head. As can be seen in the second photo, it worked perfectly!

Above:  Pictured the day before the exhibition is my modelmaking desk. An absolute bombsite! On the cutting mat can just about be seen an interesting assortment of paraphenalia - including a lit tealight! There is a reason for that, which I'll get to another day. The other photo shows the layout almost fully loaded into the back of my new Berlingo - not only is the wheelchair ramp super useful, but the car itself is so much more spacious than the old one. The layout almost looks lost in there!

So, with everything packed in the car ready, and an early start beckoning, it was off to bed...

Above: ...ready for a 4.40am start! Just for reference, I normally, this time of year, don't get up until 10am - sometimes later *cough... 1pm yesterday*! Terrible, I know, but bedtime is usually 2am or even 4am, and I suffer from S.A.D quite a bit. I've always been a night owl, but winter is a particularly tough time of year for me, and I struggle to get up even moreso than other times of the year. Still, when there's an important thing to be up for, I can usually muster the strength to make exceptions! The photo shows an unshaven me having just woken up, vs a shaved me after a cup of tea and a shower. Why I was holding the lighthouse tower in one hand, I'm not sure - I blame the early start!

Above: So onwards, and despite getting quite anxious about driving in a city (coming from a village with single track roads), I made it with no trouble at all - much to my surprise. Traffic this early in the morning on a Sunday was thankfully non-existent. I even started to question the 20mph speed limit in the city... that was, until I left at rush hour in the evening later that day! In any case, I was the second person in (only Gus from the MRC was there), which meant I had the perfect parking space in front of the building. Given that there were two small flights of stairs, that was even better! 20 minutes after arriving, all the layout paraphenalia was taken upstairs, and I was one of the first to use the newly renovated library. In fact, it still had that 'new carpet' smell! A wonderful space, which I'm sure will be really appreciated by all that use it. 

Above: Whilst I was busily setting up the layout, which probably took about an hour, in comes Graham Muspratt and Simon Paley with Canute Road Quay - Graham's wonderful slice of Southampton Quayside. The hilarious part was that they came in carrying CRQ and it's stock in one go - whilst I'm faffing about adding all the removable structures, scenery, and figures onto Sandy Shores. All they had to do was set the trestles up, plonk the layout on top, and add the stock and they were done! Eventually, I finished setting the layout up (still managed to finish an hour before show opened), and, as Graham put it, our 'Southern Seaside Takeover' was ready for visitors. And personally, I think we looked very smart indeed. It certainly makes you realise just how tiny our layouts are when put in a space like this. 

What followed was a very enjoyable exhibition chatting to many, many interested and kind visitors. A highlight was that Tim Dunn popped over for a visit, and we spent ages chatting about layout design and the merits of 009 gauge. Phil Parker also kindly popped by, and even dropped off a Christmas card, which was very unexpected - it suddenly appeared on the layouts' folding stock tray and I didn't notice until he'd left!

Sadly I didn't really look around the clubrooms (certainly not downstairs/the basement), but I did pop into the main room after I had finished loading up:

Above: There, the club's test track was set up in all its splendour. Clearly a very useful bit of kit, and one I've now seen at least three times (twice at Ally Pally, and now once in the clubroom itself!). But what's that on the right?...

Above: Well it's York Road Underground Station - part of the MRC's epic Copenhagen Fields! This is as close to the layout as I've ever got as it's always, and understandably, always been about 5 people deep at Ally Pally. So whilst this is only a small slice of the layout, it was great to get up close and personal, and see the incredible minute detail that's been put into such a tiny scale!

I think that will about wrap up this entry - it was a joy to be able to exhibit at the MRC, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be back in a few years (5+?!) with Bramble's Boatyard, should I be invited. I'll leave you all with a few more (admittedly low quality phone shots) of York Road:

It was also really nice chatting to various MRC members, and getting to hear about their backgrounds and modelling interests. So yes, a very pleasant way to spend a day indeed, and it passed by all too quickly! Happily, the layout performed very well indeed, and although there are still a few minor bits of tweaking to do on the couplings, I was incredibly happy that I was able to uncouple automatically probably 75% of the time - a vast improvement on previous exhibitions. Now I just need to fit the Greenwich couplings to the wagons that don't currently have them; the skips/tippers, and the carriages. Oh, and thoughtfully, Graham provided a soundtrack for the layout in the form of typical dockside shunting. Well, it certainly saved me having to add seagull sounds to my layout!

Before I go, here's a comparison before and after cleaning rolling stock wheels. The crud on the wheels has only accumulated over two exhibitions - bear in mind that Sandy Shores obviously isn't a roundy-roundy, so I can't imagine the stock travels much distance:

My utmost thanks to the MRC for inviting me over with Sandy Shores!