How early do people start queuing? We arrived outside hall 1 at 9.05am and were ushered into a new queue on a ramp. We thought we were around the first in the queue but there about 200 in front of us queuing outside the doors! When the doors open I walked straight in (with the flow) not being asked for a ticket, so wasted £6.50p there! Bachmann stand. Relatively civilised swaying to get to the front,ish. The only shoving/pushing came when people who had bought were trying to get away from the front. What was annoying was several people staying at the front for the 20 minutes I queued passing models (all diesels) back to friends several places behind us and so cheating the queue. Serves Bachman's right for not sorting a decent queue system out as I saw 2 class 37 disappear for no money! When I got near to the front the prices did not impress me. Std 4 tanks at £44 when I pick then p new for about £51, std 5 loco for £60 when they are only £68 new, 56xx for £31 when only £38 new, will not bother wasting time there again I was wondering if anyone knows why so many std 4 tanks were there as seconds. When we left the show around 5 pm there were still many (30+) std
4tanks there, plus quite a few of std . So what was wrong with the std 4? Good selection of trade stand, seems more than layouts. Lots of good bargains around if you looked, Merchant Navy for £50 new! Hornby live steam. £500???Totally unimpressed. Sueth smoke units look better (I actually saw nothing coming out of the chimney stack) and if you want the steam smell put the kettle on, you can also have a cup of tea this way! Keen floating systems demonstrating an excellent way to overcome the crappy hornby coupling on the Pullman coach. Too many N gauge layouts there and not enough 00. Some nice ones there but allot were slow and not holding crowds for long due to inactivity! some nice 0 gauge for the short sighted!All in all a much better show than last year, good trade, more room to move around with kids getting to the front of layouts unhassled. More 00 for next year though please.