Exhibition Report Granite City Train Show, St Cloud MN May 14th

 I enjoy the Granite City Train Show. I've attended almost every show since its inception about 15 years ago. It's not a huge show by any means, but it has a nice, friendly atmosphere. There's a core of regular exhibitors and vendors. Many of the attendees are familiar too, so you're always guaranteed to see someone you know, and I've forged some interesting friendships over the years.

I decided to give a second outing to Nowhere Road Halt. It's the perfect example of the micro layout ideal. It's small, ridiculously small, yet can be very relaxing to operate. So about a month before the show I pulled it off the shelf to refurbish it a bit.

The major change was to add a little extra scenery depth. In order to fit in with the cartel conversations competition rules, the original layout had a curved back scene and some ridiculously tight clearances. So I added a little extra depth to make the model breathe a bit. The completed model size is now 26" x 7". The little extra makes quite the difference.

The area in white is the addition.

This also allowed me to re-do the back scene. My original one did not work and at the previous show at Christmas, I had nothing but a plain blue piece of board at the back. This added to the cramped feeling. Of course, you can never find exactly what you're after in a back scene. So I made my own. I found a sky scene I like and added a foreground that I liked to give the effect I was after. As this model is inspired by the Fenland of Lincolnshire, the sky is very important. The land is flat, so the sky is vast and overpowering and needed to be so on the back scene. I may yet add Lincoln Cathedral in the distance to the back scene to really locate the layout. It's something that can be seen from miles and miles away.

I'm really happy with the vastness of the sky on this tiny back scene

A simple scene, a train waits at the station

I'm really happy with how the train can exit through the back scene here

Over the level crossing

The show went well, the layout performed flawlessly, and elicited many positive comments from viewers. "Look, it's like a picture." Said a father to his child. This was probably the neatest comment all day. Better than the compliments, for he'd hit the nail firmly on the head as to what I was trying to put over. It's my micro layout philosophy in a nutshell. It's a picture.

The layout display shared the table with publicity for The Micro Model Railway Dispatch. People did seem genuinely interested in the magazine. Some people looking at the pictures on the display stand and asking serious questions about the layouts featured. One young man said. "I need a layout like that" seeing the pictures of Tom Conboy's Wetterau Food Services. According to the website stats the site did see a spike in traffic over the weekend of the show. So I guess the people who said they would take a look at the site did.

The layout and Dispatch poster board (which is larger than the layout)

I even met a reader of the magazine! He made sure to let me know how much he had enjoyed all the layouts in the Christmas special. There you are, if you submitted a layout to the Christmas issue of The Dispatch. Your work was very much appreciated. 

So, there we are all around a good day. it was topped off by an invitation fro bring a layout to a show in southern Minnesota in the autumn. 

I'll keep you posted.