The Road to Peterborough....

Show Report

It's hard to believe that we started the ball rolling so long ago with the Peterborough show!. Going back in time to May, we approached British Railway Modelling about exhibiting at the National Festival of Railway Modelling at Peterborough. We booked a small six foot space, with the sole purpose of going out and meeting with people who have an interest in our railway.

We decided the Information stand we had was not great, and we would need to see if we could better it. Sometime ago, the group bought a second hand information stand which went up very easy and worked on magnets. These where contained in two bulky boxes, which have been stored for sometime. We opened them up and built the frame. Very easy, it looked like a winner. Then we tried to attach the blue backgrounds. Disaster - they where far too big, and just fell off.

The solution - Modify them. Our Vice Chairman spent an afternoon cutting these down to size, and repositioning the magnets on the back. This worked really well and the the stand was erected for the first time at our Wisbech meeting in September 2009.

Now we had this six foot stand, what on earth were we to put on it?

We spent a whole Sunday doing posters, and sorting pictures out to go on the boards. We feel we got the stand right. Once done, it was time to get everything ready for the 2009, National Festival of Railway Modelling.

When we set out to do this show, our aim was not to make lots of money, while that would be nice, it was our aim to get out there and speak with people interested in our cause, from far and wide. We did bring along some Bramley Line merchandise to sell from our range in the gift shop, including the new replica Wisbech East Platform tickets. Over the weekend we spoke to many people, some from Railway Industry, others local to the area, others from a far. We enjoyed talking to everyone who come to our stand, and would like to thank everyone who purchased merchandise.

We hope that we have shown the cause to everyone in a good light, manged to dispand some of the myths which have existed, and it was very good getting to speak to so many supporters. We raised a total of £160 at the event for the cause. We would like to thank Warners Group and Market Deeping Model Railway Club for their hospitality.

Our attention now returns to working on the line and obtaining the rest of the money for getting the lease. Sunday October 25th details to follow.