Today should have been the 2015 Narrow Gauge North exhibition but alas, it wasn't meant to be as the announcement came back in November that the show was cancelled due to issues with the venue.
There is probably no such thing as an ideal exhibition venue when you have a large section devoted to large-scale live steam and it has to be said that the Benton Park School is probably not one of the finest examples of educational architecture! However it served the show well enough and it is sad that an unenlightened attitude has deprived a local charity of a useful revenue earner.
We had been sounded out about taking 'Shifting Sands' to the show this year but I didn't ever get around to following up the potential invite...sorry... As my penance I'll be doing a days hard labour at the Sherwood Forest Railway.
As a narrow gauge modeller who doesn't have the opportunity to visit many of the specialist events (largely concentrated in the southern part of the UK) the loss of Narrow Gauge North does deprive me of an opportunity to catch up with retailers such as Black Dog Mining and Avalon Line, and have a glance over the legendary 009 Society sales stand to see if there is anything of cross-over use... add to that the chats with like-minded modellers, I'll certainly miss the trip around the Leeds ring road this year.
Luckily March is quite a busy month for exhibitions locally and I have been able to spend some of those pennies that just have to be spent at the new event held in Lincoln at the beginning of the month and at Mansfield last weekend.
Let's hope Narrow Gauge North can return in 2016 and take it's share of the expenditure.
Colin
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