Preparations for this exhibition went almost smoothly - For what ever reason JimBinn's shuttle had lost half the contents of the Train Simulator directory, who know's where. Everything else went together quickly and easily. We had space at the end of the normal demonstration tables for a further table and as we had a fourth machine, we set that up with the screen and keyboard facing the visitors so that they could have a go if they wished.

Don't let anybody tell you that driving a train is a guy thing. We had numerous visitors of the female gender from age 9 upwards who wanted to have a go and proved they could drive as well as anybody else. It was interesting to watch all the visitors driving, most of whom wanted to drive the London Brighton Express or hurtle HST's up the MidEast route.

Saturday was an extremely busy day with hundreds of visitors venturing in to the UKTrainSimLive room, watching, chatting, picking up leaflets, some having a go. Shortly after lunch I ventured out to the gents and when I returned was unable to get into the room, people were filling the room and blocking the doorway, such was the popularity of our stand.

Richard (1crick14a) visited us on Saturday and gave Matthew (NeutronIC) some lessons in firing a locomotive for which he was extremely grateful. Matt has a passion for steam and likes to get totally immersed in the driving of the train and driving without the AI fireman was something he has wanted to do for some time.

Sunday wasn't as busy but we still received several hundred visitors to the stand. Coastal11 visited us on the Sunday and spent several hours chatting with us and visitors.

Routes on view this weekend included - Severn Valley, London - Brighton, Cannock Chase, MidEast, Talyllyn, Skipton 1920. As always the visitors were in awe at what they were seeing, not believing that this was the Microsoft Train Simulator that they had bought and shelved some months ago. Many of them went away with a free cd to re-install their MSTS with a fresh view on its capabilities. It was interesting to note the number of visitors who took away leaflets about PC's that we have available, if only as reference to what sort of spec they need to upgrade their machines to, to get the best out of MSTS.

Overall the two day Colchester Exhibition was very good, we all had a lot of fun, as we always do and it was good to meet up with some new faces from the community. The exhibition itself was excellent. A good selection of layouts in different guages and a wide variety of trade stands, society stands and demonstration stands. It was also interesting to see MERG (The Model Railway Electronic Group) at this exhibition as this is the first time we have seen them, they were demonstrating some of the items they sell, some of the items that as a member of MERG you can obtain. The most interesting item on their display was a power driven traverser, driven by a stepper motor taken from a defunct scanner.

We also met up again with Nick Tilston of N Scale Locomotives. Don't be put off by the N Scale bit, he also does an excellent line of brass etch kits for OO guage including a 'Rolling Road' and a nifty set of Speed Restriction signs. Nick is one of the organisers of the Warley exhibition and it was he who invited us to Warley back in February.

This is also the second exhibition we have attended where we have identified layout operators using DCC equipment. The large European layout on the stage were trialling the new new Lenz Set 100 with LH100 hand held controller on just one outer loop of track. So far they are very impressed with its capabilities and the way that the controller operates. Once they are happy with the setup they fully intend to change the whole layout and all locos over to DCC. I hope their trial proves fully successful as I intend to purchase the Lenz Set 100 with two LH100 hand held controllers in the very near future for the Onehouse Model Railway.

As this is John Doylands last year as Exhibition Manager for the Colchester Exhibition we haven't received a return invite for next year. However, John did say as we left on the Sunday evening that he hoped to see us back next year.

Our thanks to the Colchester MRC for the invitation to attend, to the UKTS people who helped us over the weekend and to the visitors who joined us, some of whom visited Saturday and came back again on Sunday :). Finally a big thank you to the creators of the routes and models who make UKTrainSimLive and the whole UKTrainSim community what it is today. THANKS.