Journées de patrimoine

The weekend of 18/19 September is Les Journées de Patrimoine
Heritage weekend.

There is sure to be something going on not to far from you in France.
There are many places that open their doors for free and often railway museums and preserved lines have a range of special events.

I have been invited curiously to a small village event in St Aubin du Thenney about 20kms away upon where in la salle des fêtes I shall erect the portable layout and run a few trains on Saturday 14h to 18h and Sunday 10h to 17h if anyone should feel like a visit to the Normandy-Calvados area.
Accomodation and food can be arranged if anyone fancies the trip.

Can't make it unfortunately - too many local events!

However if you were to send a small bottle of Calvados, I would be there in spirit

Calvados only comes in big bottles here but we do have stuff called Pommeau (apple water...??) which they run the tractors on.

I did my first (small) show for over a year and okay it was just in a village hall about 20km from me but a great time was had by all.

The story behind this is that the president and organiser of RailExpo has a house in St Aubin and with contact at the mairie decided to hold a tentative mini-show for free with the local social assocaition.
One can only say what fantastic people. The organisation, welcome and food was excellent. We all 25 of us went to restaurant on Saturday night/Sunday morning....

Saturday was fairly quiet - people still harvesting in the fields but today was pretty busy. I would estimate about 400-500 people came. Pretty damn good for a village with a population of 300.


There were only 6 layouts and was a fairly low key affair. The portable layout has a few changes and performed well as did the new Edrig put in about 4 hours running.

Here are my usual crappy photos. I didn't really get much time!















.......And the portable laout all goes in a Renault Twingo.



We all plan to do a bigger and better show about the same time next year and may well turn into a RailExpo Normandie.

Which brings me on nicely to say that I (the portable layout now badged CGT) will be in pole position in the entrance hall at RailEXpo in November with an extimate attendance of 10,000 peopla. Those intending to come will be warmly welcomed but it will be a bit hectic.

This is the first layout people will see and a good show is expected.

Carl- the Twingo looks a bit like my car when I took my daughter off to college - except my car at the time was a 3/4 Ton long wheelbase Chevrolet G20 Van.

Looks like a fine time, indeed. For some reason, this sort of thing doesn't seem to happen here in Texas. Not enough Calvados here, I guess.

Regarding your photos - they mostlynlook over exposed. Do you have your camera set up properly? These digital cameras nowadays have so many options, it's hard sometimes to know which to use.