TEAMYAKIMA

It really does seem that you and I are in totally different hobbies. A 'general club show' is where potential newbies get to see and sometimes physically touch model railways - they even sometimes to to be offered the chance to run trains on certain layouts. Nothing attracts people to a hobby more than physical interaction - that is why I always interact with viewers at shows and in particular youngsters - they are our future. And another issue is that potential newbies don't go to ExpoEM or Scaleforum, they go to the local general show in their town and that's where they learn to love model railways.

Speaking for myself, I have absolutely no problem with home layouts - they are just not my thing. Everyone's take on the hobby is slightly different. My next layout will be another exhibition one - but much smaller. And if there are no exhibitions to take it to, I will have a professional video made of it and put it on YOUTUBE. Then I will stick it in a corner of my shed, put a dust sheet over it and 'show it off' if/when a friend comes over for dinner.

Same for me Now this is a personal opinion and some/many/most will disagree with me, but personally I don't see the point of operating a layout at home. Once I've finished a layout and I know that it operates well I don't feel any need to endlessly repeat the moves - if there is no audience. When I take my layout to a show, I/we are putting on a performance to entertain and educate the viewers. Wherever possible, I stand outside at the front of my layout and pro-actively engage with viewers and that gives me a great buzz. My wife thinks that I should have been an actor - well that ship has sailed, but entertaining viewers at a show is the next best thing!

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, it's just that our opinions are the exact opposite of each other. I have never built a home layout - all my seven layouts have been exhibition layouts. I have never felt the need to operate at home and so, for me 'exhibiting my layout at a show' is my hobby. For my hobby to continue, exhibitions must continue and, consequently, clubs must continue and so I 'am interested' in clubs surviving.

That link doesn't work for me.

It seems a slightly strange comment in the context of this thread. I can only assume that you are equally not interested in going to model railway exhibitions and, if you are not interested in going to shows, that is your right, but it's not my viewpoint. 99% of exhibitions are put on by clubs. Therefore, if clubs die out, and they will if your attitude becomes more widespread, then many/most exhibitions simply won't happen. Of course there will still be a few shows, the ones sponsored by Warners or Key Publishing, but generally speaking if clubs die out so will most shows.

I think I have already paid thanks to Paul Jones, Roger Scanlon and Chris M, but if I haven't, I do now. I was fortunate to exhibit the same layout twice (suitably upgraded) and I consider that a great honour. I hope and trust that the club will find a smaller/cheaper venue that allows them to put on future shows.

I have heard that from January 1st Ebay are required to advise HMRC of anyone selling over £1000 and I assume that would be in a tax year. But I am not clear what that means with regards to the current tax year. Is it £1000 from January 1st to the end of the 2023/4 tax year? Or will it be in the entire 2023/24 tax year?

Have just watched the BBC Breakfast piece on iPlayer - very positive. I'm not sure how long a programme like BBC Breakfast is available on iPlayer, but certainly for the next hour or so - go take a look.

Yes, that is the challenge. For the last 10/20/30 years we have tended to rely on slightly elderly people returning to the hobby having left it at 14-18. The trouble is that there are far fewer of that target age group (i.e. 50-60) who were ever in the hobby 30 to 40 years ago and so if we are to keep up numbers in the hobby we need to attract people with no 'background' in the hobby.

I think that may be a factor in some cases - as modellers become more serious they have a tendency to specialise and then focus purely on their particular speciality. Obviously, this is not true of everyone, but I can accept that some people specialise so much that general model railway shows hold little/less interest. I am not promoting that view, I am merely accepting that it can exist.

Yes, I have noticed a few including your one and that is an excellent idea.

And there is the conundrum - organisers want/need crowds, but when they get the crowds they need it puts people off going!

I certainly agree that other factors did play a big part, but even so if people are still young enough and keen enough to put on big shows they will only do so if they are well supported.

Of course and it that context as a layout builder, I totally agree, my next layout will be smaller and simpler and require fewer operators. But what I was saying at the end of my last post was is that if exhibition attendees want to see BIG layouts then the BIG exhibitions need to survive. And for BIG exhibitions to survive they need BIG support. Personally, I like to see BIG layouts (all my passenger trains are a minimum of ten coaches long) because back in the 1960's I didn't go to ex-GWR branch lines to trainspot - I went to Southall and watched the mainline trains out of Paddington storm past me .

This is a 'wake-up' call for all of us in this hobby. In particular for people like me with big exhibition layouts and by that I mean big exhibition-only layouts. Big exhibition layouts need big exhibitions. Small exhibitions will continue, there is no question about that. But small local shows are often one-dayers and you can often only access the hall after 5pm on set-up day if it's a school premises. At Manchester in December my layout took over 6 hours to set up on the Friday and so you can see that we need big two day shows with early access on the set-up day to make things worthwhile. So my message is - if you want to see big layouts at shows then support the big shows or they won't survive.

Here it is................... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-67927416

I thought I had never seen or heard of Francis Bourgeois until I was reading through this thread and then when I read your post just now I suddenly realised I had ....................... by total co-incidence, two days ago a female friend sent me a link to one of his instagram reels which she had just found with the message from her "Train spotters are Tic Toc sensations now!" and so, like him or not, he is getting noticed by the general public. Enthusiasm is infectious !

I have absolutely no axe to grind in any direction, I was not a regular Hattons customer because I don't model British, but just as a totally disinterested outsider, it does seem strange to me that (apparently) they bought a US retailer only a few months ago - that honestly doesn't make sense to me unless I'm missing something.

What worries me is the loss of advertising revenue which helps keep the model press in business. How many pages did Hattons take in RM, BRM MR etc?

I have absolutely no axe to grind whatsoever,but could it be related to the departure of Simon K?

Again, many thanks to one and all who took the trouble to share their knowledge to help me. I discovered that the 0-6-0T 's CV5 was set at 160. I set up the 2-8-2 and the 0-6-0T on parallel tracks and experimented. After several 'suck it and see' moments I settled at a set speed for all four anti-clockwise locos at 32% and with the 0-6-0T's CV5 set at 245 it speed matched the 2-8-2. Job done and once again apologies for my complete ignorance of DCC and thanks for your help.

I regret that my general understanding of such matters is so abysmal that I often use terms and expressions that mean one thing to a non-expert like me and something completely different to an expert. Hence any misunderstanding is totally my fault and I apologise for any inconvenience caused by it. I can only thank all of you for your support and input - I have not been able to put this advice into practice tonight, but will do so tomorrow and report back.

Thanks, I'll try that as soon as the rain stops and I can get down the garden and into the shed 🙂

Hello Nigel (and Iain) No, it's not double heading. I have a set up on my industrial system as follows........................................ My industrial system (not my main lines) has short trains. But the three FY roads allocated to the industrial system include one very long road and two relatively long ones. The very long road is allocated to clockwise and the two relatively long ones are allocated to anti-clockwise. The very long clockwise FY road stores three trains and the two other roads are each allocated two trains - so, a total of three clockwise and four anticlockwise trains. All clockwise trains share the address 100 and all anti-clockwise trains share the address 200. There are three dead sections on the very long FY road and two dead sections on each of the other two. Each of these dead sections are fed by a timing device and I activate the timers from the handset and all three (or two) timers are activated together. So, let me give you an example, in fact the example which is the 'problem'.......................... Track 18 houses the 0-6-0T with a short train and a 2-8-2 with a short train and each train begins the day with the appropriate loco sitting in a dead section of approximately 12 inches length, but most importantly both locos are 'programmed' at a set speed. So, in this case they are both programmed as 200 and 200 is set at 38% i.e. they have both run into their respective dead sections at 38% but the power has not been turned off - the train simply stopped when the loco entered the dead section. When I want a train from track 18 to move into the scenic section, I use the handset to activate both timers together and they are both set at approximately 7 seconds. Consequently the leading train sets off for the scenic section at 38% and the trailing train sets off at the same setting and moves up the FY road and eventually hits the (now) dead section and stops. Meanwhile the first train runs through the scenic section and eventually enters the FY and stops when the loco gets onto the dead section. Track 16 (the very long road) works similarly except that there are three trains, three dead sections and three timers. The idea behind this was to make the industrial operation suitable for one man operation - otherwise we needed a second man just to move the trains up in the FY. Each class of loco performs differently and so track 16 has three identical locos and so they all run at the same speed at any given speed setting e.g. for example 38% -consequently the trains don't catch each other up. The same is true on track 17 - two locos of the same make and class and so they don't catch each other up. But with track 18 the 2-8-2 runs much faster at any given speed setting and so it tends to catch up the 0-6-0t. Now, obviously this is only a problem when the 0-6-0T is the leading train and the 2-8-2 is the trailing loco. What can happen is that the 2-8-2 catches up with the 0-6-0t's train and couples up to it - result is chaos! The easy solution is to remove the springs in the Kadee couplings at the rear end of the 0-6-0T's train and in the coupler at the front of the 2-8-2, but I thought if I could either slow the 2-8-2 or speed up the 0-6-0T that would be a better solution. So, TBH they don't have to exactly speed match, I simply want to slightly speed up the 0-6-0T or slow down the 2-8-2.