Attending exhibitions - let's put some data behind it.

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, NHY 581 said:

 

I fear you're missing the point here. 

 

It should not rest with the Police to ensure people do what is right. . 

 

The fact that European Police officers carry guns is irrelevant and rest assured there is no lack of willingness on the part of British police officers to play their part. 

 

 Put simply, it shouldn't be necessary to enforce.  Doing what is required is all that is needed and we appear to be lacking in this, based on what I have seen at first hand. 

 

 

Rob. 

 

 

 

The British have always been more individualistic and self centred than most other European societies. We see reflections of this in everything from systems of Governance, the common law system, infrastructure planning, attitudes to house ownership, tax policy, etc.

 

Whether that comes from our island nation status, the lack of conquest by foreign foes since 1066 or a desire to copy the 'success' of the United states, the British have a fundamentally different outlook on things to most other European nations

 

While many in the UK might protest and say they fully support 'Doing whats right', when it comes to actually putting that into practice things are rather different.

 

 

[NHY 581]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

Also with France experiencing a sustained increase in their infection rate despite your assertion that the population are, well, 'better behaved' to use a phrase rather undermines the premise that strict observance of social distancing will be our saviour.

 

From what I saw, the French population, along with those of other European nations are at least trying to minimise infection through their adherence to their Governments  directions. Based on what I saw on this side of the channel, we are not. The contrast was that acute. 

 

Drifting back onto topic, therefore if we are not  seeing each other adopting the directions given by our Government then what right do we have to bemoan the current situation that prevents us attending/exhibiting/trading at a model railway exhibition. 

 

 

 

As I say, we need to get the basics right and I really don't think we are at the moment. 

 

 

Rob. 

[phil-b259]

5 minutes ago, NHY 581 said:

 

From what I saw, the French population, along with those of other European nations are at least trying to minimise infection through their adherence to their Governments  directions. Based on what I saw on this side of the channel, we are not. The contrast was that acute. 

 

 

If infection rates are going up then there is a powerful incentive to listen and embrace what your Government tells you.

 

If infection rates are holding steady at a lowish level then that incentive does not exist.

 

Also the British people have always had a mistrust of Governments - incidents like a certain agriculture minister trying to feed his daughter as 'perfectly safe' hamburger at the height of the BSE crisis haven't been forgotten...

[PaulRhB]

4 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

As I say, we need to get the basics right and I really don't think we are at the moment. 

Some of us are but unfortunately with a highly infectious virus not enough  

 

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

If infection rates are holding steady at a lowish level then that incentive does not exist.

It’s rather sad that it hasn’t dawned on many that the reason they are holding steady is people listening but not realising that it bounces back up as soon as they get complacent!

[fezza]

Some better news recently - although infection rates are slightly up, death rates are stable and slightly declining. 

 

At the end of last month about five times more people were dying from Summer flu than Covid. This does make you wonder about the effectiveness of social distancing/ masks etc as if it was working well, flu would decline too. However nationwide only about 70 people are on ventilators - a tiny number when you think about it. 

 

We can only hope the positive signs continue. 

[Colin_McLeod]

It appears that people in the British Isles * have to be forced to "do the right thing".  Wearing seat belts in a car is the "right thing". It needed laws and penalties to make it common place, yet there are still some dickheads who don't. More recently it was using a mobile phone while driving, and currently it is Covid-19 precautions.

 

* and other places.

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Colin_McLeod

[TheQ]

On 15/08/2020 at 16:10, phil-b259 said:

 

 

 

Also the British people have always had a mistrust of Governments - incidents like a certain agriculture minister trying to feed his daughter as 'perfectly safe' hamburger at the height of the BSE crisis haven't been forgotten...

He was however correct, in that there was very little danger from BSE, the total number of deaths since and including 1992… 177.... nothing compared to corona virus..

Edited August 24, 2020 by TheQ

[woodenhead]

Car in the garage for a few hours, I have decamped to the Costa local to the garage as it more fun than sitting in a waiting area.

 

Mask off, enjoying a half price coffee and bacon bap.

 

Perhaps it's time to take some risks, the bacon bap at my age may be more detrimental to my health than Covid,  not to mention those lovely looking chocolate muffins.  Of course I've only been here 5 minutes, ask me again in 2-3 hours.

 

One thing annoying me today, if it is so important to get the schools back, why did the government re-open the shops, pubs and anything else that generates revenue and left the schools pretty much shut.  If they had focused on children at the beginning perhaps the farce that is the GCSE and further education results wouldn't have happened.  And perhaps all those people who had childcare problems but were being asked to work again may have been more inclined to leave their houses to commute to work. 

[Hibelroad]

Organising a show must take a considerable amount of time and a great deal of effort. If there are to be any shows next year then planning will be underway now, however it must be very difficult to guess at what the regulations will be by the time the show opens and if they will allow enough visitors to make the show financially viable. If you add to this the constant risk that the show may be cancelled and all the work will have been for nothing then the organisers have an unenviable job. Let’s hope that some form of normality returns soon and support all those involved in show organisation as much as possible. 

[TheQ]

1 minute ago, Hibelroad said:

Organising a show must take a considerable amount of time and a great deal of effort. If there are to be any shows next year then planning will be underway now, however it must be very difficult to guess at what the regulations will be by the time the show opens and if they will allow enough visitors to make the show financially viable. If you add to this the constant risk that the show may be cancelled and all the work will have been for nothing then the organisers have an unenviable job. Let’s hope that some form of normality returns soon and support all those involved in show organisation as much as possible. 

Big shows are booking layouts 2 years ahead, little shows maybe a year ahead.

 

Even our little show, has a debrief in the couple of weeks after a show, and then it's directly onto planning for the following show. Out come the plans for the hall and layouts traders and demo's start getting booked and blocked into place on the map..

Book the hall,  the charity group who do our Tea bar for us,  the vintage transport from car park to hall. The extra volunteers, to help run the show need organising..

 

  For next year most of those who were cancelled 2020 have agreed to provisionally come for 2021.

 

Even our club Open day which is held in a local hall, takes planning:

Book the hall, put out posters and flyers, layouts we'll show  and how will they fit in the hall. Who's transporting  the extra tables.

Who will do , Tea bar, second hand stall, car park and door duty and their stand ins for tea break..

Most importantly will we have bacon rolls for breakfast and cake for later..

[Pacific231G]

I don't think the latest survey suggests commercial viability until well into next year at the earliest but I wonder though if the Covid crisis may trigger a longer term change.  

 

In Great Britain, exhibitions have become a far more important aspect of the model railway hobby than in most if not all other countries and far more 'serious layout builders' * appear to build layouts for exhibition than for their own enjoyment at home. The two are not mutually exclusive of course, it's often more a matter of emphasis. It does also seem that the annual exhibition is a significant source of revenue for many clubs in a way that doesn't seem to be true, judging by the entry prices, for say the biennial exhibtions of a typical French club.

 

There are many reasons for this difference; greater cost of club premises, geography, and a greater proportion of the population interested in railways, full size or miniature. I wonder though how much of a rethink, or at least change of emphasis, the current crisis will cause.  Will home layouts become more popular and will fewer people want to build layouts that they can only put up at exhibitions or (by taking over the house or the clubroom) in preparation for them?

 

My own layout planning has always been guided by the "will it fit in the car" factor and, if you build a portable layout and belong to a club or group, there's always a certain pressure, self imposed or otherwise, to show it.  I'm wondering though whether my next layout may be one that never leaves home (as opposed to the H0 layout I've exhibited half a dozen time that currently never leaves its storage box- I really must get it out and play with it!) 

 

*I'm defining "serious layout builder" in this context as someone who builds a layout or layouts that try to give at least an impression of the big ralway rather than being what Loco-Revue terms a Locodrome - a layout designed simply to provide somewhere for one's model trains to run so perhaps more akin to a Model Engineering Society's running track or, less kindly, to a giant train set.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Pacific231G
English

[TEAMYAKIMA]

6 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I don't think the latest survey suggests commercial viability until well into next year at the earliest but I wonder though if the Covid crisis may trigger a longer term change.  

 

In Great Britain, exhibitions have become a far more important aspect of the model railway hobby than in most if not all other countries and far more 'serious layout builders' * appear to build layouts for exhibition than for their own enjoyment at home. The two are not mutually exclusive of course, it's often more a matter of emphasis. It does also seem that the annual exhibition is a significant source of revenue for many clubs in a way that doesn't seem to be true, judging by the entry prices, for say the biennial exhibtions of a typical French club.

 

ons for this difference; greater cost of club premises, geography, and a greater proportion of the population interested in railways, full size or miniature. I wonder though how much of a rethink, or at least change of emphasis, the current crisis will cause.  Will home layouts become more popular and will fewer people want to build layouts that they can only put up at exhibitions 

Interesting questions. 

 

Personally, if there are no more exhibitions (or far fewer) I might look for another hobby. For me, I only build layouts for exhibitions. I, personally, don't see much enjoyment in a home layout. Once I know that a particular loco and stock run through a section of track (for testing purposes) I can see very little point in repeating that time and time again - unless there is an audience. No audience? Why bother? 

 

I know that is a minority view, but that is what it is for me. I run 20 coach trains in HO on my exhibition layout, I'm not going to change to a 0-6-0 and three coaches just so that I can run the layout in our spare bedroom! 

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

Interesting questions. 

 

Personally, if there are no more exhibitions (or far fewer) I might look for another hobby. For me, I only build layouts for exhibitions. I, personally, don't see much enjoyment in a home layout. Once I know that a particular loco and stock run through a section of track (for testing purposes) I can see very little point in repeating that time and time again - unless there is an audience. No audience? Why bother? 

 

I know that is a minority view, but that is what it is for me. I run 20 coach trains in HO on my exhibition layout, I'm not going to change to a 0-6-0 and three coaches just so that I can run the layout in our spare bedroom! 

You're not alone in that. I know several people who basically only build layouts to exhibit and it's also true that the deadline imposed by a coming exhibition is a very good way to gets a layout completed rather than just being a work in progress. I still wonder though whether the need for a constant supply of new exhibition layouts has rather eclipsed the fully fledged home layout. The other thing I've often been curious about is how often layouts designed primarily for home operation actually get operated. I've heard from more than one source that, with just a few selected operating sessions each year, the Madder Valley Railway gets operated more often at Pendon now  than it ever was by John Ahern.

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

Some people get more pleasure from building (and also perhaps exhibiting their efforts) than they do from actually running a layout.

While exhibiting is not the be all and end all for me I can certainly sympathise with someone for whom it is.   This is not to say that I don't enjoy exhibitions and exhibiting.  

We are all of us on a spectrum of build versus buy; build versus run; home versus exhibit and probably several more.  

[MarcD]

I'm in both camps I suppose. I have a large O gauge fine scale modular layout in my dad's garage which was last run at Folkstone show last year. It's is partially up but can't be run in its full length as it doesn't fit in the garage. I'm should have been at GuildEx this coming weekend with a O gauge micro layout which has had a runout last November but again I could have finished it off by now but as the dead line for it being finished is now next year I've lost my mojo. It does work and I could play with it but...

 

Marc

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

On ‎24‎/‎08‎/‎2020 at 15:10, Pacific231G said:

...rather than being what Loco-Revue terms a Locodrome - a layout designed simply to provide somewhere for one's model trains to run...

Surely that should be a trainodrome? A locodrome is a rolling road.

 

I shall try out trainodromist on a few friends.

[Andy Hayter]

Ah, now you have to understand the subtleties of the French railway magazine market.

 

Locodrome points to the magazine - Loco Revue

whereas

Trainodrome would point to one of their competitors - Le Train

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Surely that should be a trainodrome? A locodrome is a rolling road.

 

I shall try out trainodromist on a few friends.

 

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

Ah, now you have to understand the subtleties of the French railway magazine market.

 

Locodrome points to the magazine - Loco Revue

whereas

Trainodrome would point to one of their competitors - Le Train

Hi Andy

I'm not sure if L-R was being quite that clever. Anyway, though Le Train does include a short modelling section it's far more about railways than modelling them. I think L-R's main competitor is RMF (which used to be Rail Miniature Flash)  That type of "running track" modelling does in any case seem to focus very much on the locomotives with relatively little attention on what they're dragging around behind them.

 

It did remind me of a fascinating and fairly lengthy feature article that one of the colour supplements (Sunday Times or possibly Observer) ran maybe forty years ago on 'Tram Racing'. It described how  trams (British double deck variety with trolley poles)  had been raced around oval courses known as a Tram'o Dromes with stadiums for spectators . I assume these had developed from the test tracks of the tram builders where unoffical racing had grown up. 

The article included photographs of competitive tram racing actually in progress. It described the challenge for the drivers to achieve maximum acceleration without the controler tripping out  and insights into the conductors' role in keeping their trolly on the overhead line and even leaning out to give just a smidgeon more speed on the turns- apparently electrocution was a hazard along with trams derailing or even toppling if corners were taken  too fast.  I think there were staggered starts to compensate for the shorter length of the inside of the "official" Tram'o Dromes' four tracks.  So far as I can recall, the article said that tram racing was at its peak during the Edwardian era but declined very quickly afterwards. I think it said that only a couple of Tram'o Dromes survived the First World War and they closed in the 1920s .  

Edited August 26, 2020 by Pacific231G

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

Ah, now you have to understand the subtleties of the French railway magazine market.

 

Locodrome points to the magazine - Loco Revue

whereas

Trainodrome would point to one of their competitors - Le Train

Nah, I am going to ignore batrachian subtleties and 'English it' in traditional fashion.

[Grovenor]

Did the tram racing article appear on April 1st?

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, Grovenor said:

Did the tram racing article appear on April 1st?

Yes I believe it did. Why, do you think that might hold some significance ? 

 

The article was a really excellent Poisson d'Avril better even IMHO than Panorama's 1957  Swiss spaghetti harvest ( https://youtu.be/3QOS8NJFBXI ) What I liked about it was that even when you'd noticed the date and realised it was a hoax  you still really wanted to believe it; the writer had managed to weave such  a wonderful reality around his fiction. 

I think it was a bit like Madderport. It's a place I'd really love to vist even though I know it never really existed. 

I wish I could find the article again but so far no joy.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Pacific231G
typo

[Chris116]

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

Hi Andy

I'm not sure if L-R was being quite that clever. Anyway, though Le Train does include a short modelling section it's far more about railways than modelling them. I think L-R's main competitor is RMF (which used to be Rail Miniature Flash)  That type of "running track" modelling does in any case seem to focus very much on the locomotives with relatively little attention on what they're dragging around behind them.

 

It did remind me of a fascinating and fairly lengthy feature article that one of the colour supplements (Sunday Times or possibly Observer) ran maybe forty years ago on 'Tram Racing'. It described how  trams (British double deck variety with trolley poles)  had been raced around oval courses known as a Tram'o Dromes with stadiums for spectators . I assume these had developed from the test tracks of the tram builders where unoffical racing had grown up. 

The article included photographs of competitive tram racing actually in progress. It described the challenge for the drivers to achieve maximum acceleration without the controler tripping out  and insights into the conductors' role in keeping their trolly on the overhead line and even leaning out to give just a smidgeon more speed on the turns- apparently electrocution was a hazard along with trams derailing or even toppling if corners were taken  too fast.  I think there were staggered starts to compensate for the shorter length of the inside of the "official" Tram'o Dromes' four tracks.  So far as I can recall, the article said that tram racing was at its peak during the Edwardian era but declined very quickly afterwards. I think it said that only a couple of Tram'o Dromes survived the First World War and they closed in the 1920s .  

The article was in The Sunday Telegraph and a week later they printed the fact that it was an April Fool. My father had spent the entire week trying to find out more information as he we a great lover of both Speedway and Stock Car racing and also interested in Trams. 

[Andy Hayter]

5 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

Hi Andy

I'm not sure if L-R was being quite that clever. Anyway, though Le Train does include a short modelling section it's far more about railways than modelling them. I think L-R's main competitor is RMF (which used to be Rail Miniature Flash)  That type of "running track" modelling does in any case seem to focus very much on the locomotives with relatively little attention on what they're dragging around behind them.

 

 

 

I don't disagree that RMF might be considered* as a more direct competitor, but to consider Le Train as a non-competitor mainly centred on the prototype is perhaps an overstatement.  Yes about 50% of Le Train is prototype generated but that still leaves 50% modelling oriented compared with perhaps 85% in LR.   I think that just demonstrates slightly different emphases.  Also Le Train often will have a prototype article back to back with a model review of the same prototype.

 

* might have been considered is perhaps more accurate since RMF has gone from monthly to bi-monthly.

 

 

 

But we are now well off topic.

 

 

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, Chris116 said:

The article was in The Sunday Telegraph and a week later they printed the fact that it was an April Fool. My father had spent the entire week trying to find out more information as he we a great lover of both Speedway and Stock Car racing and also interested in Trams. 

Hi Chris

Clearly it was a good April fool then.

Do you happen to know the year? I'd love to find it again

[Chris116]

52 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Chris

Clearly it was a good April fool then.

Do you happen to know the year? I'd love to find it again

I can't remember the date but would love to know as well. I think it was sometime in the late 60's or early 70's.

 

Maybe asking the paper might get us a copy?