The smell of model railways

[DavidBird]

Model railways, especially old ones, have a distinctive smell all of their own.

 

If you've ever frequented model shops with a decent 2nd-hand section, you'll know what I mean.  I particularly remember the smell in RBS of Long Eaton.

 

Recently I was in the volunteer hostel of my "local" heritage line, and got a whiff of the same smell, just in one particular part of a corridor.  When I mentioned it, I was told that there were bits of an old model layout stored in a cupboard just in that area.

 

Anybody know what makes this distinctive smell?

[F-UnitMad]

7 minutes ago, DavidBird said:

Anybody know what makes this distinctive smell?

Models being owned by the Stinky Brigade who blight Exhibitions on a regular basis??

[Nova Scotian]

For me the smell is a Lima pancake gently overheating as a small Nova Scotian makes them haul too long trains, too fast, with immediate direction changes - in a warm, dusty loft.

[Amand]

Hornby X03 / 4 motors give off a particular smell, and I remember reading a hint that when buying a 2nd hand loco at a swapmeet / exhibition was to ask if the loco had ever been run then ask to smell it. No smell = unrun or not run for many a year. Combine that with a lack or wear to the wheels.

 

Old electronics components are the same. My uncle passed away over 30 years ago, and I still have a metal box full of resistors, capacitors, transistors and a large tobacco can full of very powerful and pungent flux. Just opening the  box reminds me of him and his layout.

[NittenDormer]

F-UnitMad beat me to it. Eau d'Model Exhibition is its own beast. Old layouts smell... old. Deformed, sun-bent plastic?

[Titan]

It could be ozone.  It is made from electrical sparking, mostly from the brushes/commutator of old motors.  I find it very evocative of old model railways - Triang, Hornby Dublo and O gauge particularly.

[Dava]

" the smell in RBS of Long Eaton."

 

A much missed destination these 5 years or so. I think Notts, Derbys and Leics now have 1 model shop each. RBS had a lot of stock which never moved. 2nd hand shops in preserved railway stations have a similar aroma from the mouldering books and magazines.

 

[PatB]

I tend to think of ozone and hot paxolin, but I suspect that's not quite what the OP is referring to, or not entirely anyway.

[Robert Shrives]

Hi , Funny this should appear. I have just aquired  the late Peter Gentle layout Minsterly and in my lounge last night I got the slightest hint of old layout. a sniff next to some scenery confirmed the smell of dust, sawdust grass, oil, paxloin and a simpler time ...  Quite how you bottle it and sell it I have no idea but it did make me smile.

(Ambi- pur latest air fresh scent perhaps ??)

Robert    

[TheQ]

As someone who's worked in electronics for most of my life,  the hot electronics smell, I don't notice unless something is near being fried. Having worked in buildings with a floor area the size of a football pitch full of hot valves,  even with heavy air conditioning they all had their own smell. 

 

Exhibition smell is something else,  depending on the halls normal use,  gyms,  village halls or church halls,  are all different.  Then as they fill up you get the human additions,  from over use of perfumed substances to just.. Yuck.. 

 

For me the smell of model Railways is that during construction,  enamel paints,  PVA,  wet plaster,  and last night,  freshly cut wood. 

 

PS once my exhibition layout is on display I'm hoping to add some smelly vision,  steam oil,  peat,  whisky, but I'll be kind and not add rotting seaweed,  or 1950s 60s public urinals. 

Edited March 14, 2020 by TheQ

[Harlequin]

Might the smell of old model railways actually be the smell of tobacco smoke?

 

Some second hand books and models I've bought over the t'internet have had that distinctive aroma when they arrived.

 

Old Hornby adverts often show Dad with a pipe in his mouth and I know that if Dad was a pipe smoker, like mine was, the smell and the staining got everywhere.

 

On the plus side St Bruno tobacco tins were invaluable for storing bits and pieces!

 

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

 

[PatB]

My memory of early 80s exhibitions is primarily one of a thick blue pall of tobacco smoke, extending from ceiling level, down to about 4' from ground level, from the pipes that many mature modellers appeared to favour. Back then I found it neither worrying nor offensive. It was just how exhibitions were.

[woodenhead]

Dust is what they smell of.

 

But if there are any other smells I will let you know later when I have finished putting a circular saw to my late father's layout this morning.

 

It was built solidly from 2x1 and the only way it is coming apart is the the help of electricity and a fast spinning saw blade.

[MarkSG]

The smell of warm electronics and dust, mostly. It can be fairly distinctive.

 

Having said that, I reached the stage on my current project where I needed to get the soldering iron out (finishing off the wiring and making all the connections to the track), and with the aroma of warm solder I was instantly transported back to the shed where my dad let me build a layout in my teenage years. The only thing that could have made it even more evocative was to have been heating the room with a portable gas fire!

[tractionman]

7 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

The smell of warm electronics and dust, mostly. It can be fairly distinctive.

 

 

 

I used to love the smell of my warm transformer as a lad -- it was old even then (c.1980)!

 

cheers,

 

Keith

 

 

[GeoffAlan]

I think old lichen adds to that smell too.

[Nova Scotian]

1 hour ago, MarkSG said:

The smell of warm electronics and dust, mostly. It can be fairly distinctive.

 

Having said that, I reached the stage on my current project where I needed to get the soldering iron out (finishing off the wiring and making all the connections to the track), and with the aroma of warm solder I was instantly transported back to the shed where my dad let me build a layout in my teenage years. The only thing that could have made it even more evocative was to have been heating the room with a portable gas fire!

I got a couple of tubes snipped... and they cauterise one end. I'm lying there, in a very silly (and vulnerable) position while two medical professionals seemingly poke around looking very serious.

 

Suddenly an aroma hits me - and I'm back in GCSE Design and Technology soldering LEDs to a circuit board. It was such an odd association and feeling - because obviously it was cauterising body parts... but it smelled just like the soldering iron!

 

The other smell for me is enamel paints. 

[Nearholmer]

My God!

 

They didn’t paint your tackle with Humbrol gloss Brunswick Green after the job, surely?!

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Nearholmer

[CKPR]

Definitely a mixture of pipe smoke, over-heating open-frame motors and piles of old 1950s and 60s magazines as typified by the Northern Model Railway Exhibition in Harrogate in the 1970s - I bought my first Slaters NER hopper kit from this show and  to this day, I only have to look at an unmade one to be olfactorily transported back  

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Nova Scotian said:

I got a couple of tubes snipped... and they cauterise one end. I'm lying there, in a very silly (and vulnerable) position while two medical professionals seemingly poke around looking very serious.

 

The smell of a cautery being used on someone is very distinctive.

 

As others have mentioned, the smell of hot electrical devices is my key memory of older model railways.

 

 

[Kris]

For a few years, when models were packed in foam there was always a smell associated with opening the box for the first time. The smell was still there on subsequent times just not as strong. 

[Nearholmer]

Because I’m into old toy trains, I frequently get whiffs of that special perfume of light mineral oil, warm phenolic insulation, and what is always supposed to be ozone, produced by sparking, but I’m not sure actually is*. 

 

That is a Very Good Model Railway Smell. It goes with valve radios, warm post office relays, and, as had been said, pipe smoke. All deep, complex, evocative smells.

 

The musty aroma of slowly decomposing scenic-work is less up my street, but is definitely part of the hobby.

 

BO, stale fag smoke, and a thick fug of mouldering cardboard and stale tea are also in the mix, being the old model railway shop smells, but are definitely best forgotten.

 

*Actually, thinking about it, it probably is ozone.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

stale tea

 

Implies fresh tea in the not too distant past, so not entirely a bad thing.

 

I'll add the scent of meths used with an old hankie to clean steel track, but the oil and phenolic smell of an X04 is the most potent memory for me.

[Nearholmer]

4 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

Implies fresh tea in the not too distant past, so not entirely a bad thing.

 

 

Unless, like me, you can't abide tea, fresh or stale.

 

To me, its like drinking boiled perfume.

[woodenhead]

Well I was right about the dust - layout was built using 2x1 in 1.2m lengths as both the structure and the base upon which cork was laid and track upon the cork.

 

Had a circular saw at the ready, but it quickly became apparant that where I would have used screws my late father preferred glue and I literally ripped his old layout apart with my hands.

 

Dodgy chest from the dust (and not anything else!!) and sore hands from cuts and spikes from track nails but it's all gone to the tip.