Environmentally sustainable model railway exhibitions

[Rivercider]

49 minutes ago, Not Jeremy said:

Not quite answering the point, but it seems to me that a lot of the "nice" venues from the past may well have been more "green", as in being more accessible by public transport and better supported ar complemented by surrounding businesses, cafes, pubs etc.

 

Bu they were trickier to get in and out of, which is one reason, I suspect, that we have seen the growth of the "out of town show".

 

Perhaps another way to look at/think about this, is to try to put on a show that is "in town" and which is an attractive venue that it is enjoyable to be in? In other words, change things by enticing people into jollier circumstances that might be "you know what" - just don't give your name, Pike.

 

My own (and now with Jerry Clifford) little effort in this regard is "Larkrail", which sort of does offer this combination, but to be fair wouldn't support a large show. We do have to contend with steps or a long slope to get in and out and parking is a bit of a pain, bur with goodwill and a bit of creative thought we get by.

 

There must be other (nice) venues in the UK that would be do-able and "different"?

 

None of which is to detract from any existing show, of course.

 

Simon

 

 

 

 

Good points there.

 

To me although the exhibition is the main point of the day out, when travelling by train (or bus) I can enjoy the views along the way. A number of the venues I have attended several times (Larkrail and RailWells to name two) also provide a pleasant walk, with the chance to stop for some retail therapy, something to eat, or a pint or two along the way,

 

cheers 

Edited October 15, 2023 by Rivercider
punctuation

[Nearholmer]

6 minutes ago, PMP said:

That’s because those are two significant factors in attending an event, be it an exhibition or match or concert. 

I get that; what I’m curious about is why we don’t all think that sustainability is also a significant factor.

 

It is, but we don’t see it.

 

We moan endlessly that one of the transport options realistically in front of us is time-consuming and/or expensive, but we don’t moan that the other is bl@@dy awful in terms of sustainability.

 

I think Andy was onto something solid with his remark about a watch and a wallet.
 

We know how much time and money we each have available, and we measure time (look at our watches) and money (check our bank balances) very carefully. What none of us has is much idea (I certainly don’t) of how much “carbon footprint” (to take but one form of environmental impact) we have available to us, and we certainly don’t have an easy way to check how much we’ve used or got left. I’ve sometimes dipped out of going to an exhibition because I’ve got other calls on my finances; I’ve many times not attended events because I can’t spare the time; but not once have I said to someone “No, sorry, I can’t come to that one because I’ve used-up too much carbon this month.”.

 

’What gets measured gets done’, and we don’t have a way of measuring our impact in sustainability terms.

[PMP]

1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

I get that; what I’m curious about is why we don’t all think that sustainability is also a significant factor.

 

Because there aren’t viable alternatives UK wide to provide sustainable transportation, for general life let alone watching toy trains.
 

With no viable alternative choices, personal transport is the answer. If you want to work out how much pollution you theoretically emit you can use vehicle manufacturers data vs your mileage etc, but no one is going to do that every time they want to attend an event, or go to work.

[PaulRhB]

I go, or went in a number of cases now, to shows on public transport. Woking, Tolworth and Ally Pally were easy enough, the NEC was rammed coming home, standing in a corridor that smelt of the toilet for the first half hour wasn’t pleasant. 
So I was doing my bit but that was going alone, as soon as one other wants to go the car became cheaper, significantly so in many cases, and allowed more time there too. When there’s three or four of us £72 fuel for a car we already have, and parking, over £325 in rail fares is a huge difference and pays for food, purchases etc. Many are on tighter budgets and taking the kids so a car makes it viable. It’s easy to forget that a lot of people are struggling to justify spending £50 at a show, maybe on their child to encourage them, so adding their rail fare on top of their own wipes out their budget for a present to be bought for Christmas. 
Public transport gets expensive very quickly if you already own a car for other things and are taking the family or friends. 
I try not to waste resources but one of those resources is money and spending a lot to stand in a sweaty toilet smelling train is not something I look forward to compared to a comfortable car with music and the ability to stop for a drink etc. So travelling to London based shows is quite pleasant, Birmingham fairly unpleasant and York etc very expensive so a car and an overnight in a hotel often works out cheaper and more restful. 
If mass transit is more efficient why is it costing the normal punter so much more? That’s why people choose the unfriendly option so often, it’s cheaper and pleasant, that’s what ‘public’ transport needs to address. Possibly by subsidising it with road taxes and not skimming off huge amounts as profits? 
Sorry but with town and city venues increasingly wanting huge increases in hire because other funding has been cut many options are unviable. We had to move out of our regular school because we didn’t hire monthly or weekly, so we used the excellent community centre which cut the space by about two thirds and our entrance fee too. There was no free parking nearby and very restricted access for delivering layouts to the door as that was blocked by the staff parking. All these things add to costs and the experience of the show and can scare people away. It’s just not as simple as trying to do your bit as they will simply go elsewhere as most think money first. 

[beast66606]

6 hours ago, mozzer models said:

for me my last buss leaves the town before 6pm so as you say how would i get home

 

 

My last bus leaves on a Friday - the next one is Monday so would be a very long journey for me.

[Nearholmer]

32 minutes ago, PMP said:

but no one is going to do that every time they want to attend an event, or go to work.

……… because it would be a tedious drag to do so, and we don’t actually thinks it’s that important anyway.

 

When actually, it is important. Very.

 

We are put in a cleft stick though, very definitely, with three factors to consider, time, money, and sustainability, and too often faced with options that stack so heavily in time and money that sustainability doesn’t get a look in.

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by Nearholmer

[jjb1970]

I am a bit of a tree hugger and 90% of my job is concerned with emissions reduction but I really can't criticize people for driving if the public transport alternatives are either non-existent, hopelessly inconvenient or too expensive (I am aware that cars aren't cheap,  but once bought or financed the germane comparison is cost to make a journey). 

 

And as others have said, model exhibitions are so marginal to emissions I don't see them as worth worrying about. If people have already changed their diet, made their home zero emissions, do lifecycle and sustainability assessments on everything they buy to identify sustainable stuff etc then look at the marginal stuff. Otherwise it's like the old joke of eating a pizza the size of the table and then ordering a diet coke (although I  much prefer diet coke for taste).

 

On countries however, I do think Europe,  North America and other developed countries have a responsibility to lead emissions reduction. We made the problem, got rich making it and spent decades trying to avoid doing anything serious after the problem was clear because we didn't want to pay more for anything. So we have no right to point fingers at anyone else.

[jjb1970]

Weirdly, I have just had a similar discussion (though on a different example) at work and put a colleagues nose out of joint.

[MrWolf]

Despite what impression some might have, we too are rather "tree hugging" I devote a day per week and occasionally Sundays to helping maintain and restore a small area of woodland on the edge of our town and my other half is working full time on a project returning native species of plants to our hedgerows and fields.

 

We don't claim any green credentials, a lot of what we do is because we enjoy it and like to keep fit.

We walk or cycle wherever and whenever we can and those cycles aren't modern throwaway items with cheap bearings, fragile gears and wheels that fall apart. They're 40+ year old cycles that can be maintained indefinitely.

 

Why scrap them for the sake of fashion and send the materials halfway around the world to be turned into something utterly inferior? 

 

For longer trips in decent weather we have a couple of old (ancient in fact) motorcycles. They are, as the bicycles, infinitely maintainable, unlikely to go down in value and aren't so overburdened with unnecessary technology as to render them obsolete like newer machines. They use less fuel and take up very little space on the road and aren't so ridiculously powerful that one is tempted to give it what for and put yourself and others at unnecessary risk.

 

We have a car that we use for longer journeys or where we need to arrive looking presentable and again, it's a simple, economical relic that gets 50mpg on a steady run, doesn't eat much rubber on its £40 apiece little tyres and can be maintained at home with simple tools.

 

I once got into a heated discussion with someone who was convinced that I must be loaded to have what I do. I told them that we don't have new cars, loans, storecards credit cards, package holidays, designer clothes, endless takeaways or children.

We eat well but quite simply, we dress well but a lot of it is secondhand, we try to buy good quality items that last a long time, we buy things and fix them up. Even most of my tools are secondhand.

 

As for public transport, I suppose it is easier if you live in the right area, or like my other half, made use of a student railcard but round here it's a PITA. If we want to visit our parents, it's around £160 by train, pre booked or £30 by car.

 

I like going to Kendal MRC show, by bus it's a £12.50, 3 hour round trip, plus a twenty minute walk each way, leaving about an hour to look round.

By car it's about 25 minutes and a 5 minute walk, costing about £6 (and I always give a friend a lift) by motorcycle it's 20 minutes and about £3.

By train it's not actually viable.

 

Given that the countries which produce our (in real terms not cheap at all) cheap goods are carrying on regardless, human beings in many parts of the world continue to breed like flies and the likelihood of us edging closer to world war three I think that however genuine, concerns about the environmental impact of attending model railway exhibitions is a long way down the list of priorities.

[BachelorBoy]

The moral comfort of infinitesimalism

 

Doing X only has an infinitesimal effect on increasing global warming, so I can keep doing it.

 

 

 

 

[jjb1970]

24 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Despite what impression some might have, we too are rather "tree hugging" I devote a day per week and occasionally Sundays to helping maintain and restore a small area of woodland on the edge of our town and my other half is working full time on a project returning native species of plants to our hedgerows and fields.

 

We don't claim any green credentials, a lot of what we do is because we enjoy it and like to keep fit.

We walk or cycle wherever and whenever we can and those cycles aren't modern throwaway items with cheap bearings, fragile gears and wheels that fall apart. They're 40+ year old cycles that can be maintained indefinitely.

 

Why scrap them for the sake of fashion and send the materials halfway around the world to be turned into something utterly inferior? 

 

For longer trips in decent weather we have a couple of old (ancient in fact) motorcycles. They are, as the bicycles, infinitely maintainable, unlikely to go down in value and aren't so overburdened with unnecessary technology as to render them obsolete like newer machines. They use less fuel and take up very little space on the road and aren't so ridiculously powerful that one is tempted to give it what for and put yourself and others at unnecessary risk.

 

We have a car that we use for longer journeys or where we need to arrive looking presentable and again, it's a simple, economical relic that gets 50mpg on a steady run, doesn't eat much rubber on its £40 apiece little tyres and can be maintained at home with simple tools.

 

I once got into a heated discussion with someone who was convinced that I must be loaded to have what I do. I told them that we don't have new cars, loans, storecards credit cards, package holidays, designer clothes, endless takeaways or children.

We eat well but quite simply, we dress well but a lot of it is secondhand, we try to buy good quality items that last a long time, we buy things and fix them up. Even most of my tools are secondhand.

 

As for public transport, I suppose it is easier if you live in the right area, or like my other half, made use of a student railcard but round here it's a PITA. If we want to visit our parents, it's around £160 by train, pre booked or £30 by car.

 

I like going to Kendal MRC show, by bus it's a £12.50, 3 hour round trip, plus a twenty minute walk each way, leaving about an hour to look round.

By car it's about 25 minutes and a 5 minute walk, costing about £6 (and I always give a friend a lift) by motorcycle it's 20 minutes and about £3.

By train it's not actually viable.

 

Given that the countries which produce our (in real terms not cheap at all) cheap goods are carrying on regardless, human beings in many parts of the world continue to breed like flies and the likelihood of us edging closer to world war three I think that however genuine, concerns about the environmental impact of attending model railway exhibitions is a long way down the list of priorities.

 

I'm an advocate of the adage 'buy right, buy once'. Pay for a high quality item which will last. All our kitchen goods are Miele bought when we got married over twenty years ago and still working. Buy a good set of cooks knives and you'll never have to buy another knife. I am a cycle enthusiast and like classic steel bicycles because I like the artisanal craftsmanship of steel bikes and the feel of steel. I use an old 17MP early gen mirrorless I bought about a decade ago which still gives perfectly good images, the only reason I plan to replace it is because the LCD screen is kaput and now it's started shutting down for no reason. 

A big one is food. I don't eat much meat, I'm not vegetarian (which in today's world seems as antithetical to many as meat eating, it's vegan or nothing) but we have really reduced meat consumption. 

On the other hand I fly far too much to the point it's almost ridiculous. The weird thing is that with the exception of an annual trip home for the family all of my flying (literally) is to go and talk about emissions reduction. Some of the flying is necessary for IMO meetings and such like but I keep offering to meet virtually for meetings where Teams or Zoom would work perfectly well but government agencies, research bodies etc keep insisting on in-person gatherings. 

Something I keep suggesting is that contrary to common misconception, most people are not stupid. They may not be credentialled to the eyeballs, may be inarticulate, may not hold impressive jobs etc but none of that is synonymous with being of low intelligence and most people I meet are pretty perceptive and can recognize incongruence. So when they see governments, philanthropists, NGOs etc pushing 'rules for thee but not for me' people are very good at seeing that/

[Mark Forrest]

I attend a relatively small number of shows each year, probably 6 as a maximum.  The main reason that I chose to travel any significant distance to an exhibition is that there is one the handful of traders attending who I find it easier to buy from in person than online.  So, from my perspective, I could reduce my environmental impact by buying from someone else (not always possible), doing without or by those traders offering easier online ordering.  Personally if I could get everything I need online I'm not sure I'd bother with the time, expense and inconvenience of attending a model railway exhibition.

 

That said, where travelling by train is an option I do.  If I wanted to attend Warley, my local station has a direct service to Birmingham International and that's how I'd choose to get there.  I wouldn't (consciously) be making that decision based on environmental factors but on cost and convenience. I looked at using the train for ExpoEM in Wakefield, but cost and inconvenience made it not viable.  Scaleforum Crewe I did travel by train (after changing my plans to go on Sunday to avoid a strike).

 

I attended one show this year that was within easy cycling distance of home and did consider riding rather than driving.  Concern about there being somewhere secure to leave my bike at the venue was one of the reasons I drove - the same concern often stops me using a bike for trips I end up doing by car.

 

The bigger question though; how sustainable is the hobby as a whole?  We're buying lumps of plastic and metal that have been ship halfway around the globe; many of which serve no real purpose other than to take up cupboard space in our homes.

[PaulRhB]

2 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

I once got into a heated discussion with someone who was convinced that I must be loaded to have what I do. I told them that we don't have new cars, loans, storecards credit cards, package holidays, designer clothes, endless takeaways or children.

I buy secondhand cars and run them til they drop, usually nicely run in and doing high mpg by the time they’re done. A mate at work criticised my model collection so I asked how much he spent on his last car, £33k it turns out and he gets a new one every 3-5 yrs. I responded I spent £4k and it’ll last me 10 years minimum so I reckon I’ve got around £50-55k, allowing for part exchange, over the next two of your cars just on that. 
I walk to work because I moved to get rid of the 30 mile journey each way so overall my car use is around a fifth of what it was ten years ago. 
The daftest thing to me is I work for the railway but colleagues who live along the line can’t get to or home from certain shifts by train. Also all our managers have cars and rarely travel to meetings by train as the HQ is not next to a station and they’re bouncing back and forth for meetings there with piles of files and stores so effectively they are delivery drivers half the time. (You can’t put stores on the train as they’re different companies!)

[298]

I get the impression that society still thinks nothing of unlimited car use these days and we are in an era where shows are filled up with the same people travelling to them instead of 30+ years ago when more people went to less shows and it was the layouts that travelled. When Warley first went to the NEC there was a certain backlash because someone could go to 3 or 4 local shows for the same cost, back then those other shows would have 15-20 layouts and lots of variety where as nowadays you'd see 5-10 layouts on repeat because there are less medium sized club shows.

 

Younger generations at work really don't seem so keen on this car ownership thing and many are happy just to get Ubers. Maybe if the true cost was considered, £30 of petrol is really a lot more since money for annual costs must come from somewhere, and the last time I had to hire a car it worked out to £90 per day plus fuel (for an absolute nail of an Opel Corsa).

 

As for my own green credentials, I get the Bus to the NEC, I've taken small layouts to shows in the Wife's EV, and the free electricity we get for that from work for social use I offset exhibition expenses with. 

[Neil]

Sustainable exhibition visiting is possible. I live in Tywyn and in the years when I've plucked up sufficient courage to visit Warley have done so by train. Unless it's wazzing it down I walk the half mile to the station, my mates who live locally drive to Machynlleth, park and take the train in. We've done this for shows in Shrewsbury too. Group rates bring the cost down if travelling with friends.

 

I help with the Corris Railway's annual show in Machynlleth, setting up the hall on Friday I took the train in, likewise on Saturday but I was a bit scuppered on Sunday so had to drive in but I also need to give a lift home to one of the layout operators who lives too far from the station for it to be a viable walk. With a Cambrian Railcard the return fare is not far off the cost of petrol and the journey is much nicer, more relaxing.

 

It has to be admitted that I don't much like driving these days so will take public transport where I can but it's environmental  reasons as much as this dislike that motivates my choices.

 

 

[Coldgunner]

If I go to Warley by train its a painful XC service to Birmingham NS and change for Birmingham international. Now I know those are run using 2/3 car 170's and are chocker full, as I've done this journey before. Having to travel back on a train where I'm potentially standing after walking around the NEC for 7 hours is daunting, and it makes carrying any purchases a bit awkward too. That's also not taking into account the price.

 

Now to drive its maybe quarter of a tank of diesel and a parking fee, the advantage is that I can arrive and leave when I want and I also have somewhere to drop off any purchases during the day to save my back.

 

Edit: something to add is our disabled members, model railways arguably has a higher average age than most hobbies, many with mobility issues.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Coldgunner

[Happy Hippo]

17 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

There are potentially complicated and fallible ways of dis-incentivising car travel to exhibitions, substantial discounts for showing a valid rail/bus ticket for at least part of the trip for instance, and there is a brutally simple way: don’t provide a car park, and hold it where driving-in during show hours is a PITA.

The first part is impractical as most attendees would just flash their bus pass.

 

 

[PMP]

So, we know the answer (which realistically we already knew) regarding getting to shows practically and cost effectively. No changes foreseeable in the future. 
 

@Nearholmer said in his original posting (paraphrasing) that shows need to be ‘smarter’ and that new thought was required regarding venues. Unsurprisingly no mention of that so far. What of the organiser then? What are their environmental responsibilities here?

Simply put unless it’s a philanthropically subsidised show, it needs to break even. Locally, E.mids, I have found a village hall which allowing for an evening set up 6-10 and the Saturday day for roughly £500, that’s pure room hire, no tables etc. I’ve found a similar Islington location at £60/hr. So really big differences in ‘basic’ space rates if you assume hall open for 8am-6pm for Saturday use.

Obviously Islington is accessible by public transport, E mids hall isn’t. Nearest train is 12 miles and about seven buses through the course of the day, so personal transport is a necessity for most attendees.

Now the venue itself, what obligations are there on the organiser to ensure that the venue is efficiently heated, insulated, appropriate waste disposal etc., as this will have an environmental impact. If the show doesn’t take place there’s no impact, as the hobby isn’t holding a polluting event. If one is organised and held though, then the organiser has an environmental responsibility surely? 

 

We already see that the organiser can disincentivise people travelling by car to their show by choosing a location difficult to access by car. What other measures can they take to ensure a successful exhibition?

Edited October 16, 2023 by PMP

[MrWolf]

5 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

The moral comfort of infinitesimalism

 

Doing X only has an infinitesimal effect on increasing global warming, so I can keep doing it.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope that wasn't directed at my comments. We do what we can, that's all anyone can do. 

It would be interesting to see which of the show attendees are not earning over say 25k, or on a state pension and whose choices are go by car or not at all. 

It's very easy if you're comfortably off or comfortably retired to sit there and say that we should disincentivise private car use, ban this, tax that into oblivion, but it's those who have the most to lose who will suffer as always.

I'm reminded of the time when a someone was having a moral rant about a friend "supporting the South African economy" because he was eating a Cape apple. 

Who would suffer first and most? Could it be the local indigenous who picked and packed those apples?

The public transport system in this country is a mess and has been my entire life. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Most of us can't afford EVs, powering and maintaining twenty million plus of those isn't sustainable either.

Still, when we are all sitting in the dark, eating grass, our glorious leaders and noble celebrities will be able to fly up and down empty motorways in their electric Bentleys or jet off to climate conferences and tell we peasants that we aren't taking climate change seriously and aren't doing enough. 

[DaveF]

If we really want people to travel more by public transport it needs to be there.  In other words provide buses and trains at frequent intervals all over the country and then encourage people to use them.  At present the public transport simply isn't there unless you live in a city, some towns or are lucky enough to live near a station.  You could say it as providing a carrot before the stick by providing a service which is good enough to encouarge people not to use cars.  I still can't see me ever being able to travel from where I live on the Northumberland coast to (say) Bolam Lake by public transport.

 

In around a year's time a station will open about a mile from my home.  At the moment all I know is there will be a train every 30 minutes to Newcastle, but nothing has been said about first and last train times.  There will be parking, but nothing has been said about how many spaces or charges.  Nothing at all has been said about bus services to the station, although one or two services from my side of town pass the station site.  It is too far for me walk to and from the station and have a day out, I'd never make the walk home.  The nearest bus stop is over a third of the way to the station.

 

David

[Nick C]

I looked at getting the train to Uckfield this weekend. £86.20 for two of us, compared with about £20 for Diesel to drive there...

 

On the flip side, I work from home most of the time, and walk when I do go to the office, most car use being going to the MHR to volunteer (which is impossible by public transport, especially on a Sunday) - so my annual car milage is around 3k. 

[PMP]

I’ve put a very simple poll up here

 

be interesting to see some numbers on it

[Chris M]

15 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Ok, so give me an example of where a sustainable option is cheaper than the hitherto traditional option.  Whether it's food, cars, energy, travel, white goods, toys etc. Only this week I went to buy new carpets.  I was offered a new sustainable option made with some form of material grown in India versus the traditional polyester/wool mix.  And, guess what, the new sustainable one was twice the price of the traditional one. I mentioned energy.  My supplier is EonNext who claim "100% renewable electricity". Yet during the recent energy price crisis, their prices still went through the roof, despite no conceivable link to gas at all and their profits skyrocketed.  

Air source heat pumps start at £10,000 but a gas boiler is £1500 and there is no obvious reason for such a huge differential apart from it being fashionable and so we can hike the prices.

As I said in my original post, if governments really wanted this, they could easily reprice and retax items to make sustainable stuff cheaper. Why not double the tax on gas boilers and rate heat pumps at 0% vat?  But they don't do that, do they?

 

Cycling into town is a cheap sustainable option - so long as no bu&&er pinches my bike!

Edited October 16, 2023 by Chris M

[BachelorBoy]

37 minutes ago, Nick C said:

I looked at getting the train to Uckfield this weekend. £86.20 for two of us, compared with about £20 for Diesel to drive there...

 

On the flip side, I work from home most of the time, and walk when I do go to the office, most car use being going to the MHR to volunteer (which is impossible by public transport, especially on a Sunday) - so my annual car milage is around 3k. 

 

Plus of course those costs like depreciation, wear and tear, MOT, insurance, repairs, cost of parking, etc.

 

 

 

[Chris M]

One answer might be to give every person in the western world a carbon allowance that they can use on holidays (jets, cruises), social travel etc. Each form of transport would have a different carbon per mile rating of course. Once you  have used your  carbon quota no more travel until next year. And no buying quota of others. You would be mad to put on a model railway exhibition that was hard to get to using certain means of public transport.