End of Warley National Show - but now it's not the end of a show at the NEC.

[John M Upton]

When I were a teenager, mid to late 1980's, I was the only one I knew in my school who was into railway modelling, first Hattons order for detail parts, paint and flushglaze being sent with a cheque in about 1987.

 

All my fellow school classmates were into models, but those came with very different specification pair of buffers if you know what I mean...

[Aire Head]

26 minutes ago, Barry O said:

not force feeding

I'm intrigued to know what part of "don't say that kids don't have the aptitude and try educating them instead" is force feeding?

 

I haven't suggested that your club isn't engaging young people I've stated that it is an issue across the hobby. Young people aren't joining clubs and societies by the large and it is an acknowledged issue and I don't know why it should be so controversial to say that. 🤷

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, MarkSG said:

Good to see that the media still can't resist corny train-related puns in news articles, though!

It even made the news bulletin on Classic FM, between the hourly sessions of Muzak.

[TheSignalEngineer]

The first show I went to was at the Birmingham & Midland Institue when it was still in Paradise Street. I was still at school so no later than 1965. 

Reverend Awdry was there with his Ffarquhar layout. He would have been early in his early 50s at the time.  He started building the first Tidmouth Docks layout when in his late 30s and built the Ffarquhar exhibition layout when he was about 45.

My own modelling stalled at 18 when my parents moved house and I was working away a lot. It got restarted again at about 10 years later after marriage, 2 children and buying a house with a garage. Another house move and too much hassle on the big railway caused another gap until I restarted in my early 50s.

I've never been a member of a club, partly through choice and partly because other things got in the way but have been attending several shows a year from local clubs with a handful of layouts to a fair number of big ones like Manchester, York and Stafford. The demise of the modeller and railway enthusiast seems to have been predicted or most of my lifetime but it still carries on. 

Other things I have been involved with seem to go through similar cycles. Sports clubs have plenty of members in times of low cost of living and job security but are one of the first thing people will cut when prices go up and things get tough in the employment scene.

I think the hobby will outlive most of us as I keep eeing plenty of new faces showing their efforts on social media. 

[jjb1970]

The age thing in debate annoys me. RMWeb is actually pretty polite and avoids the sort of idiocy which pervades much of the general media and political discourse which often moves towards two extremes:

 

-young people are feckless layabouts who are incapable of getting out of bed (never mind doing anything useful) and lead pampered lives in which they just want to sit playing games and expect everything on a plate; and

 

-old people can't use technology, don't know what the Internet is, are (misogynist, in the case of men) racists deeply insensitive to anyone not a mirror image of themselves and who just sit telling us that things were better in the old days.

 

Both of which are offensive generalizations which would be unprintable if thrown at any other group. Usually things are worded differently to make views more acceptable but you don't have to read between many lines to figure out what is meant. There are many reasons why I might hold an opinion of someone, but their age is no more relevant than their race, nationality, faith or gender in how we should think of people. 

 

If our hobby is not fully engaging with young people then maybe we need to ask what we need to do to draw more young people in. Nobody owes the hobby anything, we're not entitled to the interest of anyone. I believe model railways (models in general) is a wonderful hobby for people of all ages, but if we want new blood the hobby has to draw people in and engage with people. Which is where the oft derided YouTubers and other platforms such as the even more hated TikTok can come in, whether or not we like some of the 'influencers' and channels on those platforms they seem more connected than many alternative means of communication and are finding a broad audience and presenting stuff in a way which seems better suited to today's audience.

[Dunsignalling]

From what I've seen, if clubs and groups have a public profile via social media, an exhibition or, better still, regular club-room open days, the word gets round and interested youngsters seem to draw themselves in. 

 

The trick is getting them sufficiently "involved" that they hang around and, more to the point, form a strong enough attachment that they will want to take over and keep things going. 

 

All that said, we do nobody any favours by deluding ourselves that the hobby hasn't already peaked. It got to its height through specific demographic events which began to work themselves out of the system a while back but were perhaps misidentified as effects of the pandemic.    

 

Railway modelling is not going to disappear, but we oldies have to recognise that we won't be replaced on anything approaching a one-for-one basis; the maths simply don't add up. What we see in the club scene can be expected to reflect, more-or-less,  what is happening across the board. 

 

The recent events with Hatton's and the Warley National show are wake-up calls we must heed if the communal side of the hobby is to continue in a recognisable form. In particular, over the next decade or so, most smaller groups/clubs will need to band together with others in order to maintain numerical viability.

 

Getting new "institutions" up and running from scratch will be a whole lot harder than keeping the better ones going by timely adaptation to changed circumstances and picking up the "survivors" from those that do fall by the wayside.

 

It's the responsibility of my generation to allow that to happen by taking a step back and ensuring that our future successors can absorb whatever wisdom we have to offer and build the experience that will ensure their readiness to take over the reins. Ideally before they are forced into it! 

 

John

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15 by Dunsignalling

[PaulRhB]

I always remember part of the kids model area being run by Maggie Gravett, one of the best modellers out there, and spending all day getting kids just trying out a variety of simple kits. 

 

How about doing something fun with the kids to encourage interaction? Try various ideas like this that don’t take long and give total free rein to imagination. 
 

 

 

[PMP]

9 minutes ago, PaulRhB said: 

 

How about doing something fun with the kids to encourage interaction? Try various ideas like this that don’t take long and give total free rein to imagination. 
 

 

 

Whoah! Easy Tiger, you’ll scare the horses! 
 

It’s funny that Peter Marriot who was demonstrating scenery on the Woodland Scenics/Bachmann Warley stand had an utterly engaged group of five or six kids making a postcard sized section of scenery. He was doing it stage by stage almost like a production line. And this was about ten minutes before closing, and it had been similar all day long.

 

 You had to visit a RTR manufacturers stand, and go to Warley to see it though….

[PaulRhB]

23 minutes ago, PMP said:

It’s funny that Peter Marriot who was demonstrating scenery on the Woodland Scenics/Bachmann Warley stand had an utterly engaged group of five or six kids making a postcard sized section of scenery.

Yes I think the demo area one was always well sponsored with kits n bits. Definitely something that organisers of other ‘big’ shows could ask their sponsors to chip in and do more of. Bachmann have run demos from their stand for a few years now but the Warley demo area ones were done on a lower table so a bit more accessible to kids. The Kato circus was great but would have been even better if there had been a rolling demo where people could help make another one. I had my first practical static grass demo at Warley using a piece of card. Works for all ages ;) 

[Phil Parker]

3 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

All that said, we do nobody any favours by deluding ourselves that the hobby hasn't already peaked. It got to its height through specific demographic events which began to work themselves out of the system a while back but were perhaps misidentified as effects of the pandemic.   

 

Forget Covid and TV shows - it peaked in 1963. Or possibly in the 1990s for finescale modellers. Or pretty much any date you care to pick. You just have to define "peak".

[Phil Parker]

33 minutes ago, PMP said:

Whoah! Easy Tiger, you’ll scare the horses! 
 

It’s funny that Peter Marriot who was demonstrating scenery on the Woodland Scenics/Bachmann Warley stand had an utterly engaged group of five or six kids making a postcard sized section of scenery. He was doing it stage by stage almost like a production line. And this was about ten minutes before closing, and it had been similar all day long.

 

 You had to visit a RTR manufacturers stand, and go to Warley to see it though….

 

If the NEC is too scary, you could go to Ally Pally, and see Peter do the same thing, or perhaps look at the kids walking around with a freshly built Dapol building they assembled in the Young MRC area. Both groups were pleased as punch with their models, and keen to show them off to anyone who looked interested. And you couldn't find a Dapol kit for sale in the hall, as they wanted to repeat the experience.

[Colin_McLeod]

Food or thought.  Today the "Internet" is the model railway club.

 

Be it social media, Youtube, RMweb etc, many people share the hobby virtually.  

[damian]

I'd be somewhat careful of giving too much weight to reports in various media that tend to be popular with older people, including here. There are groups of like minded modellers where older members really are the exceptions. For example try discord in general and the LMM discord specifically for a significant number of modellers half my age.

 

[Jol Wilkinson]

1 hour ago, PMP said:

Whoah! Easy Tiger, you’ll scare the horses! 
 

It’s funny that Peter Marriot who was demonstrating scenery on the Woodland Scenics/Bachmann Warley stand had an utterly engaged group of five or six kids making a postcard sized section of scenery. He was doing it stage by stage almost like a production line. And this was about ten minutes before closing, and it had been similar all day long.

 

 You had to visit a RTR manufacturers stand, and go to Warley to see it though….

 

Roger Sawyer of the EMGS demonstrated soldering at the CMRA Stevenage shows. Children seemed to be the ones that took up the offer to try it.

 

When exhibiting London Road I usually spent my time interacting with viewers where possible. Children were always accompanied by their parents or grandad, so you had to get them onside too. At the Warley 2016 show one grandad said they had been back three times to look at the layout, so they were invited behind the scenes, the late Colin McCullum showing the youngster how to operate the control panel the . Whether or not he is still into model railways I don't know but hopefully a seed was sown.

 

[Barry O]

While Maggie (and some other very good modellers) manned the "Junior hands on modelling" area in the Warley Show I instigated it. Very positive outcomes have been achieved not only with children but also parents and very well supported by PECO and other manufacturers over the years. (It was brilliant watching people adding scenery under Gordon Gravett's very helpful eye!)

 

Other shows (including York) have also provided this. My intention was to grow from some questions asked at a few exhibitions (and elsewhere ) about making things, scenery setting etc. 

 

If you can't get "hands on" you may never try to build a building, or a wagon, or add scenery....  BUT its not "teaching" or "instructing" you have to be able to coach and mentor... which does require a different skill set to actually just building a layout....

 

Baz

Edited January 15 by Barry O

[PaulRhB]

2 minutes ago, Barry O said:

While Maggie (and some other very good modellers) manned the "Junior hands on modelling" area in the Warley Show I instigated it. Very positive outcomes have been achieved not only with children but also parents and very well supported by PECO and other manufacturers over the years. (It was brilliant watching people adding scenery under Gordon Gravett's very helpful eye!)

 

Other shows (including York) have also provided this. My intention was to grow from some questions asked at a few exhibitions (and elsewhere ) about making things, scenery setting etc. 

 

If you can't get "hands on" you may never try to build a building, or a wagon, or add scenery....  BUT its not "teaching" or "instructing" you have to be able to coach and mentor... which does require a different skill set to actually just building a layout....

 

Baz

Yep plenty of examples fortunately and always busy. I directed a few to the demo area over the years after chatting to them as I knew they could have a go. I also took along a section of polystyrene and clay with my Swiss layout to show how simple it actually was. 
I wonder how many would have run a mile if they’d known what Gordon and Maggie were capable of ;)  I was actually surprised when chatting to Gordon about Arun Quay that it was all his work as I just assumed it was a joint project. I remember Maggie’s demo’s at Sparsholt NG show as Pempoul slowly took shape. Stunning! 

[Barry O]

and, over the years, there have been a fair few people (of all ages) who have had a go at weathering.. and not juts instructing them.. oh no! Anyone who has ever watched me you will know its all about getting people involved!

 

Baz

[Dunsignalling]

8 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Forget Covid and TV shows - it peaked in 1963. Or possibly in the 1990s for finescale modellers. Or pretty much any date you care to pick. You just have to define "peak".

My definition would be the overall numbers active in a hobby that is heavily dependent on participants in the "affluent retired" category. The rate at which those of us who drop off the twig get replaced will be critical for the future character of the hobby, though it's certainly not dying, IMHO.   

 

Until a bit over a week ago, everything looked pretty rosy, but I began to suspect some time ago that the apparent rude health of the r-t-r sector of the industry/hobby may be rooted in relatively few people spending an awful lot of money whilst most have become much more circumspect. 

 

This is evident among my own contacts, though it should be borne in mind that most of us already own more models than is perhaps decent. A few are still spending freely; around half (including me) seem to be averaging roughly what we've always averaged (though I'm personally 15-20% down on pre-pandemic spending). and are acquiring new stock at a slower rate in consequence. More worrying, I think, is that more than I expected are actually spending considerably less in cash terms than before and will only open their wallets for items they have "always longed for". One has even thrown up his hands, declared that the world has gone mad, flogged all his models and become an armchair non-modeller! 

 

We seem to be entering a period of the proverbial Interesting Times and "something" is most certainly in the air. I reckon we shall see some quite profound change to the size and shape of the hobby over the next few years. 

 

John

[ikcdab]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The age thing in debate annoys me. RMWeb is actually pretty polite and avoids the sort of idiocy which pervades much of the general media and political discourse which often moves towards two extremes:

 

-young people are feckless layabouts who are incapable of getting out of bed (never mind doing anything useful) and lead pampered lives in which they just want to sit playing games and expect everything on a plate; and

 

-old people can't use technology, don't know what the Internet is, are (misogynist, in the case of men) racists deeply insensitive to anyone not a mirror image of themselves and who just sit telling us that things were better in the old days.

 

Both of which are offensive generalizations which would be unprintable if thrown at any other group. Usually things are worded differently to make views more acceptable but you don't have to read between many lines to figure out what is meant. There are many reasons why I might hold an opinion of someone, but their age is no more relevant than their race, nationality, faith or gender in how we should think of people. 

 

If our hobby is not fully engaging with young people then maybe we need to ask what we need to do to draw more young people in. Nobody owes the hobby anything, we're not entitled to the interest of anyone. I believe model railways (models in general) is a wonderful hobby for people of all ages, but if we want new blood the hobby has to draw people in and engage with people. Which is where the oft derided YouTubers and other platforms such as the even more hated TikTok can come in, whether or not we like some of the 'influencers' and channels on those platforms they seem more connected than many alternative means of communication and are finding a broad audience and presenting stuff in a way which seems better suited to today's audience.

100% agree.  You miss the third thing, everybody's old and no young people coming along.  To be honest, it's rubbish.

To prove my point, look back 30 years. The same thing was being said then.  But people forget that there are always "new" old people coming onto the scene.  Biology dictates that. It's a fact that young and middle aged people have so much to occupy themselves with families and things, but when that eases up, they are freerer to do other things. My own local heritage line is thriving with young people starting to take over things but we also have managed to recruit lots of older people.  Of course, they may not be with us for that long, but new old people are always coming along.

I'm not sure what point I'm making, but please don't blame "ageing demographic" for the closure of a club or a society.  You need to understand why new people aren't coming along and joining you, and sort out that problem.

 

I very much regret the demise of the Warley show, I attended it for many years. I also regret that the organisers didn't make provision for their replacement years ago such that there was a constant evolution in the organisation staff. If you recruit one new person to the committee every year, then you are sorted. It's succession planning.

 

And I do know how tough it is. I am involved in organising a local (not railway) show. It costs us £250k to put on and we barely break even. It's really tough but we have been successful in recruiting new people to help out and the committee has been totally renewed over the last 10 years. 

Ian

[Dunsignalling]

27 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

 

Roger Sawyer of the EMGS demonstrated soldering at the CMRA Stevenage shows. Children seemed to be the ones that took up the offer to try it.

 

When exhibiting London Road I usually spent my time interacting with viewers where possible. Children were always accompanied by their parents or grandad, so you had to get them onside too. At the Warley 2016 show one grandad said they had been back three times to look at the layout, so they were invited behind the scenes, the late Colin McCullum showing the youngster how to operate the control panel the . Whether or not he is still into model railways I don't know but hopefully a seed was sown.

 

 

That's the important thing. Most of us drift away or reduce our involvement in the hobby when other things take priority. I did very little between 20 and 40 bar attend a few shows. Hopefully, "he'll be back". 

 

John

[snitchthebudgie]

5 minutes ago, ikcdab said:

I very much regret the demise of the Warley show, I attended it for many years. I also regret that the organisers didn't make provision for their replacement years ago such that there was a constant evolution in the organisation staff. If you recruit one new person to the committee every year, then you are sorted. It's succession planning.

 

Sorry, but easier said than done.  Especially when you're already planning two or three years ahead.  You've got to have the people who want to step up.  

[ruggedpeak]

1 hour ago, PaulRhB said:

Yes I think the demo area one was always well sponsored with kits n bits. Definitely something that organisers of other ‘big’ shows could ask their sponsors to chip in and do more of. Bachmann have run demos from their stand for a few years now but the Warley demo area ones were done on a lower table so a bit more accessible to kids. The Kato circus was great but would have been even better if there had been a rolling demo where people could help make another one. I had my first practical static grass demo at Warley using a piece of card. Works for all ages ;) 

I saw the Kato stand at the last two Warley shows, with their educational material to encourage modelling.

 

I enjoyed the little 'island' models this year by various modelling businesses but did wonder why the base kit were not readily available. It is the sort of small spontaneous purchase that would work at the show and is a great and simple form of modular layout. Something that could be sold/publicised in advance and people could bring in and connect up at the show.

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

You just have to define "peak".

 

Just ask Rapido .....  https://rapidotrains.co.uk/br-class-44/

 

[ikcdab]

23 minutes ago, snitchthebudgie said:

 

Sorry, but easier said than done.  Especially when you're already planning two or three years ahead.  You've got to have the people who want to step up.  

As I said, it's not easy, but if you fail to succession plan then your event dies. I agree that you need to have the people ready to step up.  But you can't just wait for them to turn up or to offer themselves. You need to create the environment in which people want to help out. 

I have no connection with Warley except as a very happy visitor over many years and I have no idea at all what attempt they made to recruit new volunteers .  Bearing in mind the thousands who attend, it doesn't seem beyond the wit of man to recruit a small number of them (1 or 2 a year) to add to the team. All I know is that I have never seen any kind of advert at the show or in the show leadup asking for people to come forward to help organise it.

[Dunsignalling]

5 minutes ago, ikcdab said:

100% agree.  You miss the third thing, everybody's old and no young people coming along.  To be honest, it's rubbish.

To prove my point, look back 30 years. The same thing was being said then.  But people forget that there are always "new" old people coming onto the scene.  Biology dictates that. It's a fact that young and middle aged people have so much to occupy themselves with families and things, but when that eases up, they are freerer to do other things. My own local heritage line is thriving with young people starting to take over things but we also have managed to recruit lots of older people.  Of course, they may not be with us for that long, but new old people are always coming along.

I'm not sure what point I'm making, but please don't blame "ageing demographic" for the closure of a club or a society.  You need to understand why new people aren't coming along and joining you, and sort out that problem.

 

I very much regret the demise of the Warley show, I attended it for many years. I also regret that the organisers didn't make provision for their replacement years ago such that there was a constant evolution in the organisation staff. If you recruit one new person to the committee every year, then you are sorted. It's succession planning.

 

And I do know how tough it is. I am involved in organising a local (not railway) show. It costs us £250k to put on and we barely break even. It's really tough but we have been successful in recruiting new people to help out and the committee has been totally renewed over the last 10 years. 

Ian

The demographic issue is not a matter of existential threat, and won't become one.

 

However, the hobby is currently dominated by the largest single generation our country has seen. As that factor lessens, the pool of potential replacements within each of the  succeeding generations is smaller. Admittedly, recruitment happens simultaneously over multiple generations, but that only spreads the arithmetical problem over a longer period; a damping effect, if you will.

 

The baby-boomer generation were the train-spotters and owners of Tri-ang and Hornby Dublo train sets in the 1950s/'60s; and railways played a greater part in their lives than most since.

 

The challenge in maintaining numerical participation in the hobby is thus to attract a higher percentage from less numerous generations of people, for most of whom, railways have been less influential in their lives.

 

Not impossible, but anything but easy, I'd suggest; though mid-life memories of watching Thomas The Tank Engine on children's TV may yet come to the rescue....

 

John