Accentuate the negative - who's trying to kill the hobby?

[Southernman46]

The latest Rapido Newsletter contains a nice piece at the end which is worth a read ....................................

[jjb1970]

On 24/01/2024 at 23:05, JohnR said:

I think its all to easy to fall into the trap that if a few people have a problem, then all those models get tarnished with the same problem. Elsewhere, Accurascale said they had sold 18,000 class 37s. In this day and age, thats a lot. Even a low fault rate with them can mean many unhappy customers, all too eager to vent their (understandable) frustration where they can.

 

The reality might be that they are much more reliable than a manufacturer who might only have sold 1,000 or 2,000 models, but has fewer complaints.

 

 

 

 

This is a problem with most social media commentary and reviews of products and services. Things tend to polarise between gushing hagiography and ranting. 5* or 1*. I suppose a review along the lines of 'as advertised, a good product,  if you like it and afford it then you should be happy with it' won't get many clicks. If you get a dud then it doesn't help if you were the unlucky one that got the only dud, what matters in such a case is how the supplier resolves things. I take 1* rants with a pinch of salt, ditto 5* gushing, unless the reviewer writes a well argued case.

[rob D2]

18000 is a good number , estimates used to be there an active 100k in the hobby - I’ve no idea if that’s true but that’s a reasonable proportion .

 

[BlackFivesMatter]

Part of the issue in newsprint and to an extent broadcast TV is that there are a lot fewer reporters, writers or actual journalists writing original copy. Souch of what we see/ read is from Associated Press, Reuters, and local newspapers. Editorial or owner control has a strong steering influence. 

 

The biggest issue I see in the hobby is that we are as a rule lacking in Alphas - people who will say "Yes I'm a model railway enthusiast. Got a problem with that?   Pete Waterman is not a shrinking violet and I cannot see him accepting some of the abuse and scorn I hear of others suffering. 

 

[jjb1970]

I have never hidden my hobby or been reticent about talking about it, not only have I never received any scorn or abuse, I have met loads of other rail and model railway enthusiasts. It's amazing just how many of us there are. I find people have a fascination with models, I work in shipping and even today large models are still a part of the furniture in the offices of shipping companies and organizations and even people with no real interest in models often enjoy looking at them.

[tractionman]

59 minutes ago, BlackFivesMatter said:

Part of the issue in newsprint and to an extent broadcast TV is that there are a lot fewer reporters, writers or actual journalists writing original copy. Souch of what we see/ read is from Associated Press, Reuters, and local newspapers. Editorial or owner control has a strong steering influence. 

 

The biggest issue I see in the hobby is that we are as a rule lacking in Alphas - people who will say "Yes I'm a model railway enthusiast. Got a problem with that?   Pete Waterman is not a shrinking violet and I cannot see him accepting some of the abuse and scorn I hear of others suffering. 

 

 

it's behind a paywall but this popped up on my phone, a Times article, on Pete Waterman and the enduring popularity of model railways...

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/model-railways-saved-me-this-cant-be-the-end-qqvlxc7pf

 

 

[MarkSG]

1 hour ago, tractionman said:

 

it's behind a paywall but this popped up on my phone, a Times article, on Pete Waterman and the enduring popularity of model railways...

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/model-railways-saved-me-this-cant-be-the-end-qqvlxc7pf

 

Here's a link which will, temporarily, by-pass the paywall:

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/708066ca-b449-43d7-a480-25f58e3b8427?shareToken=eddcef33b3f9924a0bc75ce8643acb91

 

To summarise it for the benefit of those who can't read it, Waterman is, possibly a little surprisingly, quite strongly critical of Warley's decision to call it a day, suggesting that they'd failed to make the effort to attract a younger audience. I don't know how that's likely to go down in Sandwell. But the rest of the article is much more positive. Waterman points to Hornby's latest financial announcement and the new Model World show at the NEC as reasons to be cheerful. He also mentions the "Making Tracks" exhibition in Chester Cathedral, which attracted considerably more visitors each year than Warley did, which I think is a very good point - people will go to look at model railways, but the wider public doesn't necessarily share our love of traditional model railway exhibitions. Social media, too, is one of his key themes, along with exhibitions which allow some kind of hands-on experience for visitors.

 

I don't necessarily agree with everything he says - someone who can afford a 120ft O gauge layout in his shed is possibly not representative of the average enthusiast, and, while people certainly do like looking at Making Tracks (or its rival in the big layout stakes, Heaton Lodge Junction), I'm not sure that they're the sort of thing which will inspire people to start building a shunting plank in their study at home. For that you do need a more traditional, multi-layout exhibition which can showcase the different types of layouts which can be built by clubs and individuals with much more modest means. But his enthusiasm shines through nonetheless, and I think he is absolutely right to say that the underlying foundations of the hobby are healthy, it's just that we need to continually look at new ways to get people involved.

[rob D2]

The problem is you can try and attract younger people , but when your organisers and the folk doing the donkey work are adults , they  are the ones that have had enough . And I’d wager that the folk mainly arranging warley are not adults in the 18-60 age range generally but retirees who may simply have had enough with the demands placed upon them .

[JohnR]

34 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

He also mentions the "Making Tracks" exhibition in Chester Cathedral, which attracted considerably more visitors each year than Warley did, which I think is a very good point - people will go to look at model railways, but the wider public doesn't necessarily share our love of traditional model railway exhibitions.

 

Making Tracks had no entry fee, and Chester Cathedral is in the centre of the city. I'd expect it to have attracted more visitors!

[PMP]

15 minutes ago, JohnR said:

 

Making Tracks had no entry fee, and Chester Cathedral is in the centre of the city. I'd expect it to have attracted more visitors!

Why? With no disrespect to people of faith, myself and many others would have no interest in visiting a cathedral or other place of worship. What would be interesting would be to see how many extra visitors attended because of making tracks. I’d guess making tracks raised visitor numbers to the cathedral by quite a margin over previous years when there was no exhibition.

[JamFjord]

On 15/01/2024 at 13:58, AY Mod said:

The final whistle may have blown for Hattons and Warley at the NEC, but the train of model railway enthusiasm shows no signs of stopping. It simply enters a new station, its destination still to be written.

 

I now feel ready to welcome our robot overlords with open arms. Life under skynet might not be so bad after all...

[JohnR]

1 minute ago, PMP said:

Why? With no disrespect to people of faith, myself and many others would have no interest in visiting a cathedral or other place of worship. What would be interesting would be to see how many extra visitors attended because of making tracks. I’d guess making tracks raised visitor numbers to the cathedral by quite a margin over previous years when there was no exhibition.

 

I'm sure many more people visited the cathedral who wouldn't have done normally. My point is, given the event had free entry, it will have many more visitors than one where a family of 4 would cost over £50 to visit. 

[Chris M]

I don’t know how accurate the reporting in the Sunday Times is but the article does seem somewhat inaccurate and rather disappointing to me. Warley club has not blamed youngsters for the end of the NEC show. Organising a show the size of the Warley NEC exhibition requires a large group of people with different professional skills (management, marketing, finance, IT, planning, electrical etc etc) to  give hundreds of hours of their time for free throughout the whole year. The amazing thing is that Warley club was able to find sufficient members with the right mix of knowledge and skills for 30 years. That is a fantastic achievement but it was always going to come to an end one day.  I can also say that Warley club finances are stable and sustainable in the long term without an NEC exhibition.  No financial help package is required - although donations are always welcome.

Edited January 28 by Chris M

[osbornsmodels]

Quote

My point is, given the event had free entry

I don't recall it being free. I am sure that I paid an entrance fee that gave access to making tracks and the Cathedral as well or am I imagining it

[ardbealach]

There was a entrance charge for the two Waterman shows at Chester.  I understand they were set up to bring a new  fund raising income stream for the benefit of the cathedral. (Alisdair)

[AY Mod]

22 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

There was a entrance charge for the two Waterman shows at Chester.  I understand they were set up to bring a new  fund raising income stream for the benefit of the cathedral. (Alisdair)

 

Like our local cathedral they do various events to make use, and revenue, of otherwise empty or quiet times outside of worship in prime city centre locations. I'm sure they've even had a Lego event, again targetted at the young and families. I know the Dean has been pleased with results. Beats the old church roof collection.

[MarkSG]

34 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

There was a entrance charge for the two Waterman shows at Chester.  I understand they were set up to bring a new  fund raising income stream for the benefit of the cathedral. (Alisdair)

 

Chester cathedral charges a sightseeing admission fee during its busiest tourist visit periods (summer and Christmas, basically). So all the income from the admission fee went to the cathedral, none of it went to the Making Tracks organisers.  The costs of putting on Making Tracks were primarily met by sponsorship.

[YT-1300]

11 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I have never hidden my hobby or been reticent about talking about it, not only have I never received any scorn or abuse, I have met loads of other rail and model railway enthusiasts. It's amazing just how many of us there are. I find people have a fascination with models, I work in shipping and even today large models are still a part of the furniture in the offices of shipping companies and organizations and even people with no real interest in models often enjoy looking at them.

I've never hidden any of my hobbies from anyone, I've had some gentle ribbing about my interest in model railways, but I've had abuse, some quite nasty, from other modellers over my choice of prototype (North American).

 

 

[Johnson044]

On 23/01/2024 at 16:04, Roddy Angus said:

I do hope you will be in a position to help them. Youngsters just starting work nowadays, have it very hard due to the high cost of either renting or buying accommodation without them also being loaded down with debt.

 

Best wishes

Roddy

Absolutely! Your children are the most important and worthwhile projects that you will ever undertake. They are still your children, be they 5 or 25, or older. Of course they will need your financial help whilst at Uni- even though sometimes they may not ask, if they worry about your own financial constraints. Some of them will be incredibly careful with every penny, and some unbelievably feckless- but you have brought them into the world and it's your duty to support them until you draw your last breath- or at very least until you are sure they are swimming along through life successfully. They inherit the world that we have made for them. They are the ones that will strive to sort out the messes that we have made.

[GMKAT7]

Good evening folks,

 

Fully agree with Johnson044 on caring for your children and the financial help they need at Uni.

 

My son gets just over £4k maintenance loan for each year, but also had a student loan for course fees of £9.25k.

Over his four years that comes to over £53k of debt.

 

The maintenance loan of £4k each year goes nowhere near paying his rent, usually £8k plus and he needs food etc on top of that.

We cover his rent so that the maintenance loan does go on his food and the occasional day out.

Despite spending most of his holidays doing bar work, he still needs a top up since that is usually minimum wage work.

 

Although we do joke that we are spending his inheritance 😂

 

Cheers, Nigel.

[woodenhead]

Mr Kohler's thoughts on 2024 so far

 

[BachelorBoy]

In addition to the traditional exhibition layouts, perhaps the public might like to see more mega-layouts of 50 feet or more at shows.

 

Several clubs/modellers could  build their own free-mo layouts of 10 or 15 feet each and join them all together at exhibitions. 

 

The individual layouts could be used separately on usual club nights with fiddle yards/loops stuck on each end.

 

 

[MarkSG]

The mega-layouts certainly bring in the crowds. But they also take up a lot of space, and take a lot of time to construct. And, as I've said earlier, I'm not sure that they're the sort of thing which will inspire people to take up the hobby themselves. I think they have an important role to play, but they're not going to be the be-all and end-all of it.

 

Free-mo has never really caught on in the UK the way it has elsewhere. I think part of the reason is that the fairly rigid interconnect requirements (which are necessary for the modules to interoperate) tends to make for unrealistic scenic treament. Plus, of course, Free-mo is a standard designed for HO (it mandates code 83 track, for example), so a UK OO version would need a different standard, and, as far as I'm aware, there isn't one.

 

Free-mo layouts are probably enjoyable to build and operate (not that I have any experience of either), but from an exhibition visitor perspective they're generally not as interesting as a well-designed and well-constructed standalone layout.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

20 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

The mega-layouts certainly bring in the crowds. But they also take up a lot of space, and take a lot of time to construct. And, as I've said earlier, I'm not sure that they're the sort of thing which will inspire people to take up the hobby themselves. I think they have an important role to play, but they're not going to be the be-all and end-all of it.

 

I think every exhibition should (wherever possible) have a good mix and whilst I certainly agree that small layouts are more likely to inspire a beginner in the sense of "I could make something like that in my one bedroom flat", I do think that big layouts with lots of movement and long trains do have a certain "WOW!" factor and maybe appeal to a slightly different audience with a slightly different agenda i.e. they come to shows to see and experience layouts which they couldn't build in their one bedroom flat.

Edited January 31 by TEAMYAKIMA

[BachelorBoy]

59 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

 

 

Free-mo has never really caught on in the UK the way it has elsewhere. I think part of the reason is that the fairly rigid interconnect requirements (which are necessary for the modules to interoperate) tends to make for unrealistic scenic treament. Plus, of course, Free-mo is a standard designed for HO (it mandates code 83 track, for example), so a UK OO version would need a different standard, and, as far as I'm aware, there isn't one.

 

 

Perhaps I should have written "free mo-style" -- a new standard needed just for UK exhibition layouts.

 

1 hour ago, MarkSG said:

Free-mo layouts are probably enjoyable to build and operate (not that I have any experience of either), but from an exhibition visitor perspective they're generally not as interesting as a well-designed and well-constructed standalone layout.

 

This is the chance to think big, and create a whole new standard of free mo that audiences will love.