Warley NEC 2010

[Mikkel]

The main point of the programme was to highlight the need to attract youngsters into what will otherwise be a dying hobby.

 

Can't find it on the BBC iPlayer yet, but when you do, have a look at the general lighting in the hall. Even the country's premier broadcasting company couldn't manage to work around such orangeness....

 

I think it is available here now, with a Peter Watermann angle:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/b00wcq8d

 

I can't say for sure though as I cannot watch it in "my area"

[steam-driven boy]

Hi Mike,

...apart from the horrible backscene

Thanks for your kind words, perhaps taking down the colour a bit harmonises the backscene? I didn't consider it a problem while viewing it, photo's tend to allow the mind too much time to be analytical sometimes.

There's a well known 2mm layout that views from the end - Edit: Queens Street Goods, found the unpacked exhibition guide! - that suggested the camera angle. LCS was one of my 'must see' layouts, I hope the photo's I post might be viewed as something of a 'thank you' to their creators

Perhaps I can get away with indulging in a few more 'thank you's here...

Aberdare

Bath Queen Square

Ellerton Road

Pen-y-Madoc

 

Regards, Gerry.

[Kris]

I think it is available here now, with a Peter Watermann angle:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/b00wcq8d

 

I can't say for sure though as I cannot watch it in "my area"

 

That's it. The section is from 10:47 to 18:57.

Some lovely footage of some of the layouts including a working bicycle. I felt that at times the subtext behind the story felt a little cringeworthy but it didn't come across as being patronising in the way that these pieces sometimes can.

 

 

 

[Wheeltapper]

The main point of the programme was to highlight the need to attract youngsters into what will otherwise be a dying hobby.

 

To be honest I was not really sure what the point of the piece actually was as none of the following could actually be said to be inspirational for the average British youngster.

 

The most featured layout seemed to be the Dutch one with the cyclists - a great layout but any youngster trying to emulate it is going to get very disillusioned very quickly.

.

Pete Waterman tried to get near Copenhagen Fields but there were just too many people for the camera to see anything of the scenic sections resulting in very uninspiring shots for newcomers to the hobby of the back of the layout operators area.

 

A conversation between the Editor of Railway Modeller and Mr Waterman seemed to imply that the hobby had been in serious trouble ten years ago but was now in a very healthy situation and seemed to suggest new modellers were not really needed..

 

I wholeheartedly agree with any effort to get youngsters and other newcomers interested for the good of the future of the hobby but the programme makers did not seem to achieve this objective with this piece of tv coverage,

[Southernman46]

Thank you WARLEY MRC (and every other MRC) for being bothered to arrange and put on your particular show that I can choose to get out of my armchair and attend if I want too, to look at other people's efforts and hardwork whether inspiring or not, to spend whatever I like on whatever I choose (from those traders big and small whom I also thank for being bothered to do what they do), and if things aren't exactly perfect - not enough chairs maybe, etc then I have no room to moan because my only contribution to it was to attend...

 

Critise or praise - at the end of the day, these things are only there because other people have made the effort and we should all rejoice in that because if they didn't, the rest of us would have nothing.........

[Major Clanger]

I don't think you can compare the NEC to any of the Warners' shows - but I would suggest that the box shifters are a high proportion of traders at the Warners shows - the "specialists" were added in (at least at Doncaster) later..

 

The specialists have always been at Doncaster - a cheaper rate was offered if you went upstairs in the old building, and now at the entrance end in the new one.

[coachmann]

A conversation between the Editor of Railway Modeller and Mr Waterman seemed to imply that the hobby had been in serious trouble ten years ago but was now in a very healthy situation and seemed to suggest new modellers were not really needed..

Ten years ago, the people I still circulated amongst represented the serious modellers and everything outside of this was toy trains. Sure it sounds snooty, but that is how things appeared at the time. Then a few years ago someone handed me a cartload of model railway magazines from the mid 1990s to 2003. I enjoyed reading them but the adverts for proprietory goods were the same as before......Locos with shiny tyres and handrails, overscale valvegear and lining out, and characatures that had been around with a minimum of revamping for years. There was simply nothing there to attract the scale modeller away from building kits.

 

All that has changed in the past few years, in fact, so much so that scale modellers in 4mm scale now routinely populate their layouts with the products of Hornby and Bachmann. In many ways, this shift from kit building to plastic RTR has been the new blood, plus of course people coming back into the hobby who, after an absense of some years, are being totally overwhelmed at what they see. When I gaze at the Hornby Thompson L1 or the Bachmann 'Jubilee', I can honestly say few scratch or kit built locos ever looked this good.