Graham Walters

From experience I can say that the demise in hobby and shopd selling model railway products are many fold, the nternet is but one. Others include the advancement in electronic entertainment lack of space in new homes, rooms are not big enough, and attics are not strong enough. Cost is another factor, From what I've seen of customers that came in my shop the hobby is literally dying, I would say the average age of the few cutomers I had was well into the 60's, and I had only two or three regulars aged under 15. i was told I was more expensve than certain shops in Liverpool [Widnes] and Sheffield, when I could prove I wasn't. It got to the point where I flet that if I priced something up for nothing I would get some bright spark asking me for discount. There seems to be this trait where no matter what you price some thing at, model railway enthusiasts expect more discount, and because of this and the reasons stated above less and less model shops will sell model railways, and more will go out of business, so get used to shopping online, and when you only have a choice of two or three shops to go to, then watch out, because the tail will be wagging the dog.

It would appear that people were right, opening a model shop selling model railway products was a bad move. As of 3pm today [21/11/2019] Test Valley Models has stopped selling dedicated model railway products, instead we will be concentrating on the less demanding markets in out business, namely plastic kits and wargaming. I would through this coloum like to thank anyone who has patronised the shop over the past 3.5 years, sadly it wasn't enough to warrant us continuing to stock loco's, rolling stock, or in fact anything to do solely with model railways.

When it takes three days for a modeller to airbrush 12 OO huts, you have to wonder if he has the right skills to do the job, or was he using the right paints ! I was impressed with the BB team, and the steampunk version has some nice quirky bits but Tonbridge was IMO what most people think the hobby is, and gave a totally wrong perception of it. It's still not 'must switch on TV' for me, and I cannot put my finger on why it isn't

It's prime time, Friday night railway modelling on a terrestrial channel. Not often you see that written about Channel 5

Finally caught it on catchup this evening, mixed views really, It was good to see the rules being upheld, the 'Captain' from Missenden came across as smug more than arrogant, thinking they had won it before it even started. In the time allowed both of those who stuck to the rules IMO did very well, Porthcawl probably failed due more to the quantity of things they tried to build in, whereas Strangers went for the effective "diorama" type layout. For me it will remain a catch up program around modelling and other programs, but I expect I will watch the whole series.

There seems to be a large difference of opinion, so here ar some answers to a few questions raised. We do as a business giv a discount if a customer spends a large amount with us in one purchase, margins are better on some things than others, buying a box of track is cheaper than buying odd lengths, and we do make customers aware of this On locos we do list and price at RRP, perhaps we shouldn't and make the money on the accessories, but that's another debate. Bulk buying by Hattons and others, this is a a lot of smoke and mirrors, Hornby tell us smaller traders that thet do not give Hattons discount for bulk purchases, they like anyone else get a stock allocation, and according to Hornby have to abide by the same T's & C's that we do, ( no discount on new releases in the first 6 weeks, and thereafter by a maximum of 10% for the following six weeks). Plastic kits are not all priced at £15, and we sell very few of them of them at that price, most of the 1/35 scale sell for around the £50 mark, larger scales can be a couple of hundred pounds, and we still don't get asked to discount them. I value and take onboard all of the opinions given and will have a long think to see ifwe can increase sales by offering a standard discount on loco's.

Running a model shop is not easy, running a model shop that sells model railway items is even harder, why is it that if a plastic kit builder comes into my shop he chooses the kit, come tot he counter, he may add some glue, sanding sticks and paint to his purchase, total the goods up, tell him the cost and out comes the cash or the card, he walks away after maybe a brief chat as happy as a sand boy. The same goes for people who buy model aircraft, wargames, or the dolls house ladies that buy the scenics. But the railway modeler is always the one who asks 'any discount' why ? Why do they expect discount ? When they go to TESCO or ALDI do they ask the cashier there for discount ? It's got to the point where I and my colleague are seriously considering not stocking any locomotives, rolling stock or carriages, instead we may be gong down the route of just carrying track and accessories, then again I've been asked to give discount on a pack of rail joiners, even worse they then want to pay by card !

That is so good to hear Ian, I hate to say but I think you an exception, rather than a rule, but well done or letting the lad 'have a go'

That is a not strictly true, there were only three exhibits not connected with modelrailways, or railways in general, The Andover Dolls House Club and South Hants Model Car Club, both of these have been attending the show for a great number of years, the only addition was a group from Andover Table Top Gamers, demonstrating table top gaming. In defence of the club, the show is advertised as a Modelex, not a purely 'Model Railway' show. In an age when the hobby is in crisis and sales are down, Hornby amost hitting the wall every year, I feel it is a little unfair to criticise a club for thinking outside the box, and trying to create more interest in modelling in general. Perhaps if you had an open mind, and spoke to the dolls house people, or the model car owners or even the gamers you could of picked up some tips to help you improve your own modelling skills. In my capacity of a model shop owner I actually approached the club to allow the gamers to exhibit, the two hobbies have a lot in common, building scenery being the main one, but these people also paint 28mm figures to a very high standard in ways that other modellers could benefit from learning, like model railways the actual use of the figures is a percentage of the game, not the whole thing. I'm sorry to say that on the Saturday our exhibitors got some very derogatory looks and comments from a minority of visitors, those people now think that all railway modellers are the same, is that the impression you want to give people ? I also tried to engage some of the model railway exhibitors in converstaion and one trader, I got blank stares, the trader didn't want to know me, even when I asked if he would be willing to supply me with a product he showed no interest and kept his head down in his lap top. The layout operators mostly avoided any eye contact, how can you promote a hobby when those taking part wont engage with the public ?

To say the move didn't go without a hitch would be a lie. We are now settled in the Chantry Centre in the heart of Andover. The carpet tiles turned up a week late, which meant that we were unable to install any shelving on the floor, half of the lights in the unit had failed, and as the ceiling is quite high we needed to get an electrician in to sort things out for us. We missed our planned re-opening on the May Bank holiday weekend, but we were just ready to open the following Friday, 1st June, after a lot of help from friends and customers doing everything from putting stock on shelves to making the tea, and dusting down shelves, thanks to all of them for that. Our first three weeks have been a bit hectic, Andover definitely needed a dedicated model shop, the response has been great, although I have to report that sadly the model railway side is slow, even down to accessories and track, maybe the warm weather isn't helping, but it feels more like a real downturn in the hobby, not helped by the delays in supply by some of the major manufacturers. Heres hoping we see more railway modellers in the coming weeks and months.

!!!WE ARE MOVING !!! Our growth continues, after two years at our present site on the outskirts of Andover, we have taken the plunge to move into the town centre ! The new shop is a lot easier to find being in the main shopping centre in Andover, we have even more floor and wall space for stock. Add to that I have at last found a new investor in the business who has peldged at least £25k to buy railway stock ! !!!EVEN MORE !!! We have Brian, a qualified carpenter who is now building our baseboards, ( we have two types available) Kevin a fully experienced repairs person who can fit chips to almost any loco regardless of age, and will also undertake servicing and repairs. And not forgetting Sue who is a dab hand with an airbrush, not only does she do weathering, she can also re-livery engines & coaches Plus a new website, testvalleymodels.co.uk which is fullly compliant with GDPR and payment gateways

Sorry to report that our website with Prestashop has been hacked once again, not really a malicious hacking, they just saw fit to delete all the product pages, so everything is now returning a 404 error. Because this is the second time in six months and the protection we installed failed once again, we have now decided to go with a hosted platform, as such we are rebuilding the website, and adding the stock once again. The new website address in http://testvalleymodels.co.uk. The checkout page is of course SSL secured

We are open until 10pm on Thursdays

A few months ago a customer asked us to build him a version of Inglenook Sidings on a 4' x 2' board, some thing we were a little nervous about as we had never build baseboards for any one before, we took it headlong invested some time and built the layout with a panel mounted controller and some scenics, to our delight the customer was delighted with our efforts. Whilst building that layout we were asked to build more, we have just finished the largest we have taken on at 17' x 6', after a few teething problems, we have again delivered it and the customer is delighted. We now have three more in the pipeline, all N Scale, and all the track layout has been designed in house. Our baseboards are built to a high standard, we use 9mm ply for the tops, and 90 x 20mm timber for the framing, our starting price is £250 for a 4 x 2 board, this includes,Layout Design, all track, (inc points) underlay,(WS Foam) and wiring.(droppers every 1mtr) The framework is constructed using the Kregg Screw system,https://www.kregtool.com/get-inspired/videos/product/kreg-jig-r3.aspx with braces a maximum 600mm apart. We use the Kregg system for strength, there is no screwing into the end grain, which gives a stronger and more square joint.

For various reasons I refuse to comment, but the general feeling I've had from customers in the shop is mixed, the majority seem to think there have been better shows at Andover.

There is an update to this. The "New" Dynamis Ulitima is in my experience having similar issues, in the shop we set up a small test track for various DCC controllers, the first is the Ultima and DCC Concepts Digital motors, we can using DCC concepts instructions get one, and only one motor to work. The Ultima instructions are a vague to say the least, but what it said to do actually worked for the first motor. Stranger is that if we wire the Dynamis direct to the motor, we can control it, put it through the bus and it wont, even after checking the wiring with a meter, still no control of more than one point motor. Bachmann trechie staff were/are unaware of the problem because (Ben) is touring the country with a working setup, but no-one else seems to know how he did it ( I am awaiting a call from Ben) DCC Concepts had no idea there was an issue either, they say they will get hold of a Dynamis to check it out. DCC also told me that ALL motors are now shipped with Autocentring set to OFF as the default.

Aggressive is a strong word, but it is one that defines how we have to approach things. We were in the early part of the year given the impression that Hornby would be closing all of it's concessions, which for 99.999% of the country seemed true. we even took in some stock returned from concessions that had closed. For reasons unknown to us, and to Hornby it would seem; the concession in Andover was not closed, and does not appear to be on any list for closure, so now we have to research ways of telling the people of Andover that there is another (cheaper) supplier of model railways and associated stock in the area. As part of this advertising we have been asked by Howard Smith of BRM Magazine for a sample of EZ Line, as one of the few suppliers of EZ Line in the country we are to be mentioned (featured?) in the July edition of the magazine. We have tried the Facebook advert route, with a scheduled spend of £200 for one month, the advert actually cost us £3.65 in clicks. reach was poor, we can only put this down to the probability that the majority of our "age demographic" do not use Facebook !

May 7th sees us complete one year in business, we've gone from starting out with very little stock in 250sqft to doubling our floor space and expanding on all our ranges. The next year is going to be even more of a challenge, at the moment we are in the process of building a new website to better our internet presence, tied in with aggressive marketing on Facebook and other social media. BRM and Hornby magazine are talking to us about the odd product feature in the near future, we are also working with other manufacturers to bring in new ideas for painting and weathering, surprisingly we have a lot to learn from the wargamer market. Later this month we will be introducing our new 'Supalight baseboards, as well as traditional boards.

so it was you that got it

Hardly as we have insisted that we do not want 30 day credit accounts, as a new business we have to go through a "getting to know you process", the problem is that when you state that you always want to deal on a pro-forma basis, they have no way of dealing with it. We tend to set our own credit limits, if we can't afford it... we don't buy it. The problem on our side is that a what a lot of suppliers promise, they fail to deliver on, getting stock in for May is near impossilbe, in a few cases we are looking at pre-orders for September onwards, the stock just isn't in the UK, it all seems to be on a very slow boat from China.

The reason we haven't publicised where we are to a great extent is down to the major suppliers dawdling over getting Reps and stock to us. Now we have a (fairly) decent amount of things foe people to look at, it is worth calling in!

According to PECO's terms and conditions, you have to have a retail premises where Peco stock is available for customers to view and select

When I first did some research into this venture I was told that in order for it to succeed it would have to match Hattons prices, and because we couldn't possibly do that, some told us it was doomed to fail. The truth is we are matching Hattons on price if not actually beating them in most cases, from track to diecast, when you buy, please involve us in you comparson search, you will be pleasantly surprised. The ways in which we can match Hattons is because of our size, we are only a small shop, so we don't pay rates, we are not in the town centre, so we don't pay High St rents, this saves us money, which we have turned into discounts on the products, we are also modellers who have a shop, not a business solely out to make money. Our shop at Picket Piece Andover opens on 7th May, you are welcome to come and browse, have a chat and compare our prices, you can also do that online. Test Valley Models Unit 404 The Commercial Centre Picket Piece Andover SP11 6RU https://testvalleymodels.com

The Op has kindly led me to the mistake, one should not copy and paste in haste, especially when it comes to a Class 73 that has been through the paint shop