I notice many of the replies relate to the accuracy and precision of layouts. Well, this might be fine for some but many of us, and certainly children would like to see trains running. I went to a show this weekend and one layout, a small Triang TT set up had three trains running simultaneously. On every other layout the grass was growing quicker than the trains were moving. In fact, I reckon full size railways run faster than most of the layouts.
Now, I thought I was bit of a minority with this whinge, but I found a similar post on a Face Book page, and it seems i am certainly not alone in not liking the current fad for potential Turner Prize winning layouts. There also seems to be an ongoing 'how slow can you get your train to go' competition.
I coughed up my £8 and was in an out within half an hour. Nothing I wanted on the trade stands and while the detail of the layouts was, I assume good and accurate, they were all so boring.
Only saving grace was it being a nice day and had a pleasant ride there and back on my motorcycle. I have noticed this trend towards end-to-end layouts over recent years which might be an accurate representation of Sleepy Hollow station in the 1930s but the fact it probably closed when Beeching was still a lad due to lack of traffic does not have to be represented on the model!
I suppose this is a bit of a 'rant' which is how the poster on Face Book referred to his comments. Maybe Hornby are on to something with their move to TT. People would like model railways that they can run rather than just look at.