Entering The Timewarp

As soon as you walk into almost any exhibition hall, you are taking a trip back in time. Most exhibitions are almost exactly as they were in the 1960’s, and see no reason to move into the 21st century. So why is this? Well, most shows are organised by a committee, a word that strikes fear and dread into the hearts of normal, sane people. These committees have been sitting since 1948 or so, and the people on them haven’t changed. Several have died in the interim period, but death is not a barrier to being on a model railway club committee. In fact, they tend to the most productive members.

"So we're agreed, then - our new layout is another GWR branch terminus. Cheers!"

Naturally, each committee wants to push it’s own agenda forward, and promote their own interests – which are rooted firmly in the past. Consequently, every exhibition they put on has around a dozen pre-war layouts then one token ‘modern’ layout – which is anything from 1960 onwards. That’s fifty years of history summarised in a single model – or as the committee refer to them – ‘smelly diesel layouts.’ It is that sort of open mindedness that has meant that the modelling hobby has stayed rooted firmly in the past, and cannot progress forwards. This explains why most clubs cannot attract new, young members to replace those who are – literally – dying off. And in turn, they’re strangling the hobby with their rose-tinted view that because they want to see and model steam train layouts from 1935 to 1955, then so should everybody else. The last steam train ran in 1968 – that’s a staggering 41 years ago – isn’t it time to move on?

Of course, it is important to exhibit some steam age layouts at shows; what I’m looking for is an interesting balance of eras and periods from history, and from all around the country. It seems pointless (and boring) to me to display 10 layouts from the same decade, and then maybe one from 1910 and one from 1985. I was once approached by a club who invited me to bring Valkova Road to their exhibition, because, as the organiser told me with a commendably straight face, "We need a modern image layout." No, I didn't attend, and made sure that he understood that I do not model to fill politically-correct quotas. The fact he even said it proves my point that these committees are as out of touch with real life as Gordon Brown is. And that is one hell of an achievement. It would be far more interesting for the general public – who, after all, are being required to stump up to attend these shows – to view a really good cross section of models that are representative of the various ages, as opposed to serving the self-interests of the club committees. The same committees, naturally, do not want younger members coming in, with new fangled ideas about something vaguely relevant to the outside world. And they certainly don’t want women; in fact they’re still upset about women getting the vote.

The AGM of the Little Gropetitt & Felthum MRC Committee attracted a lot of interest in 1995.

And they’re missing a trick here, because the few women who are actively involved in modelling (as private individuals, not club members) do a terrific job and have produced some of the best layouts on the circuit. You only have to look at the narrow gauge layouts built by John & Jane Jacobs (Kingston Regis and Nettlecomb) to see just how skilled female builders can be. Jane created every building on their layout from scratch, and the scenery is a joy to behold. It is one of those layouts where the trains are merely an added interest to the model as a whole; not just an excuse to run numerous locos around for hours.






Whenever my own layout was exhibited, it attracted interest from the general public – not the trainspotters. The family groups loved it, simply because they could easily identify with the street scene that was relevant to their world. It was also pleasant to have these family groups around the layout, as they had washed and applied deodorant before leaving the house; always welcome in absurdly overheated exhibition halls. They didn’t care that the class 47 loco had a radiator grill present that it only carried in real life for a week in June 1974. The roadworks, WH Smiths and numerous cameo scenes were of far more interest; it was their world in miniature. Valkova Road was never the best built layout at a show, or the most prototypically operated - but it was relevant and identifiable to the audience, and allowed good interaction between the operators and visitors.