Welcome to May

Opting for model railways as a hobby has many benefits. There are the obvious practical skills you learn, the social life it offers, plus the sense of achievement it brings when you construct or enhance something from scratch. Not always the first to come to mind, but there’s also all the history (and geography) you can learn along the way.

This was very much the case this month. Who knew that ‘Sydney Gardens’ was an actual place in Bath? We certainly didn’t. Every day is a school day it seems, even for those of us whose days in education are a distant memory!

And what a layout it is. Our cover feature for this month, ‘Sydney Gardens’ offers some sensational scenic modelling. Some of you may already be familiar with the layout, as it can be seen on the exhibition circuit from time to time.

Speaking of exhibitions, we’ve not long returned from a hugely successful London Festival of Railway Modelling, if you were there, we hope you had a great time. Our final exhibition of the year is Bristol, which takes place at the end of the month (April 28-30th) – a great weekend is planned, with an array of layouts, trade and societies in attendance. We hope to see you there.

Back to layouts, you may notice a change in design this month, as we’ve started to give BRM a little refresh, layouts are the first step, and next month you will see a new design for the news and review section at the back of the magazine. We hope you like the changes. We’ve listened to feedback and if you have any thoughts on how we can improve the magazine further, or if there’s a specific topic you would like us to cover, please do get in touch with us at brm@warnersgroup.co.uk.