VIEW FROM THE END OF THE PLATFORM
BACK WHERE IT ALL STARTED
Happy fifth birthday to me! My first issue in the Editors chair was in October 2017, and the time has really flown past. So many wonderful models brought to you on these pages, by some incredible modellers.
This month sees me going back to my very first garden scale modelling. Back in the 1980s, my Mum bought my Dad and I, a Mamod steam locomotive kit. Her hope was that we’d build it, and then take over some of the gardening duties to set up a layout.
What she hadn’t banked on was the limited control we had over this steam-powered rocket. In an effort to make it work properly, the first line had to be flat. Since our garden isn’t, for several years, there was a wooden track on stilts blocking the view of a flowerbed, not what she’d hoped for! It’s a good job I discovered battery-electric modelling so the track could go around the pond instead.
All this comes to mind as I start work on an Accucraft Peckett kit. Another bolt-together model, this one is a quantum leap in terms of fidelity and hopefully controllability. But it was still that Mamod that got me, and many others, started. If you have any Mamod memories, we’d all like to hear them...
Unfortunately, you’ll have noticed that the price of Garden Rail has had to be increased. We’ve been holding offon this as long as possible, but with paper and power prices moving upward faster than a Mamod with a fresh fire, we can’t avoid it. We’ll do our best to justify your continued support – and don’t forget that if you can manage with a digital rather than paper copy of the mag, our website www.world-of-railways.co.uk has many budget-friendly offers.