According to Chris…
Chris ponders social media and our ‘Modelling Monday’ section on Facebook.
Long-standing Model Rail readers may recall an editorial comment that I wrote under the title ‘Forum or against’ in which I expressed a few thoughts about what is now called ‘social media’ as it applied to our hobby. I still can’t say that I really like forums or Facebook, but I do find them compelling. Perhaps that’s why I don’t really like them – I’m acutely aware that I could be making much better use of my time. That presupposes that by ‘better use’ we mean time spent making models. Forums and Facebook are, however, a bit like doctors’ surgeries. Not something to like, but useful when you need them.
One aspect of Facebook that
I do really enjoy is the ‘Modelling Monday’ feature introduced on Model Rail’s Facebook page by my colleague Chris Gadsby. It’s just an invitation to show whatever modelling project you’ve been working on over the weekend. There’s no doubting its popularity with readers, but it’s the diversity of the models and projects that fascinates and never ceases to amaze me. They vary from large-scale outdoor projects to modellers working in ‘N’ or even ‘Z’ gauge, and from installing layout lighting to painting ‘N’ gauge passengers. If you ever had any doubts that the model railway hobby is alive and well, this will surely dispel them.
So what am I doing, modelling-wise, during my weekends? Well, here are three pictures from numerous projects, some of which appear elsewhere in this issue and the next. I’ve painted some 3D-printed baggage trolleys for my Canadian ‘HO’ layout, I’ve made the running-in board and garden for my ‘O’ gauge ‘Tetbury’ and I’ve started work on a model of 27 Clarence Street, Staines, just because I wanted to. Oh, and thanks to a certain TV programme that I also don’t like but find compulsive, I’m working on an animated landslide for my ‘Railway Children’ ‘O’ gauge layout. After more than half a century of relative stability and development, there’s little doubt that the hobby has changed and still is changing fast. New technology is influencing how we run our trains, how we gain more enjoyment from our modelling and how we communicate with the rest of the modelling community.
We can take from this as much or as little as we wish. We can have the bells and whistles of modern digital control with sound, lights and working accessories or, if we wish, we can continue to run with analog control, taking advantage (or not) of the high standard of recent ready-to-run models. With some caveats regarding certain modern motors and electronics, we can even continue with our 50-year-old H&M controller for as long as it keeps going. And it may outlast us!
So it’s gratifying, through ‘Modelling Mondays’, to see so many modellers keeping busy with new projects. For many of us, all these new models and technical developments are coming at the end of our modelling lives. I don’t suppose for a moment that, among the post-war ‘baby boom’ generation, I’m alone in thinking that I’m actually turning out some of my best work now. I should be, for I have over 60 years’ experience!
With that in mind, it is easy to understand the feelings of those whose models were destroyed by the appalling act of vandalism that took place in Stamford back in May 2019. I refrained from much comment earlier because the four juveniles who committed this crime were due to appear in court. That court appearance has now taken place with predictably lenient sentencing which, superficially at least, seems to pay more attention to safeguarding the future of the young perpetrators and rather less to providing any satisfaction to those whose lovingly created models were destroyed for no good reason beyond a drunken rampage.
We can but hope that the referral orders which were handed down will address the aspects of family life that allow underage kids illegal access to alcohol. Perhaps, too, the £500 fines will impress that upon the parents, whose failure to do their job properly was manifest.
Public generosity followed worldwide publicity, and support from Rod Stewart led to a fund that quickly topped £100,000 and left Market Deeping Model Railway Club with the onerous – but no doubt gratifying – responsibility of deciding how it should be used. It is no surprise that much of it has been set aside for a youth project to introduce young people to the joys of model-making. But against all this it remains obvious that the perpetrators were young and that the victims were not. I suspect there were few ‘under 50s’ among the members of Market Deeping and St Neots clubs and the small traders who were the victims here. As modellers, we generally don’t wish to repeat a project or build the same thing twice over, even if we have, potentially, enough lifetime left in which to do so.
Perhaps the life lesson that these kids need to learn is that destruction of any sort is forever. It can’t be undone.
It’s gratifying, through ‘Modelling Mondays’, to see so many modellers keeping busy with new projects