Vote for your favourite model shop!

The model shop is the lifeblood of our hobby. It’s the place where dreams are made – you gaze longingly at rows of locomotives, choosing which ones you’d buy. It’s a place where dreams are fulfilled – it’s where you buy the paints, glues, kits and products to take home and use on your layout.

Britain’s high street retailers are having a tough time and the model shop is no exception. It’s right, therefore, for the model shop to be given the recognition that it deserves and that this great modelling institution is celebrated.

That’s why we’ve joined forces with The UK Model Shop Directory to create the ‘Model Shop of the Year’ awards.

This is YOUR chance to celebrate all that’s best about YOUR favourite shop. This is the shop that always has what you need when you need it, where helpful staff advise that if you buy this product instead of that one, you’ll get a better result. Essentially, it’s the shop in which you feel happiest spending your money.

We’ve created the following categories that we feel sum up everything we look for in a model shop.

Now we need you to vote. Then we need you to tell all your modelling friends. We want the whole modelling community to join together to say ‘thank you’ to the hard-working and dedicated people who keep the nearly 300 model shops in the British Isles going.

Voting couldn’t be easier. Go to www.model-rail.co.uk/model shopoftheyear and select the winning shop in each category. Voting opens on November 22 2019. You’ll have six weeks to vote and the results will be announced in the February 2020 issue.